What listening to live concerts do to your ears with Jim Hudspeth (Senses Miniseries #5)

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1:25Try new Kashi Gut Health Granola. This is TED Health, a podcast from TED, and I'm Dr. Shoshana Ungerleiter. I'm a board-certified practicing internal medicine physician, and I'm your host for today's show. This episode is the last in our series on the five senses. Over the past month, we've spent time with smell, taste, touch, and sight. And now we're ending with hearing, which feels especially fitting for a podcast. But instead of talking about podcasting, I want to pivot to another audio medium that I love, live music. I love the slight chaos before a show starts. The stage is dark except for a few small lights.

2:08The instruments are set up and the room is humming. And before anyone says a word, you can feel the whole crowd leaning toward that same moment. And when the band comes on, the room gets so loud so quickly. and the bass is strong enough that you can feel it and everything is amplified, literally, by a crowd of fans singing along to every word. I leave shows feeling energized, even when I'm exhausted. My voice is usually a little hoarse and my ears sometimes feel full. For years, I thought that was simply part of the experience, like sore feet or having to wait in a long line for a drink. But with time, experience, and a little bit of medical research, I realized that that fullness in my ears, that's actually not great.

2:59It's a lot of stress on a part of your body that can't easily repair itself. And over time, that feeling was starting to be physically uncomfortable for me. It took away from the magic of live music. So along with comfortable shoes and a clear bag, earplugs quickly became part of my must-have concert gear. I started with the foam ones and then upgraded to a reusable high fidelity pair attached to my keys. And I've been thinking about investing in a custom pair too. Distance also helps. Standing farther away from speakers reduces exposure. And I take breaks if it feels like I need it. A phone isn't a perfect measuring tool, but my sound level app goes off any time the sound starts to peak, just in case I need a reminder to take these measures.

3:47And ever since I made these little tweaks, my concert-going experience is simply better. But I've also started noticing something. How few people are protecting their ears at these shows. And once I saw it, I just kept seeing it. Thousands of people standing in front of enormous speakers for two or three hours. Teenagers near the stage. Parents with young kids. Adults who probably spend the rest of the week trying to make healthy choices. and then they walk into a room where the sound can reach levels that put hearing at risk surprisingly quickly. And I understand the resistance. Earplugs can feel like the opposite of why you came to a live show.

4:29You paid to hear the music. You want the full force of it. But taking care of your ears at a concert doesn't erase the music. Songs still sound like they're meant to. The crowd is still loud. The bass is still thumping. And that live music magic, that collective rush you get from a shared experience, it's all still there, just without any headaches or muffled hearing or that ringing in your ears that follows you all the way home. When it comes to hearing health, the basic equation is volume plus time. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health uses 85 decibels over eight hours as a recommended workplace exposure limit.

5:10And a single very loud blast can injure your ears instantly. The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health uses 85 decibels over 8 hours as a recommended workplace exposure limit. For every increase of 3 decibels, the recommended exposure time is cut in half. At 88 decibels, that becomes 4 hours. At 91, 2 hours. At 94, about 1 hour. And then once sound is around 100 decibels, the recommended time is measured in just minutes. A concert can last much longer than that. Inside the inner ear are delicate sensory cells that help turn vibration into the electrical signals that your brain interprets as sound.

5:56Loud noise can stress and damage those cells and the connections around them. That ringing sound or the muffled feeling in your ears after a show may fade by the next morning, but fading symptoms don't necessarily mean that nothing happened. I think that's part of why this is so easy to ignore. The damage can really be quiet. There may not be a dramatic moment, no sudden realization that one concert changed your hearing. It actually can accumulate over years. Shows, clubs, loud workout classes, power tools, headphones turned up to compete with a subway. Each exposure becomes part of the total.

6:37Hearing loss is often treated as something that belongs to older age, but some of the conditions for it are being built much earlier. The World Health Organization estimates that more than a billion young people are at risk of avoidable hearing loss because of unsafe recreational listening. And when hearing goes, we lose a lot more than our ability to detect sound. I've noticed this with some of the older adults in my own life. In a quiet room, the conversation may seem completely normal. And then we go to a restaurant where plates are clattering and music's playing and three nearby tables are talking all at once.

7:16The person who was animated at home suddenly becomes quieter. Maybe they smile when everyone else laughs. even though they missed the joke. Maybe they ask what a few times and then stop asking because it feels uncomfortable. Sometimes they lean back and watch the conversation rather than joining it. And that withdrawal can be mistaken for disinterest, fatigue, or even memory loss. And sometimes it may be those things. But sometimes the person simply can't separate the voice they want to hear from all of the competing sound. And that experience is exhausting. When hearing becomes less clear, the brain has to spend much more effort decoding speech.

8:00It tries to fill in missing consonants, use context or watch facial expressions, and then guess what was said. You can understand why someone may eventually decide that staying quiet is easier. Researchers sometimes call this listening effort. The social impacts may be the most immediately obvious in daily life. If conversation becomes frustrating, people may avoid meetings, religious services, classes, or getting together with friends. Their world gets smaller, leading to social isolation and sometimes depression. It doesn't help that there's a lot of stigma about support like hearing aids. A well-fitted hearing aid won't restore perfect hearing, especially in a noisy restaurant, but it can make speech more accessible and reduce some of the strain.

8:49Modern devices can even be adjusted to specific frequencies a person has trouble hearing, and many connect directly to phones and TVs now. But people often delay getting help because they worry that a hearing aid will make them look old, or it feels like more upkeep than it actually is. And without that additional support, listening effort takes a much bigger toll much more quickly. But there's more to this concept. When sound input decreases over time, brain networks involved in hearing and language may receive less stimulation. Scientists are exploring whether there might even be a connection between hearing loss and poorer cognitive health, even dementia.

9:31Now, we haven't found anything conclusive about this connection. There might be some shared causes involved, issues like vascular disease or aging processes that can contribute to both hearing difficulty and cognitive decline. And we can't say that cognitive health can be improved by treating hearing loss either. But what we can say is that the association is consistent and meaningful. The 2024 Lancet Commission on Dementia identified hearing loss in midlife as one of the major modifiable risk factors for dementia. And between 2017 and 2022, a large randomized study called ACHIEVE tested whether a structured hearing intervention could slow cognitive decline in adults in their 70s and early 80s.

10:18Among participants who entered the study with more risk factors for cognitive decline, the hearing intervention was associated with substantially slower decline. That's a nuanced takeaway, but it's worth repeating. Hearing care may be a powerful part of protecting brain health, especially for people who are already more vulnerable. Our sense of hearing reverberates across our lives, and one of the best things you can do for it is be curious. If you notice that you're asking people to repeat themselves more often, or turning the TV up, avoiding noisy rooms, or hearing ringing that's new or persistent, bring it up with a clinician or audiologist.

11:00With headphones, avoid turning the volume up simply to overpower the world around you. Noise-canceling or well-fitting headphones can help because you may be able to listen comfortably at a lower level. And give your ears periods of quiet. On the other hand, pay attention to how you feel after exposure to loud noises. Ringing, muffled hearing, sound sensitivity, pain, dizziness, drainage, or symptoms that persist deserve medical attention. Sudden hearing loss, especially in one ear, should be treated as urgent. If someone close to you is struggling with hearing, describe specific moments without shaming them.

11:39Like, I noticed dinner was hard for you to follow tonight. lands differently than you never listen. Get their attention before speaking. Face them. Move closer. Turn down the TV. If a sentence doesn't land, rephrase it. Try not to shout because shouting often adds volume without adding clarity. And give the person a second to process. Protecting your hearing often comes down to a few simple choices. Getting your hearing checked, Facing someone when you speak so they have a better chance of following the conversation. And yes, wearing earplugs at a concert. I know there's a lot of advice in this episode.

12:22Precautions you may want to consider taking. But trust me, none of this requires giving up music. And that's really the point. I want the person standing in the front row now to still hear the texture of a favorite singer's voice decades from now. I want the older adult at the restaurant table to remain inside the conversation. None of these things are complicated, but together they can help people stay connected to the sounds and conversations that matter to them.

12:52We'll be right back after this quick break.

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14:01Hi, this is Becca Moore from For The Girls, and this podcast is sponsored by Aerie, where you can find the right bra in 59 sizes, soft fabrics, and good fits. If your bra strap is digging into your shoulder right now, it's the wrong bra. We get so used to being in pain as girls that we forget it doesn't have to be this way. Your clothes should not hurt. I got to the point where I stopped wearing bras altogether, and now my life has changed, you guys. The only bras I have in my dresser right now are Aerie, and I'm not kidding. Aerie's on a mission to make you feel good, and that starts with your bra.

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14:43Next, I want to zoom in, go deeper. We've talked about protecting hearing and what happens when it fades, but we haven't explored what's actually happening inside the ear that makes any of this possible in the first place. In 2019, biophysicist and neuroscientist Jim Hudspeth gave a TED Talk on exactly that, the science of how our ears turn sound into something that we can understand. I think it's worth sitting with because it gives you a whole new appreciation for what you're protecting. Here's Jim Hudspeth in 2019. Can you hear me okay? OK, well, if you can, it's really amazing, because my voice is changing the air pressure where you sit by just a few billionths of the atmospheric level.

15:32Yet we take it for granted that your ears can capture that infinitesimal signal and use it to signal to the brain the full range of auditory experiences. The human voice, music, the natural world. How does a ear do that? And the answer to that is through the cells that are the real hero of this presentation, the ears sensory receptors, which are called hair cells. Now, these hair cells are unfortunately named because they have nothing at all to do with the kind of hair of which I have less and less. These cells were originally named that by early microscopists who noticed that emanating from one end of the cell was a little cluster of bristles.

16:17With modern electron microscopy, we can see much better the nature of the special feature that gives the hair cell its name. That's the hair bundle. It's this cluster of 20 to several hundred fine cylindrical rods that stand upright at the top end of the cell. And this apparatus is what is responsible for your hearing me write this instant. Now, I must say that I'm somewhat in love with these cells. I've spent 45 years in their company. And part of the reason is that they're really beautiful. There's an aesthetic component to it. Here, for example, are the cells with which an ordinary chicken conducts its hearing.

16:59These are the cells that a bat uses for its sonar. We use these large hair cells from a frog for many of our experiments. Hair cells are found all the way down to the most primitive of fishes, and those of reptiles often have this really beautiful, almost crystalline order. But above and beyond its beauty, the hair bundle is an antenna. It's a machine for converting sound vibrations into electrical responses that the brain can then interpret. At the top of each hair bundle, as you can see in this image, there's a fine filament connecting each of the little hairs, the stereocilia. It's here marked with a little red triangle.

17:41And this filament has at its base a couple of ion channels, which are proteins that span the membrane. And here's how it works. This rat trap represents an ion channel. It has a pore that passes potassium ions and calcium ions. It has a little molecular gate that can be open or it can be closed. And its status is set by this elastic band, which represents that protein filament. Now, imagine that this arm represents one stereocilium, and this arm represents the adjacent, shorter one, with the elastic band between. When sound energy impinges upon the hair bundle, it pushes it in the direction towards its taller edge.

18:24The sliding of a stereocilia puts tension in the link until the channels open, and ions rush into the cell. When the hair bundle is pushed in the opposite direction, the channels close. And most importantly, a back-and-forth motion of the hair bundle, as ensues during the application of acoustic waves, alternately opens and closes the channel. And each opening emits millions and millions of ions into the cell. Those ions constitute an electrical current that excites the cell. The excitation is passed to a nerve fiber and then propagates into the brain. Notice that the intensity of the sound is represented by the magnitude of this response.

19:05A louder sound pushes the hair bundle farther, opens the channel longer, lets more ions in, and gives rise to a bigger response. Now, this mode of operation has the advantage of great speed. Some of our senses, such as vision, use chemical reactions that take time. And as a consequence of that, if I show you a series of pictures at intervals of 20 or 30 per second, you get the sense of a continuous image. Because it doesn't use reactions, the hair cell is fully 1 ,000 times faster than our other senses. We can hear sound at frequencies as great as 20 ,000 cycles per second. And some animals have even faster ears.

19:48The ears of bats and whales, for example, can respond to their sonar pulses at 150 ,000 cycles a second. But this speed doesn't entirely explain while the ear performs so well. And it turns out that our hearing benefits from an amplifier, something called the active process. The active process enhances our hearing and makes possible all the remarkable features that I've already mentioned. Let me tell you how it works. First of all, the active process amplifies sound. So you can hear at threshold sounds that move the hair bundle by a distance of only about three-tenths of an atom meter. That's the diameter of one water molecule.

20:35It's really astonishing. The system can also operate over an enormously wide dynamic range. Why do we need this amplification? The amplification in ancient times was useful because it was valuable for us to hear the tiger before the tiger could hear us. And these days, it's essential as a distant early warning system. It's valuable to be able to hear fire alarms or contemporary dangers, such as speeding fire engines or police cars or the like. When the amplification fails, our hearing sensitivity plummets, and an individual may then need an electronic hearing aid to supplant the damaged biological one.

21:23This active process also enhances our frequency selectivity. Even an untrained individual can distinguish two tones that differ by only two-tenths of a percent, which is one-thirtieth of the difference between two piano notes. And a trained musician can do even better. This fine discrimination is useful in our ability to distinguish different voices and to understand the nuances of speech. And again, if the active process deteriorates, it becomes harder to carry out verbal communication. And finally, the active process is valuable in setting the very broad range of sound intensities that our ears can tolerate.

22:03From the very faintest sound that you can hear, such as a dropped pin, to the loudest sound that you can stand, say, a jackhammer or a jet plane, the amplitude of sounds spans a range of one million-fold, which is more than is encompassed by any other sense or by any man-made device of which I'm aware. And again, if the system deteriorates, an affected individual may have a hard time hearing the very faintest sounds or tolerating the very loudest ones. Now, to understand how the hair cell does its thing, one has to situate it within its environment within the ear. We learn in school that the organ of hearing is the coiled, snail-shaped cochlea.

22:45It's an organ about the size of a chickpea. It's embedded in the bone on either side of the skull. We also learn that an optical prism can separate white light into its constituent frequencies, which we see as distinct colors. In an analogous way, the cochlea acts as sort of an acoustic prism that splits apart complex sounds into their component frequencies. So when a piano is sounded, different notes blend together into a chord. the cochlea undoes that process. It separates them and represents each at a different position. In this picture, you can see where three notes, middle C and the two extreme notes on a piano, are represented in the cochlea.

23:30The lowest frequencies go all the way up to the top of the cochlea. The highest frequencies, down to 20 ,000 hertz, go all the way to the bottom of the cochlea. And every other frequency is represented somewhere in between. And as this diagram shows, successive musical tones are represented a few tens of hair cells apart along the cochlear surface. Now, this separation of frequencies is really key in our ability to identify different sounds because every musical instrument, every voice, emits a distinct constellation of tones. The cochlea separates those frequencies, and the 16 ,000 hair cells then report to the brain how much of each frequency is present.

24:14The brain can then compare all the nerve signals and decide what particular tone is being heard. But this doesn't explain everything that I want to explain. Where's the magic? I told you already about the great things that the hair cell can do. How does it carry out the active process and do all the remarkable features that I mentioned at the outset? The answer is instability. We used to think that the hair bundle was a passive object. It just sat there, except when it was stimulated. But in fact, it's an active machine. It's constantly using internal energy to do mechanical work and enhance our hearing.

24:54So even at rest, in the absence of any input, an active hair bundle is constantly trembling. It's constantly twitching back and forth. But when even a weak sound is applied to it, it latches onto that sound and begins to move very neatly in a one-to-one way with it. And by so doing it, it amplifies the signal about a thousand times. This same instability also enhances our frequency selectivity, for a given hair cell tends to oscillate best at the frequency at which it normally trembles when it's not being stimulated. So this apparatus not only gives us a remarkably acute hearing, but also gives us the very sharp tuning.

25:40I want to offer you a short demonstration of something related to this. I'll ask the people who are running the sound system to turn up its sensitivity at one specific frequency. So just as a hair cell is tuned to one frequency, the amplifier will now enhance a particular frequency in my voice. Notice how specific tones emerge more clearly from the background. This is exactly what hair cells do. each hair cell amplifies and reports one specific frequency and ignores all the other. And the whole set of hair cells as a group can then report to the brain exactly what frequencies are present in a given sound, and the brain can determine what melody is being heard or what speech is being attended.

26:29Now, an amplifier such as the public address system can also cause problems. If the amplification is turned up too far, it goes unstable and begins to howl or emit sounds. And one wonders why the active process doesn't do the same thing. Why don't our ears beam out sounds? And the answer is that they do. In a suitably quiet environment, 70 % of normal people will have one or more sounds coming out of their ears. I'll give you an example of this. This you will hear. to emissions at high frequencies coming from a normal human ear, you may also be able to discern background noise like the microphone's hiss, the gurgling of a stomach, the heartbeat, the rustling of clothes.

27:33This is typical. Most ears emit just a handful of tones, but some can emit as many as 30. Every ear is unique. So my right ear is different from my left. My ear is different from your ear. But unless an ear is damaged, it continues to emit the same spectrum of frequencies over a period of years or even decades. So what's going on? It turns out that the ear can control its own sensitivity, its own amplification. So if you're in a very loud environment, like a sporting event or a musical concert, you don't need any amplification, and the system is turned down all the way. If you are in a room like this auditorium, you might have a little bit of amplification, but of course the public address system does most of the work for you.

28:19And finally, if you go into a really quiet room where you can hear a pin drop, the system is turned up almost all the way. But if you go into an ultra-quiet room, such as a sound chamber, the system turns itself up to 11. It goes unstable, and it begins to emit sound. And these emissions constitute a really strong demonstration of just how active the hair cell can be. So in the last minute, I want to turn to another question that might come up, which is, where do we go from here? And I would say there are three issues that I would really like to address in the future. The first is, what is the molecular motor that's responsible for the hair cell's amplification?

29:00Somehow nature has stumbled across a system that can oscillate or amplify at 20 ,000 cycles per second, or even more. That's much faster than any other biological oscillation, and we would like to understand where it comes from. The second issue is how the hair cell's amplification is adjusted to deal with the acoustic circumstances. Who turns the knob to increase or decrease the amplification in a quiet or in a loud environment? And the third issue is one that concerns all of us, which is what we can do about the deterioration of our hearing. 30 million Americans and more than 400 million people worldwide have significant problems on a daily basis with understanding speech in a noisy environment or over the telephone.

29:49Many have even worse deficits. Moreover, these deficits tend to get worse with time, because when human hair cells die, they're not replaced by cell division. But we know that non-mammalian animals can replace their cells. In those creatures, cells are dying and being replaced throughout life, so the animals maintain normal hair. Here's an example from a little zebrafish. The cell at the top will undergo a division to produce two new hair cells. They dance for a little bit, and then settle down and go to work. So we believe that if we can decode the molecular signals that are used by these other animals to regenerate their hair cells, we'll be able to do the same thing for humans.

30:33And our group and many other groups are now engaged in research, trying to resurrect these amazing hair cells. Thank you for your attention.

30:49Hi, this is Becca Moore from For The Girls, and this podcast is sponsored by Aerie, where you can find the right bra in 59 sizes, soft fabrics, and good fits. If your bra strap is digging into your shoulder right now, it's the wrong bra. We get so used to being in pain as girls that we forget it doesn't have to be this way. Your clothes should not hurt. I got to the point where I stopped wearing bras altogether. And now my life has changed, you guys. The only bras I have in my dresser right now are Aerie, and I'm not kidding. Aerie's on a mission to make you feel good, and that starts with your bra.

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33:17That was Jim Hudspeth at TEDxNAS in 2019. Before we wrap up, I want to talk about one more thing. one of the less glamorous parts of hearing health, earwax. It's strange, a little gross, and much more useful than most of us give it credit for. It's been found in ancient grooming kits. It comes in different textures. It helps protect the skin of the ear canal. And despite generations of determined cotton swab use, our ears are usually better at managing it than we are. The lesson you're about to hear looks at what earwax actually is, why we make it, how it moves out of the ear, and why trying to remove every trace can cause more trouble than it solves.

34:01And now, your TEDx lesson of the day on earwax. Investigating a nearly 5 ,000-year-old Sumerian burial site, archaeologists came across intriguing sets of artifacts. They judged them to be toiletry kits comprising pointed tools, tweezers, and ear scoops. In fact, grooming paraphernalia, including earwax removal tools, have popped up in many different archaeological sites, and earwax evacuation remains a popular hygienic habit today. But what is earwax? And And are the efforts to eliminate it actually good for us? Well, to start, we're not alone in our waxy ways. Other mammals also produce earwax.

34:53A 12-year-old blue whale was discovered with an earwax earplug that was 25 cm long. Earwax, technically called cerumen, forms in our outer ear canals. There, skin cells slough off and mix with other substances, including sweat. But the sweat inside our ears doesn't function to cool us off like the kind that comes out of the ecrine glands dotting our bodies. Instead, it comes from apocrine glands, like those in our armpits, and is oilier. Dead skin and oily sweat mix with sebum, the fatty oil that's also found on our faces and scalps. And voila, it's earwax. But earwax ranges in odour, colour and consistency.

35:47Some is flaky and dry, other kinds are sticky and gooey. A change in a single nucleotide on one gene determines which type you have by affecting how much fat your ears' apocrine sweat glands secrete and the kind someone has may track with their ancestry. For example, drier earwax is common among people with East Asian heritage, while people of African and European descent more often have wetter earwax. Just to get this out of the way, no human earwax, wet or dry, would make a good candle. Okay, but why have earwax at all? Well, it seems these secretions actually help keep our ears healthy. Earwax can act as a lubricator that prevents ear dryness and itchiness.

36:47It traps debris and microbes and forms a physical barrier that protects the ear canal's skin. And it's an active line of defense. Researchers have identified several proteins in earwax that combat bacterial infections. Generally, the ear also has its own way of getting rid of earwax. As new skin cells form and grow at the center of the eardrum, they push the older ones toward the opening of the ear canal, forming a conveyor belt where dead skin cells mix with those oily secretions. Every day, the skin within the ear canal migrates outwards about 100 micrometers. Eventually, this process should push the wax out of your ear.

37:36Meanwhile, sticking items in your ears to extract earwax yourself can make things worse. Even if swabbing removes a little earwax, it may push more back in, and it can leave scratches in the ear canal's skin, disrupting its natural barrier against infections. Deep cleaning also runs the risk of perforating your eardrum, which can cause permanent damage and hearing loss. Some services promise to clear earwax but should be avoided. Ear candling or coning involves a hollow candle lit on fire and placed over the ear canal. It's claimed that this generates enough air current to pull earwax out. However, researchers have found that the amount of suction generated is minimal and that what's visible at the end is likely debris from the candle itself, not extracted earwax.

38:36In reality, the practice can lead to injuries and leave debris in the ears. But some folks are more prone to earwax buildup and may find it becomes more of an issue with age. Earwax accumulation can be uncomfortable and affect your hearing, and there are definitely times when intervention is needed. But there are safer ways to go about it. Over-the-counter ear drops help soften earwax so it can make its way out on its own, and healthcare providers have tried and true methods of gently clearing blockages. Otherwise, to prevent earwax buildup, doctors recommend gently cleaning the outside of the ear canal with a damp cloth and giving your ears a break from earplugs and earbuds when possible.

39:27In the absence of earwax obstructions. However, it's generally best not to mess with the ways of the wax. This TEDx lesson was by Henry O, directed by Yuri Poliashko, Max Zaglatsky, and Darvidio Animation Studio. And that's our show for today, and the end of our series on the senses. Spending time with each sense has reminded me how much of what we categorize as health happens before we even call it that. It happens in the taste that brings back a memory, in the pressure of another person's hand, in the smell that tells us we're about to have a delicious meal, or that food is spoiled, in the ability to read a face or hear a warning, or follow a conversation across a crowded table.

40:19Our senses are easy to take for granted because they're always working in the background. They filter the world, protect us, and help us feel present inside our own lives. They're also imperfect. They change with age, illness, injury, and experience. Sometimes the change is temporary, and sometimes it asks us to adapt, to use a device or ask for help, to make a room quieter or sign larger, or a conversation easier to enter. This series has left me thinking about how much of life reaches us through these quiet, constant signals. Most of the time, we barely notice them. And maybe that's exactly why they're worth noticing a little more.

41:04TED Health is a podcast from TED. And I'd love to hear your thoughts about this episode. Send me a message on Instagram at ShoshanaMD. This episode was produced by me, Shoshana Ungerleiter, and Jess Shane. Edited by Alejandra Salazar and fact-checked by Vanessa Garcia-Woodworth. Special thanks to Maria Lages, Farrah Degrunge, Daniela Balarezo, Constanza Gallardo, Tansika Sangmarniwang, and Roxanne Heilash.

41:41Hi, this is Becca Moore from For The Girls, and this podcast is sponsored by Aerie, where you can find the right bra in 59 sizes, soft fabrics, and good fits. If your bra strap is digging into your shoulder right now, it's the wrong bra. We get so used to being in pain as girls that we forget it doesn't have to be this way. Your clothes should not hurt. I got to the point where I stopped wearing bras altogether, and now my life has changed. you guys. The only bras I have in my dresser right now are Aerie and I'm not kidding. Aerie's on a mission to make you feel good and that starts with your bra.

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