Beyond the parental echoes of, “Turn that racket down!”,

the truth is listening to music too loudly can have negative repercussions for your ears. Weakened, muffled, distorted hearing, total hearing loss, and tinnitus can occur when hair cells and nerves in the ears are damaged by repeated exposure to music over 85 decibels. According to OSHA, 85 decibels sound like a cross between a freight train 100 feet away and a boiler room. To prevent irreparable hearing damage, invest in earplugs. Brands like 3M produce bulk, affordable, and disposable earplugs that can be squished to fit your ear canal and block up to 33 decibels of noise. And if you want to upgrade, there are many reusable and custom earplug options available, but ANY noise protection is better than nothing at all.

When it comes to acoustics, bar design plays a critical role in our ability to communicate. In the same 20-seat bar, an 18-foot ceiling will require significantly more energy for our voices to be heard than a 9-foot ceiling. More space means more areas our voices must travel to before they can reach our guests’ ears. The presence of flat, bare, and smooth surfaces are like a bouncy castle for sound, resulting in extra echoey and noisy establishments. (Shout out to my audio engineer pal Matt Cooley for helping me break down the science of acoustics into an easily digestible format!) Any combination of these situations can place undue strain on our voices. The occasional bout of laryngitis is nothing too scary, but repeated stress and overuse can cause serious damage. I shredded my vocal cords running a bar program in a 6500-square foot space with 25-foot ceilings. It took a gnarly surgery, weeks of vocal rest, and speech therapy for me to not sound like Clint Eastwood.