Our Ear

Have you ever wonder how we hear? Or what does our ears do? Hearing, the best gift of our life. Most people take it for granted by ignoring what we are supposed to do to protect our ears. Why do we need to take care of our hearing and ears? Our ears help us to listen, from the smallest or lowest sound to the highest and loudest sound.

Besides that, our ears also help us to keep our balance, so that we would not fall down when we bend to take something on the floor. Besides hearing and balance, our ears also help us to locate where does the sound came from. It also helps us predict the distance of the sound source so we would be alert and safe from any kind of danger.

Our ears can be divided into three parts; outer ear, middle ear and inner ear.

Outer Ear

This is the part where we can see from outside.
It is called pinna. Pinna works as a collector, which collect all sound that we hear. Connected to the pinna is the ear canal, which tunnel the sound into the inner ear. It is also where earwax accumulated in our ears. Earwax may be gross, but they protect our ears from infection.

Middle Ear

Middle ear is a cavity which connected to the outer ear by the eardrum.
When sound enters the ear through outer ear, it will vibrate the eardrum. This vibration then will vibrate the three smallest bones in our ear called, the ossicles. These three bones will then send signal to the inner ear.

Inner Ear

Inner ear has two main roles.
First is to send information received from middle ear to the brain, so we can hear and identify what sound that we hear.
Second, it helps us to keep our balance. When we move our head, three small loops in the inner ear, called semicircular canal will send information to the brain that we move our head, so the brain will send signal to the muscle to do the necessary thing to keep us balanced.