No, it is not safe sleeping with headphones night long for several reasons but in some cases it is safe, you need to read below the short clarifications so you can easily identify the correct answer in your case.
Table of Contents
- Risks Of Sleeping With Headphones Night Long
- Benefits Of Sleeping With Headphones Night Long
- Conclusion
Let us divide the complete answer into two main parts the risks and benefits/better practices.
Risks Of Sleeping With Headphones Night Long
- ELECTRICITY SHOCK RISKS
- PERMANENT HEARING PROBLEMS
- EAR WAX BUILD UP
- OTITIS EXTERNA DEVELOPMENT
- ENVIRONMENTAL ISOLATION
- RADIATION RISKS
Electricity Shock Risks
Electricity shock risk is rare but existing, the risk is related to a specific situation that is related to wired headphones or earphones only and not with the wireless ones. To be more specific into this the risk narrowed only to the situation when you are charging your media player device to the wall power socket and listening to your headphones at the same time while sleeping.
There are several incidents occurred here and there around the world where those who happened to wear and use their headphones while sleeping and charging from the main-power socket diet because of an electrical shock.
I used before to use my headphones while my mobile or media player being charged from the mains power but when I realized that there is a possibility for an electrical shock I immediately stopped this practice for good and I advise you for the same even if in situation when you are not sleeping but as long as you are connected to the main power don’t use your wired headphones.
Why electrical shock might happen?
As I stated above that connecting your media device even if it is a mobile phone (especially the cheap made ones) might have a charging defect, or having its electrical charging board which is responsible to charge the battery to have short circuit or being defected leading to have a direct electrical conduct directly to your earphones which will be fatal.
Will I have an electrical shock while charging my mobile from a power bank?
Of course not, a power bank is a device based on discharging its battery charge into your device battery with a very low current value (Ampere) which won’t cause any fatal electrical shocks.
Will I get electrocuted using my Wireless headphones while charging my mobile?
Nope, as long as your earbuds or headphones are not connected via cable to your mobile or media device there isn’t a medium anymore that could make a closed circuit with the main wall power.
Permanent Hearing Problems
This will occur for sure if you use your headphones with the wrong practices, meaning listening to music for a long period of time with high volume.
There is a specific limit for volume settings that you shouldn’t exceed to be on the safe side which was explained in my other article Can Earbuds Cause Hearing Loss in detail with other “should know” tips and facts about the hearing issues you might have using your earbuds or headphones.
So, permanent hearing problems are crucial and we should think 10 times before doing anything that might damage our hearing sensation, so listening to an external speaker is safer in all cases.
Ear Wax Build Up Possibilities
Earwax is a result of our ear-canals to create a protection for itself especially while using earbuds types of headphones, and to understand why this is happening we should think about how our ears do, our ears assume any plastic or other materials to be inserted into the ear canal to be as a foreign object, so in order to our ear to protect itself it needs to use some sort of methods to reject or react against that foreign item, so what it will do! it will produce more earwax to prevent that object from going further deep into the ear towards the eardrum and other physical parts.
So, having a big amount of ear wax inside our ears is not something healthy yet not good for hearing as well, because having earwax above the average could cause an ear canal blockage which will cause temporary deafness.
Otitis Externa Development
Otitis Externa is a condition that will develop when the ear canal develops irritation, were in some of the worst cases the skin in the area can wear out and cause fluid to leak from the ear, pain may also develop in the outer ear caused by too much stress on the ear.
Otitis Externa happens also to swimmers but also it could occur based on wearing earbuds that block the ear canals and causes stress to the ear, the ear canal is critical as it links the outer ear into the eardrum.
Environmental Isolation
This is also a reasonable reason why you should not put or use your headphones overnight while sleeping, as listening to music while sleeping will isolate you from your surroundings which could put you in danger or risk positions in case of an accident happened inside your home, or someone who’s calling you, or someone breaks the door or the window you won’t be able to sense that.
As well as not hearing a phone ringing in case if you are using your mp3 player or radio instead of your mobile. Those kinds of dangerous situations might happen at any moment with anyone and the catastrophes that might occur could be fatal.
Radiation Risks
Radiation risks exist if you listen to music using your own mobile phone with your headphones, so being exposed to mobile phone radiation for a long period of time could cause a headache and might be a danger on bigger level especially when your mobile phone is not fully charged or with low battery.
Benefits Of Sleeping With Headphones Night Long
Now its the part where we talk about the benefits of sleeping while headphones are on during the night, of course with specific conditions this could be beneficial to you unlike the normal usage that it will be beneficial only in case you are not contradicting the dangers mentioned above but to be compliant with the risk-free conditions that neglect the risks mentioned above.
Noise Blocking
If the environment you are living in or sleeping in is loud with other people living or has traffic noises that keep you awake this scenario could be good for you.
There is something called white noise, which is a noise or sounds or music that you chose upon your desire to eliminate the annoying environmental noises like a fan noise or traffic …etc, and this is happening by wearing your headphones and listening to soft music or rain sounds with a low volume that doesn’t put your ears or hearing into risks.
Also, its good to consider wearing on-ear headphones instead of in-ear earbuds to reduce the physical pressure on your ears.
Relaxation
Here come the real benefits of wearing headphones overnight, this should be the main reason why would you do that. There are many mobile applications out there to download that provides relaxation music or even real rain sound effects that intend to provide relaxation for your sleeping.
Conclusion
In a conclusion, you should always consider the safety of your hearing and your ears in all terms cause ruining your hearing is not something recoverable, so better to take the above dangers into consideration and for your safety better to use the external speaker while sleeping for safer better results.
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