Tiredness can have a wide variety of causes, ranging from a simple sleepless night to respiratory problems like sleep apnea. But many individuals are surprised to learn that chronic tiredness and exhaustion can also be a result of something relatively common: hearing loss.
That’s at least partly because of the fact that hearing loss usually develops slowly over time. You may not immediately distinguish the symptoms and, as a result, you may feel as if you’re constantly tired for no reason. This experience can be quite frustrating. This fatigue can often turn into irritability which could cause you to socially seclude yourself. The good news is that treating your hearing loss will often improve your energy levels, reducing fatigue and exhaustion.
Your brain will compensate for slowly progressing hearing loss
Hearing loss is normally a slowly developing condition that gets worse over time. You might not even realize that you have a hearing impairment at first. Even common symptoms, like cranking up the volume on your TV and smartphone, can be easy to miss if you aren’t looking for them.
One of the harder to miss symptoms of hearing loss is often fatigue. You might feel depleted no matter how much rest you got the night before. This symptom, regrettably, isn’t usually associated with hearing loss.
Because the cause happens in your brain, the symptoms aren’t generally considered an ear issue. When your ears aren’t receiving as much information, your brain works harder to make sense of it all. This constant extra work is taxing in the same way that extended periods of concentration can take a toll. Your ability to execute daily tasks and your total quality of life can be substantially affected over time as your untreated hearing loss gets worse.
Stigma plays a role
So why don’t more individuals just go see a hearing specialist when they start feeling fatigued? There are many explanations: frequently individuals are busy or thinking about other things. But the perception of stigma is another cause which can be even more damaging. There’s an impression that hearing loss is terrible or ruins your life or that there’s nothing you can do about it. All of these things are false, and they stop many people from seeking treatment.
However, this stigma is beginning to disappear as more individuals become open to their hearing loss. It’s becoming a more prevalent understanding that hearing loss can happen to people of all ages and modern hearing aids are small enough that the few people who can’t let go of this stigma won’t even see them.
Unfortunately, this perception of social stigma can cause people in the early stages of hearing loss to avoid getting the treatment they need leading to more severe permanent hearing loss.
Solutions for hearing loss-related fatigue
The earliest phases of hearing loss might not have any noticeable symptoms. That makes it difficult to effectively take a reactive approach, and it’s why many hearing specialists favor preventative approaches. Hearing specialists recommend regular screenings in order to create a baseline of your healthy hearing, that way they will be capable of identifying changes to your hearing in later screenings. Once this baseline is established, early intervention is often much more effective.
You can minimize hearing loss associated exhaustion by taking a few proactive measures. Some of the easiest and most common steps include the following:
- Try to have conversations in quieter places: When there is a lot of background noise, it can be difficult to sort out voices, even with hearing aids in some cases. It will be easier, and less tiring, to understand conversations if you move them to a quieter spot.
- Schedule an assessment with a hearing specialist: It’s important to keep tabs on your hearing health. When hearing loss is in its early phases, your brain doesn’t have to work as hard as it does when the condition gets worse, and a hearing specialist can identify hearing loss when it first begins to develop.
- If you use hearing aids, wear them as frequently as you can: One of the main functions of hearing aids is to clarify human speech, making understanding conversations a lot easier. This means your brain won’t have to work as hard and you will not experience the same amount of fatigue.
- Take breaks from conversations: In between conversation, take a quiet break somewhere. This can help your brain recuperate from all the work it’s doing and make day-to-day communication a little more sustainable.
So if you’re feeling an unusual amount of exhaustion and tiredness, with no evident cause, it might be time to schedule a visit to your hearing specialist. Treating hearing loss can help you lessen your exhaustion and boost your energy. Don’t neglect your hearing loss because you’re afraid of the stigma.