As we grow older we often lose the extreme ends of our hearing spectrum.
So, how many of the following sounds can you hear?
How old are your ears?
Ok, if you can hear 8000 Hz, you're both alive and not hearing impaired.
But lets keep raising the frequency.
How high could you hear?
If you could hear all of those frequencies, you're probably under 20 years old.
But that won't last forever.
Unlike other organs such as the liver or skin,
the inner ear does not have the capacity to regenerate
In your ear there are thousands of tiny nerve cells called hair cells.
these are responsible for picking up different frequencies and send the signal to the brain
where it's processed , but as you age the continued exposure to noise and loud sounds
can break, bend and destroy these cells
So, why did the high frequencies go first?
It turns out that the hairs tuned to high pitches are the first to encouter sound waves.
As a result, they experience more stress and tend to degenerate earlier.
Wich is why the older you are, the harder it is to hear high pitches.
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