Did you know there are several ways to stay young as a senior? It’s not too hard. All you have to do is maintain your hearing health. You should do all you can to act and feel young when you maintain good hearing health. It’s not hard to do, and you will experience untold benefits, such as increased independence and better ability to communicate in social situations. This articles explores how you can maintain your youth further into your senior years simply by keeping your hearing top-notch.

1. Keep up with a sharp mind. No one wants to think about it, but dementia is a very real possibility for older seniors. The National Institute on Aging has linked hearing loss with dementia, thanks to the brain shrinkage we experience as we get on in years.

2. Engage in productive interactions in daily life. Hearing loss can unfortunately alienate people from getting the information they need to go about their daily lives. It’s tough to effectively communicate with anyone from friends and co-workers to check-out clerks and butchers when you suffer from hearing loss.

3. Be a more diligent student. Do you find yourself back in school after many decades away? You won’t learn as well if you constantly have to sit up front and ask the teacher to repeat herself. Maintaining a healthy level of hearing means you can understand the teacher’s instructions more clearly. In addition, you can interact with your classmates and participate in projects much more easily.

4. Slash your risk of falling. Individuals who can’t hear well don’t have as much of a stable awareness of their surroundings, and can trip and fall easier. People with a 25-decibel hearing loss are three times more likely to fall than others with no hearing impairments, says Johns Hopkins Medicine.

5. Listen better at work. Improve your job performance with better hearing. If you can’t hear well, you obviously can’t pick up on important instructions or safety precautions. You certainly can’t readily participate productively in coworker discussions or meetings. The result? An impact on your job performance.

6. Better mental health. Falls and other events are big problems for seniors. Hearing loss can compound these risks. When you end up in the hospital, you have long periods where you’re relatively inactive as your recuperate. This can easily lead to feelings of depression.

7. Increase blood flow to your ear canals. Exercise is great for the ears. Via aerobic activity, you send oxygen-rich blood flow to the ears which protects them from additional hearing loss.

8. Boost your self confidence in everyday situations. Those who have trouble hearing can have a lack of self confidence or self-esteem because they are afraid to engage in conversation with others. They fear they won’t be able to engage in a healthy back and forth discussion, so they tend to stay away from social situations.

9. Get more friends and have better sex. Say what? Studies have shown that hearing impaired seniors who wear hearing aids tend to have an improved social life and sex life. They also experience better mental health and independence for a more satisfying life.

10. Have quicker reaction times to outside stimuli. When you have a healthy hearing level, you can better react to fire alarms and sirens so you can get out of the way and stay uninjured.