WE ARE LOSSING OUR ABILITY IN LISTENING

Listening means to give attention to sound. It is a mental process. Listening is an art of receiving,
understanding, extracting the ideas and knowledge from the sound we hear. So, effective
listening is very important because without it the real meanings of the messages are
misunderstood. But in our fast-paced world we, human beings are losing our listening because
the word where we live is accustomed to tumultuous and hectic lifestyles. Because of this our
health is at risk, both physically and physiologically. The pressure of society and the fear of
failure lead us to the edge of burnout. We do not have enough time for our family, friends, and
even for ourselves and it leads to preventing us to enjoy life to its fullest and the world is
becoming a very scary place.

“It takes a great man to be a good listener”

(Calvin Coolidge)

Julian Treasure, in his TED Talk explained the importance of listening in a very wonderful way.
He says that we are losing our listening skills because the world becomes so noisy. We don’t
have time to listen each other in this fast moving time. According to a survey we only spent 25%
of our time in listening which should be 60%.julian treasure also told us about filters take us
from all sound which are intensions, culture, language, values, beliefs, attitudes and
expectations. He also says that most of the peoples are unconscious with these filters, but
these filters plays important role in listening. In his talk he shares most important tips to better
our listening skills. There are 5 techniques which help to improve our listening skills.

 The first one is silence, we should spend a few minutes of a day in silence which helps us
to recalibrate our mind and also help us to hear the quiet again.
 Second is the Mixer, when we are in noisy environments just like in a coffee shop or in
the park, we should pay attention to how many individuals’ sounds we can hear in this
noisy environment.
 The third one is Savoring; it’s about enjoying mundane sounds around us just like
tumble dryer and coffee grinder etc.
 The next one is the Listening Position; it is the most important exercise among these
five according to Treasure, It is Active/Passive, Critical/Empathic, and
Reductive/Expansive listening, it is the listening through different filters.
 Finally RASA (Receive Appreciate Summarize Ask), it means that we have to pay
attention to the speaker and appreciate them by making noises like “hmm’, “ohh” so
that they continue their talk and conclude the talk by using the word “so” and in the end
ask the relevant questions.

So, we should use these techniques to better our listening skills because to listen others is very
important.
“Stop listening to people telling us we need to hate each other”
(Hank Green)
 WHY NOISE IS BAD FOR OUR HEALTH

Noise means unwanted sound which provides unpleasant sensation by ear. According to the
studies noise can cause hypertension, it also increases stress level and anxiety, induced hearing
loss, and even lead to coronary artery disease. Children living in high noise pollution areas have
delayed reading ages and diminished attention levels.

Mathias Basner, in his TED talk, he explaining how harmfully noise is affects our health. It also
disturbed the communication He draws our attention to the relationship between noise hazard
and health issues. Noise has very bad effect on our health; it increased the anxiety, depression,
unpleasant sleep, and blood pressure and cause heart diseases. According to a survey approx
1.6 million Health life years lost annually in Europe due to Environmental Noise Exposure.
Unfortunately, we can’t eliminate the noise in our lives but there are a few things we can do to
reduce and minimize the effect of noise from our lives for example setting and keeping, quiet
times in your home can help you create a respite from daily noise, using soundproof walls and
other barriers which prevent or minimize the noise from roads and neighborhoods, or protect
our ears from noise by using noise-canceling products such that earplugs, etc. which help us to
sleep peacefully and focused on our work.

"Noise makes no good, good makes no noise"

(St. Vincent de Paul)

TYPES OF LISTENING USED DURING THE PROCESS

Types of listening used during the whole process are

 Deep listening
 Passive listening
 Judgmental listening