Coping Strategies for Hearing Loss

Dining Out Toolkit for People with Hearing Loss

Shari Eberts Advocacy, Break the Stigma, Coping Strategies for Hearing Loss, Hearing Loss , , ,

Dining out can be a loud and stressful experience. Today’s popular restaurant décor includes hard woods, mirrors and metal, all surfaces that reflect noise rather than absorb it. A lack of carpeting and other sound absorbing surfaces creates a cacophony of sound reverberating around the space. Background music combined with the clacking of cutlery on plates and other patrons’ conversations add to the overwhelming din. Hearing the waiter recite the specials, let alone enjoying quiet conversation with your dinner companions becomes almost impossible. This is true for everyone. Imagine the challenge if you have hearing loss.

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Does Hearing Loss Cause Us to Misread Emotions?

Shari Eberts Audiology, Break the Stigma, Coping Strategies for Hearing Loss, Disability, Hearing Loss, Lipreading , , , ,

“Are you actually angry or are you kidding?” I asked my husband recently. His posture and facial expression read angry, but it was not the type of situation that called for this emotion. I was confused. It turned out he was joking, but I was missing the subtle cues in his voice. This has been known to happen with my children as well, and close friends, and when I thought about it, probably with other people too — maybe even perfect strangers. Was this somehow related to my hearing loss?

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The Key To Success With Hearing Loss — Whatever Works!

Shari Eberts Advocacy, Break the Stigma, Coping Strategies for Hearing Loss, Deafness, Disability, Hearing Loss, Technology, Yoga and Hearing Loss , , , , , , ,

Regular readers of this blog know I am almost as passionate about yoga as I am about hearing loss advocacy. Yoga and meditation keep my body and mind strong and help me handle the daily frustrations of living with hearing loss. Often, the techniques I explore in my yoga and meditation practices can be directly applied to managing my hearing loss. My experience at a recent meditation seminar was no different.

The seminar entitled “Staying Sane in a Crazy World” featured Joseph Goldstein, a renowned meditation teacher, and Dan Harris, an ABC anchorman and author of the New York Times bestseller “10% Happier.” The talk was sponsored by New York Insight Meditation Center and it was packed! I had not expected a meditation lecture to be such a popular way to spend a cold winter’s evening during the holiday season, but I was pleased to see all the interest.

What I had expected was a lot of details on the specifics of meditation — the best way to sit, what to do with your hands, the perfect place to meditate, how to choose guided or silent, etc., but I was once again surprised. The main takeaway — do whatever works for you. It reminded me a lot of living with hearing loss.

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Workplace Communication Tips for People With Hearing Loss

Shari Eberts Advocacy, Break the Stigma, Coping Strategies for Hearing Loss, Hearing Loss, Hearing Loss in the Workplace, Technology , , , ,

Hearing loss can make workplace communication challenging. In my recent talk on hearing loss in the workplace at Goldman Sachs, I shared tips for what we, as people with hearing loss, can do to enhance communication success. These include things like understanding our own hearing loss and making sure our requests for assistance are very specific. My latest article for Hearing Tracker summarizes these suggestions. Please share your ideas in the comments.

An excerpt from the article is below. To read the full post click here. 

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Hearing Loss: Please Turn Down the Rain

Shari Eberts Coping Strategies for Hearing Loss, Disability, Hearing Loss, Tinnitus , , ,

It was pouring! Despite the coverage from our umbrellas, we reached the car soaked. Luckily it was a warm summer day so we were not too cold. We slammed the doors shut and sat in the car recovering. The rain clattered on the roof, banged on the windows, smashing all around us. The sound was deafening. Difficult driving conditions for anyone, but when you have hearing loss, the added battle with the noise can be exhausting. How was I to drive home safely with all this racket?

I considered turning my hearing aids off, but I don’t usually do this while driving, in hopes that my hearing aids will help me pick up ambient noise or at a minimum, a siren from an approaching emergency vehicle. I kept my hearing aids on, plugged my home address into the GPS and headed onto the road. Luckily, it was slow going as the deepening puddles made navigating a challenge for everyone.

Living With Hearing Loss | A Hearing Loss Blog

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