Music May Help Ward Off Hearing Loss

News from NPR’s Health Blog: “If you spend a lot of your life interacting with sound in an active manner, then your nervous system has made lots of sound-to-meaning connections that can strengthen your auditory system,” says Nina Kraus, director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University. Research by Kraus demonstrates that musicians were 40 percent better than non-musicians at tuning out background noise and hearing. “The take-home message: If you’re an older musician, don’t stop playing. And if you gave it up, it may be time to dust off the old violin.”