This post contains affiliate links, please see my disclaimer for more information. Lauren is an independent team beachbody coach who co-runs The Girl Squad on the BOD app.

Needing hearing aids at 34 years old feels moderately devastating, when you’re diagnosed with early onset hearing loss. Here are 5 things that helped me make peace with my decision to get hearing aids in my 30’s.

skip to the good stuff.

I compared the two versions of myself and I decided I liked this one the best
Deciding that if I couldn’t control it I’d own it
Googling the term “fancy hearing aids,” with my husband #batman
Sharing my story to give this season purpose
The neuroscience behind getting hearing aids early vs waiting

#1 I compared the two versions of myself and I decided I liked this one the best

When I was first diagnosed with mild to moderate early onset hearing loss in October 2021 at 34 years old, I thought about whether I would get hearing aids or not for a few minutes.

The Audiologist was recommending them, but she did tell me, “you could choose not to get them,” because saying I could be stubborn and not get hit by a car because I didn’t hear it (yet).

So I thought about myself in two future versions:

Version 1: Future Lauren has hearing aids and she hears things better than she currently does. She has done both what is best for her long term health as well as what’s best for her short term health.

She’s the kind of person who grieves her current season, but owns what she cannot control — trying to find the purpose and benefits of hard seasons. She doesn’t avoid hard things, even if they make her cry.

This future Lauren is navigating life with hearing aids even if it’s awkward or clumsy at times. She is giving herself grace in the moments she needs it.

She’s sharing her story because she knows there are probably other women (& men) like her googling “fancy hearing aids,” while crying on the bed after hearing that they need them.

and then I thought about Version 2 future Lauren.

Version 2: Future Lauren has decided to avoid hearing aids until they are absolutely necessary. She freaks out and puts off her next hearing appointment because she’s afraid her results will be worse and most importantly because she doesn’t want to look in the mirror and know that she isn’t doing what is ultimately the best for her long term health.

She refuses to talk about hearing aids or hearing in general with her family and husband and gets so upset over fear of needing hearing aids that she cries or leaves the room when anyone asks her about it.

She feels like crap because she knows she’s actually harming her brain by not getting hearing aids and this doesn’t sit well with her, but she’s afraid of what others might think so much that she isn’t ready to wear the hearing aids, deal with them, or learn how to use them.

She’d rather sit in her fear of what hearing aids mean about her than get curious and learn about how to live with them.

When I looked at both versions of future me, I picked version 1. I wanted to own my story and that currently includes needing hearing aids.

I wanted to stare down the hard thing and show up for it. I wanted to grow into a better version of myself that doesn’t care what other people think about hearing aids and realizes that they’re not any different than needing glasses.

My versions might feel extreme to you, but my recommendation is to look at your life as current you is different than future you. Future you is a totally different person than current you: they make different choices, have different skills, and struggle with different things.

If you think of this choice right now and how it’ll affect future you — or what future you will look like in both scenarios, you’ll probably pick version 1 too.

#2 Deciding that if I couldn’t control it
I’d own it

Listen, I like control as much as the next girl — but somehow I always find myself in situations where it doesn’t actually exist.

Like when I decided to accidentally fall in love with a Marine who decided to serve for 20 years. There is a significant amount of control missing in our day to day — month to month lives.

When hearing aids became a recommendation, I decided that if I couldn’t control it I was going to own it. This became my mantra.

I held onto it so deeply that I feel it in my bones. I am becoming the type of person that is going to own their season, regardless of what it is. I’m evolving like a wild, squirrely caterpillar into a butterfly — and during the transformation I am holding onto this notion: if I cannot control it, I WILL OWN IT.

If you own your story, you get to write the ending. If I own THIS story, I am going to write the beginning, middle, and ending — and you better believe there is going to be some confetti and shiny things involved.

So if you’re in a hard season or you’re getting hearing aids too — girlfriend, lean in and figure out what it means to own it in your life.

#3 Googling the term “fancy hearing aids,” with my husband #batman

On the day of the appointment where I received the results that I needed hearing aids, my husband who we call #batman was able to come home early.

We spent two hours lying in bed, because I was too sad to lie on the couch, and talked about hearing aids, what it would look like, what it would mean, and where I would go from here.

Then we did something that brought an actual smile on my face. We googled, “fancy hearing aids.”

Now, when one googles fancy hearing aids, they find some surprising things — like for instance this:

This concept hearing aid is a little wild for me, but also awesome for the people who have gauges and for the people who were creative and innovative enough to create it.

While most hearing aids were fairly normal looking, I did feel a bit better knowing there were a few that are in the ear and that the over the ear hearing aids were also less bulky than in the 90’s.

There are a few types of hearing aids as far as I’m currently aware:

Completely in the canal (CIC)
In the canal (ITC)
In the ear (ITE)
Behind the ear (BTE), Receiver in canal (RIC), Receiver in the ear (RITE)
Open fit

For more information on the types of hearing aids, this article seems to be fairly clear.

The biggest take away from googling fancy hearing aids, is to be curious enough about your new situation to find something light hearted about it.

Hearing aids are not fancy. That is why googling “fancy hearing aids,” brought me a little bit of joy on an otherwise tear filled day.

Maybe what you google is different — or maybe what you do is find a community of like situationed individuals that are within the same age group as you.

When I told my bff that I needed hearing aids due to early onset hearing loss at 34, she told me that ironically she had just went down a rabbit hole on tik tok all about hearing aids.

While I don’t have tik tok, it made me smile to know there are people out there sharing their journey and finding ways to make an otherwise not ideal situation work for them. They’re owning their journey and that makes me happy.

#4 Sharing my story to give this season purpose

I started to take blogging seriously right around the time that I was realizing that I needed to stop avoiding the audiologist and getting my hearing tested.

It was kind of coincidence that it all happened at a similar time, but I am grateful none the less. Writing has always been cathartic for me.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve been writing poems in diaries and notebooks — stringing words together and letting them flow into something magical.

I never saw myself as a “blogger,” but when I struggled to find a way to make all my passions cohesive, it’s really the only thing that fit.

When I was sitting in the waiting room of the Audiologist, I started this blog post because I thought — maybe my experience right now and my perspective in this moment is valuable.

I was finding purpose in this journey even as it was still unfolding. After I received my results I drove to a park and wrote the rest of the blog post on the notes app of my phone — through tears and tissues and deep breathes.

It felt right to get my experience out on “paper,” to feel like it meant something — to know that other people in a similar situation could find it, if they needed to and know they weren’t alone in their feelings and fears.

I’m not sure what creating purpose out of your hard season will look like: maybe it’s simply holding tight to the fact that you’re growing into a stronger, different, more resilient version of you.

But whatever it is, I hope you write about it — on the internet or in your notebook. I hope you take a moment to share the perspective of who you are in this moment, because you will never be her again.

#5 The neuroscience behind getting hearing aids early vs waiting

One of the biggest take aways from my appointment with the audiologist was that getting hearing aids earlier is infinity times better than putting them off.

There is this concept called “neuroplasticity,” which means that your brain is always changing. It’s usually used in a positive light meaning that an old dog can absolutely learn new tricks.

The brain can evolve and enhance and become more efficient throughout your lifespan. Neuroplasticity works in two ways though — it builds new brain cells but it also reallocates areas of the brain that aren’t being utilized.

It’s this reallocation process that puts individuals at risk for losing areas of their brain associated with hearing if they put off getting hearing aids.

When sound or “auditory input,” is not understood by the brain as meaningful, “hearing,” does not occur. The areas of the brain that are lit up when hearing occurs become more dormant if hearing loss prolongs. These dormant areas of the brain are then repurposed to be utilized for other things.

Mild to moderate hearing loss is associated with cognitive decline and hearing aids have been clinically shown to actually improve cognitive performance within six months.

Mild to moderate hearing loss can result in brain changes as early as three months after loss with evidence showing that well fitting hearing aids may be able to reverse brain inefficiencies.

One of the biggest take aways for me is that with even mild to moderate hearing loss your brain has to work harder to hear.

This results in increased activaiton of the frontal cortex (front part of the brain) which results in decreased availability of using that brain power for other cognitive (thinking) tasks.

This is likely why a lot of individuals with mild to moderate hearing loss expend so much energy in social situations.

Early hearing aid use will decrease the effort it takes to hear, which can increase willingness to spend time in social situations since it usually takes less energy than it did before hearing aid use.

When I think of future Lauren, I really want her to have as efficiently working of a brain as absolutely possible — and in this case, that involves hearing aids.

Let’s just hope the five years I avoided getting my hearing tested didn’t result in long term brain re-allocation.

In my humble opinion, the good things that hearing aids do for your brain far out weigh the hassle or fear of what others might think of wearing hearing aids (at least this is what I’m telling myself as I wait for my hearing aid consultation appointment and how I’m thinking to make sure I get myself there).

If you’re on a hearing aid / hearing loss journey — I hope you find solace in the fact that your decision is helping your ears and your brain and your relationships.

It’s okay if our biggest hassle is remembering to charge them, we already do that with our phones and our watches and our computers and our ipads, what’s one more, right?