Ears may get neglected when it comes to poetry —they’re not the window of the soul, and nobody compares them to a summer’s day — but we shouldn’t forget that, for all their funny-looking glory, ears and their health are extremely important. And there’s a bunch of misinformation out there about how to care for them properly and preserve your hearing, ear health and proper wax levels. Odds are, most of what you’ve heard about how to clean your ears, how to prevent hearing loss, or whether it’s OK to pierce your own ears is probably wrong.

Ears are rather like a well-functioning metro systems; you only really notice them when you start to experience serious difficulties with them. That, however, is no excuse to neglect proper ear care — especially because you don’t want to have to deal with the products of poor ear care, like ear syringing, hearing loss or explaining to your doctor why you tried to pierce your ears at home and now have a streaming ear infection. (I can guarantee that their expression will be, at best, exasperated.)

So here are five things to never, ever do to your ears. Friends don’t let friends go to concerts without earplugs or run around with their headphones turned up so loud that their music can be heard from space.

1. Insert Cotton Swabs.

2. Crank Up The Volume On Your Headphones

3. Do Ear Candling

4. Refuse To Wear Earplugs In Noisy Environments

5. Pierce Your Ears At Home