I like swimming as a form of exercise, but I don’t enjoy the feeling of blocked ears after. For a period of time, I would swim the breaststroke with my head above the water to avoid this problem.
For that reason, I can’t imagine the discomfort of feeling like your ears are clogged for extended periods of time. Apparently, clogged or ringing ears could indicate a more serious problem of sudden hearing loss or sudden deafness. According to Belluz (2018), this occurs in up to 20 people per 100,000 individuals. There is limited knowledge about sudden deafness, though it is serious enough to be perceived as a health emergency. For one, the cause of sudden deafness is theorised to be the result of an inflammatory response in the inner ear that stuns the ear’s sensory cells, inhibiting hearing or decreasing blood flow to the ear. A minority of cases may also be induced through viral infections, circulatory problems, or autoimmune diseases (Belluz, 2018). However, 85-90% of patients have no identifiable cause for their hearing loss. At this stage, the nerves that enable hearing have died off or are about to die, and this feeling of a clogged ear is in fact, hearing loss.
If you are someone who frequently experiences clogged years, try the humming test to identify if your hearing drop is simply caused by the blockage. Hum aloud, and if you hear your voice louder in your blocked year, there is nothing to worry about (Belluz, 2018)! However, if your hum sounds louder in your good year, you should visit the doctor as soon as possible.
Investigating the health data of 356,000 people in Britain and Norway found that long-term exposure to traffic noise has effects on blood biochemistry (Godwin, 2018). Noise pollution also has effects on the cardiovascular system. A study linked traffic noise pollution with type 2 diabetes. While dementia may not necessarily be caused by noise pollution, its onset is compounded by noise pollution (Environmental Protection Centers, 2017). Other studies have found links between transportation noise and certain health conditions, such as an increased risk of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality due to sleep fragmentation, the elevation of stress hormone levels, and increased oxidative stress (Münzel, Sørensen and Daiber, 2021). The researchers call for mitigation strategies to reduce population exposure to transportation noise. A significant association between residential traffic noise exposure and atherothrombotic risk has also been discovered in men (Koczorowski et al., 2022).
The World Health Organisation calculates that at least 1 million healthy life-years are lost annually in Western European countries due to environmental noise. It is thought that noise triggers the release of the stress hormone cortisol, which over time, damages blood vessels. Distress calls are considered the most stressful noises (Godwin, 2018). The European Environment Agency blames 10,000 premature deaths, 43,000 hospital admissions, and 900,000 cases of hypertension a year on noise (Godwin, 2018).
A lab study on adult rats has revealed that exposure to noise at 65dB results in behavioral impairments and impairs the function of the auditory context (Zhou and Merzenich, 2012). Effects were almost equally strong for 10 hours or 24 hours of exposure. This suggests that at the cortical level, there can be negative consequences to the auditory system, attributed to environmental exposure to noise (Zhou and Merzenich, 2012). It is possible that similar effects could affect humans, especially since such noises are present in the modern world. The number of people walking around with earbuds and noise-cancelling headphones attests to this.
References
Belluz, J. (2018, September 27). Sudden hearing loss is a health emergency — but few people know it exists. Vox. https://www.vox.com/2018/9/27/17900832/sudden-hearing-loss-causes-infections-treatments
Hahad, O., Daiber, A. and Münzel, T. (2021). Reduced Aircraft Noise Pollution During COVID-19 Lockdown Is Beneficial to Public Cardiovascular Health: a Perspective on the Reduction of Transportation-Associated Pollution. Hypertension, 79 (Hahad, Daiber and Münzel, 2021).
Godwin, R. (2018). Sonic doom: how noise pollution kills thousands each year. [online] the Guardian. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2018/jul/03/sonic-doom-noise-pollution-kills-heart-disease-diabetes.
Koczorowski, M., Bernard, N., Mauny, F., Chagué, F., Pujol, S., Maza, M., Cottin, Y. and Zeller, M. (2022). Environmental noise exposure is associated with atherothrombotic risk. Scientific Reports, [online] 12(1), p.3151. Available at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-06825-0 [Accessed 13 Apr. 2022].
Münzel, T., Sørensen, M. and Daiber, A. (2021). Transportation noise pollution and cardiovascular disease. Nature Reviews Cardiology, 18(9), pp.619–636.
Zhou, X. and Merzenich, M.M. (2012). Environmental noise exposure degrades normal listening processes. Nature Communications, 3(1).