Noisy restaurants can put you off your food

Time to Read: 10 minutes

One of the things you might have noticed during the pandemic is the effect on people’s driving behaviour after lock downs have been lifted.

Even the most careful and assured of drivers can feel hyper aware of the very activity of driving (and of other  road users) after getting back behind the wheel.

The same is true when it comes to your hearing.

If you’ve been spending a lot of time at home where it has been quiet, you might find that going out in public (even socially distanced) sounds especially noisy.

This is particularly true when you’re getting together with family and friends who have been a long time apart and the conversation starts to flow.

Coping with speech in noise is one of the most important tasks your hearing aids need to perform. This is why we insist on speech-in-noise testing as part of our comprehensive hearing assessments.

But even with the very best hearing aids, programmed for your specific hearing loss, you might struggle to hear conversations with multiple speakers.

In that case, you may need some additional hearing support in the form of table microphones. These devices can take the form of a pen (like the Phonak Roger) or a round device like Roger Select.

These devices work in tandem with your hearing aids to stream conversations directly into your hearing aid. Some devices can differentiate between different speakers and will amplify the speaker you are facing.

So why does so much time in quiet environments impact how well we hear when it is noisier?

It all comes down to our brain.

Our brain needs stimulation to keep it active and attuned to the world around us. Without auditory stimulation, our brain can ‘forget’ what a sound is and how to interpret it. This is true even for speech.

This is why we recommend you wear hearing aids even if it is just you pottering around at home. Incidental sounds of the birds outside, the hum of the fridge, the passing of traffic outside will help keep your ear-to-brain connections active.

Have you ever noticed how tired you feel after being out shopping or visiting family and friends?

The harder your brain has to work to process and interpret sounds, the more energy it uses which means that day out in public could have you feeling like taking a nap.

In other words, the more your brain is acclimatised to sound, the less hard you have to work to keep up with busy and noisy environments.

But there might be further good news to come out of these times with many restaurants and cafes opening to reduced numbers which may help with the vex issue of dining out in venues that are too noisy to have conversations in.

It is an issue the restaurant industry is belatedly addressing - but not for the reasons you might expect.

Noisy environments negatively impact on the taste of food

Yes, truly! It is one of the reasons why airline food is often so maligned.

Researchers have found conclusive evidence that background noise has a "significant" effect on how food tastes.

Three studies found noise levels above 80 decibels made us less able to taste sweetness, while two studies found both sweetness and saltiness were diminished.

The phenomenon could be down to a "crowding-out" effect, where the brain is not able to focus on flavours as it processes loud noise.

Too much noise also confuses our brains when eating crisp or crunchy foods by drowning out the sound associated with eating those foods.

Noisy restaurants are a result of modern interior design trends and a desire to minimise extensive cleaning costs by featuring hard surfaces instead of sound absorbing soft furnishings like carpet, curtains and tablecloths.

With improvements to dining experience - and better hearing support.

Perhaps in the future, dining out may be a lot more pleasant

Further reading: The Problem With Noises Needs To Be Out In The Open