 Hi everyone. I want to continue our discussion of hearing, which we started in a previous video, by talking about how we can go about improving our hearing as a part of the listening process. So just a brief review, we've been looking at the hurryer model of listening, which has to do with these six elements, hearing, understanding, remembering, interpreting, evaluating and responding. And we're focusing right now on the hearing aspect of the hurryer model. So there are a few things that we can do to improve our hearing. We've discussed hearing as more of a natural ability as opposed to a learned skill, but there are some things we can do to benefit our ability to hear in different situations, or what I sometimes will call our hearing aids, right, clever pun I know, but all these are hearing aids. The first thing that we can do is to be noise aware. As we talked about when talking about the transactional model of communication, noise is anything that interferes with the sending or receiving of a message. So we can be aware of noise as it exists in the hearing process and the problems that it can pose, right? So if we're looking at noise, there are three basic categories of noise that we can discuss. First, we have physical noise. Physical noise is anything that comes from the external environment around us, right? So physical noise could include things like when things are really loud. If you're at a loud concert, right, that's going to be hard to hear. If you're at a loud concert, you're at a loud bar, I mean, just because we have all this other noise, as we know, it can make it difficult to hear. If you're driving through a construction zone or the TV is on too loud, that's physical noise in an audiological form that would create issues with the sending or receiving in that message. But physical noise can also come in non-audiological forms. So for example, if you're really hot or really cold, that makes it hard to really focus in and pay attention, right? It can make it hard to hear effectively or to listen effectively because you're so distracted by external environment factors like the heat or the coolness of a room. Or if you're, you know, maybe you've been in a lecture sometime and the seats have been really hard or just, you know, anywhere where you're not comfortable, that physical environment can make it difficult to really focus in and pay attention. It can create some noise that really makes it difficult to hear then as well. We also have physiological noise. Physiological noise has to do with anything from your body, right? Physiological means the body. So when your body creates these distractions or creates noise, such as when you're hungry or when you're sick and not feeling well, or when you're overly tired, those are all examples of physiological noise that can make it difficult to hear, right? It makes it difficult to really tune in and really focus on those things. We can also have what we call psychological noise, which is, as you might expect, noise and interference that comes from your own mind. So when we're daydreaming, when we have other thoughts going on, when we're distracted mentally, that's psychological noise and can also present an issue in the hearing, but yours just don't function as well when we're distracted with these things. So we can be aware of noise and try and eliminate those kinds of distractions, audiological and otherwise. We can be prepared mentally, and this is sort of a part of touching back on noise as well, but as being noise aware. But we can be prepared mentally. We can remind ourselves, okay, I'm going to class or I'm going into this meeting or I'm going to talk to a friend where I know I'm going to need to listen so I can prepare myself. Let's clear the clutter out of our minds. Let's focus in on what's happening here and improve our hearing ability and our ability to hear well by being prepared mentally in those situations. We can also be prepared physically. If we know we have a big meeting, we're going to a conference, we're going to a class, we're going to whatever. We need to do what we can to be physically prepared for that, meaning we've eaten properly. We've gotten enough rest that we are in physical shape enough to be able to, that our body is going to respond in the way that we need it to and be able to hear well in that way. We need to know our mind. We need to know what distractions we're going to have from that psychological noise. We need to know where those things are going to creep in and we need to be active in pushing them away so that our ears and our hearing process remains focused on the listening that needs to happen in that moment. Unless I need to slow our mind in some ways, right? We need to just slow our mind down. Our brain operates at a faster rate than most people speak. Usually at a rate of three to four times as fast as the other person is speaking. So we need to be conscientious about slowing our mind, allowing the hearing process to really fully take effect and just pushing those other things away from our mind but also just slowing our mind down a little bit so that we can remain on track and remain focused in those moments. Okay, now that we've done what we can to improve our hearing in this situation, we can begin to look at other aspects of the listening process, moving on through that hurrier model. But don't forget that hearing is a critical first step. If you're not hearing, then you're not gonna need the other steps because you're not gonna get that far. If you're not hearing, then the listening process has effectively been diminished. And so we need to remain vigilant in our focus on hearing effectively in order to listen effectively. If you have questions about a hearing or anything else related to the listening process, please feel free to email me. I'd be happy to chat with you via email and discuss this even further. In the meantime, I hope that you will be conscientious and start to take active steps toward improving your hearing in the part of the process to improve your overall ability as a listener.