How to hear better in noisy restaurants

The clatter of plates, music, a dozen other conversations — it all blurs together, and you find yourself smiling and nodding instead of following along. You are not imagining it: noisy restaurants are one of the hardest places for anyone to hear, and harder still if your hearing is not what it used to be. The good news is that a few small changes make a real difference.

1. Choose where you sit

Where you sit matters more than almost anything else:

• Put a wall behind you. A booth or a seat against the wall stops noise coming at you from every direction.
• Pick a corner, away from the center of the room.
• Steer clear of the noise sources — the kitchen, the bar, the front door, and especially the ceiling speakers.
• Sit across from the person you most want to hear, so you can see their face.

2. Use your eyes, not just your ears

We all lip-read more than we realize, and in a loud room it does a lot of the work.

• Face the person you are talking to, and ask them to face you.
• Choose a well-lit table — you cannot read a face in the dark.
• Do not be shy about asking someone to repeat or rephrase. Most people are happy to.

3. Lower the competing noise where you can

• Ask to turn the music down a notch — staff often will, especially early in the evening.
• Go at off-peak times. The same restaurant at 6pm is a different world from 8:30pm.
• Request a quieter table when you book, or when you arrive. It costs nothing to ask.

4. Let your phone do some of the work

If the room is just plain loud, the iPhone in your pocket can help directly. Apps that turn your phone into a hearing aid pick up the voices near you, amplify the ones that matter, and play them through your earbuds — so the person across the table comes through clearly even when the room does not quiet down.

5. When it is too loud to listen, read instead

Some rooms are beyond amplifying. For those, live captions are a lifesaver: apps that show real-time on-screen text of what is being said let you simply read the conversation. It feels a little different at first, but in the loudest places it is far less tiring than straining to catch every word.

A few more things that help

• Take breaks. Listening hard is genuinely tiring. Step somewhere quieter for a few minutes if you need to.
• Tell the people you are with. A quick “I have trouble hearing in noisy places — mind facing me?” makes the whole evening easier.
• If this is happening a lot, it is worth getting your hearing checked. Difficulty in noise is one of the most common early signs of hearing change, and there is no downside to knowing.