Is Montreal’s summer noise affecting our hearing?

From F1 to live concerts, experts say our ears are being solicited more than ever, and our hearing is being affected.

Starting Thursday, engines will begin roaring at the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve on Île Notre-Dame for the start of the Formula 1 Canadian Grand Prix, kicking off Montreal’s summer festival season.

As F1 fans work to get as close to the track as possible, ears across Montreal will feel the sounds of summer in a noisy city.

From the F1 to the Jazzfest, Osheaga, construction and CF Montreal games, experts say we need to take better care of our ears.

“Our ears are more and more solicited today than they have ever been,” said Dr. Tamara Mijovic with the MUHC’s Otolaryngology department. “It’s not just living in the cities, working online. It’s from our phones. There’s noise everywhere, in our workplace, and in our hobbies and our activities. So, overall, in the outdoors, I tell all my patients: wear earplugs. They should be on your keychain.”

Chance Hutchinson, 41, says he has been playing in punk rock bands since he was 12.

The Priors frontman and guitarist for Private Lives and Sonic Avenues, said decades of music and shows have taken a toll on his hearing.

“My hearing is not great,” he said shortly after a show. “I’ve been to see an audiologist many times. My left ear is worse than my right, but I’m still working on it. I have issues that are not treated yet or diagnosed.”

Hutchinson now wears special earplugs constantly and sees more and more gig-goers doing likewise.

“People talk about it a lot more now,” he said. “When we were kids, we used to rehearse in a basement, and no one ever told us to wear earplugs. We were just turning up the amps as loud as they could go, you know what I mean, and just kind of beating on the drums. So, yeah, it’s always been super loud.”

Mijovic says that wearing earplugs at any loud event is essential, and your phone’s volume should always be set to less than half the maximum.

“Blast injuries,” she explains, caused by sudden loud noises like horns, are not what causes major damage.

“They happen. It can be quite traumatic, but they’re rare. They’re a small amount compared to the daily noise that we’re exposed to,” she said.

Hearing specialists say that any sound louder than 85 decibels for longer than eight hours can cause hearing loss.

In addition, the louder the noise, the shorter the time span our ears can take.

When getting home from an event, it can be easy to detect whether your ears have been damaged.

“One of the signs of damage is to have ringing in your ears after the event. These are called temporary threshold shifts,” said Mijovic. “That means your ear is telling you that something is a bit different, and usually that recovers within 24-48 hours, but it’s cumulative. So, the more you go out clubbing or to events and you have that, the more likely it is that eventually the hearing will not recover, and even that tinnitus can be quite permanent.”

A variety of earplugs are available, and Mijovic says she is happy to see more young people wearing them.

“It’s all about investing when you’re young to avoid wearing hearing aids when you’re getting into your 60s, when damage has been done,” she said.

The World Health Organization (WHO) states that more than a billion young adults are at risk of permanent, avoidable hearing loss due to unsafe listening practices, including the use of earbuds or headphones to drown out noise.

Mijovic said that a phone volume at maximum is around 110 decibels, which is dangerous.

“It’s important to really look at the volume,” she said. “I think that noise-cancelling earphones are good in the sense that you will be able to tune out the background noise and therefore keep your volume low. Where I worry about is when, let’s say, I’m taking the Metro, I’m next to somebody, and I can hear their own music.”

Live music has always been a deep-rooted part of Montreal’s culture, and Hutchinson advises those attending the shows to take a small step to ensure they can enjoy it and not hurt themselves.

“If you’re going to a show where guitars are plugged into an amplifier, you should be wearing ear protection,” he said.