Wear earplugs: Coldplay and Dave Matthews Band wear ear protection. You should too. A pair of cheap foam earplugs will do the trick, but it's better to invest in higher-fidelity Etymotic ER-20 plugs, which reduce volume without cutting out too much high end.

Turn it down: Don't crank up your portable music player too loud, especially to compensate for other noise around you. If you're on a subway, the ambient noise could be as high as 105 decibels. To hear your tunes, you might turn the music up to 110, a level that is safe only for thirty minutes.

Get better headphones: Those that shut out external noise allow you to turn down the tunes. In-ear phones like Etymotic's ER6 and Shure's E4C go deep into the ear canal to block pretty much all outside noise -- plus they sound great (a cheaper alternative is Sony's MDR-EX71). Bose's noise-canceling QuietComfort 2 fits over the ears and removes a lot of low-end noise.

Give your ears a rest: "There's nothing wrong with going to a rock concert on Friday night," Experts tell us. "Just don't mow your lawn on Saturday." Your ears need about eighteen hours after exposure to sustained high volumes before they return to normal.

Quit smoking: It doubles the risk of noise-induced hearing loss. "After a loud show, the way you get better is through blood supply to your inner-ear nerve cells," says Chicago audiologist Michael Santucci. "If you do something cardiovascularly restrictive, like smoking, your blood supply won't be as good. You're being exposed to two toxins, the cardiovascular toxin and the noise toxin."