Abstract:
There are many benefits of regular physical exercise, including improved fitness and general health and wellbeing. However, for many people, exercising is a noisy activity due to gym music and/or equipment noise as well as the use of personal listening devices at high volumes, particularly when in the presence of background noise. Therefore, the time spent exercising may contribute substantially to a person’s maximum recommended daily noise dose, increasing an individual’s susceptibility to temporary threshold shifts and increasing their risk of acquiring noise-induced hearing loss. There is also some evidence suggesting that a person’s susceptibility to noise is increased while exercising. The present study investigates the pure tone audiometry thresholds and distortion product otoacoustic emissions of participants listening to their personal listening device while exercising in a sound field designed to simulate what would normally be experienced in a gym. Each participant is also tested after being subjected to noise but no exercise, and after exercising in a quiet environment. It was found that exercise and noise alone did not cause any significant change in hearing thresholds. However, when exercise and noise exposure were experienced simultaneously, there was a significant worsening in the hearing threshold. The magnitude of the change in hearing threshold was found to be independent of the sound pressure level at the participant’s tympanic membrane. For the majority of the participants, the noise exposure during exercise was not sufficient to warrant any concern regarding exceedance of the recommended daily noise exposure limit of 85 dBA for 8 hours.
