There are a number of possible causes of fatigue, everything from being unable to sleep at night to respiratory issues like sleep apnea. But many individuals are surprised to find out that chronic tiredness and exhaustion can also be caused by something relatively common: hearing loss.
That’s at least partly due to the fact that hearing loss usually progresses gradually over time. You may find yourself constantly exhausted for no apparent reason because you failed to detect the symptoms of early hearing loss. This can be a frustrating experience. This exhaustion can frequently turn into irritability which could cause you to socially seclude yourself. The good news is that treating your hearing loss will frequently improve your energy levels, mitigating tiredness and exhaustion.
Your brain will compensate for slowly progressing hearing loss
For most individuals, hearing loss is a very gradually-progressing condition that grows worse over time. In its early phases, you likely won’t even detect that you’re developing hearing loss. If you aren’t specifically watching for them, even conspicuous symptoms, like cranking the volume on your audio devices way up, can be easy to miss.
One of the harder to miss symptoms of hearing loss is often exhaustion. You may feel tired no matter how much rest you got the night before. Unfortunately, many people don’t intuitively connect this symptom with hearing loss.
Because the cause occurs in your brain, the symptoms aren’t usually considered an ear problem. When your ears aren’t receiving as much information, your brain works harder to comprehend it all. This constant extra work is taxing in the same way that prolonged periods of concentration can take a toll. Left neglected, this exhaustion can grow worse over time, impacting your quality of life and your ability to perform daily routine tasks.
Stigma plays a role
So why don’t more individuals just visit a hearing specialist when they start feeling tired? There are several explanations: frequently individuals are busy or thinking about other things. But the notion of stigma is another reason which can be even more detrimental. There’s an impression that hearing loss is bad or ruins your life or that there’s nothing that can be done about it. Individuals will frequently avoid pursuing treatment because of these false ideas.
However, as more people are open about their hearing loss experience, the stigma has started to fade. Many people understand that hearing loss is not some type of social failing, and the very small nature of modern hearing aids makes them easy to hide around folks who sadly will not let go of this stigma.
It’s a shame that this social stigma can make it harder for individuals to find the care they need because this frequently results in hearing loss that gets worse over time when it may not need to.
How to manage hearing loss-associated fatigue
There are often no apparent symptoms of early stage hearing loss. That’s why hearing specialists prefer to take a preventative strategy rather than the far more challenging and less effective reactive approach. Hearing specialists recommend regular screenings in order to establish 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 frequently much more effective.
If your hearing loss is causing fatigue, there are a few steps you can take to minimize that exhaustion as much as possible. Here are a few of the most common and easiest steps:
- Schedule a consultation with a hearing specialist: It’s important to monitor your hearing health. When hearing loss is in its early stages, your brain doesn’t have to work as hard as it does when the condition worsens, and a hearing specialist can diagnose hearing loss when it first begins to develop.
- Give yourself a rest in between conversations: Give yourself some quiet time to rest and recharge in between conversations. This can help your brain recuperate from all the work it’s doing and make everyday communication a bit more sustainable.
- If you have hearing aids, wear them as often as possible: Hearing aids are manufactured to help you focus on the sounds of human speech, meaning conversation will be considerably easier to make out when you are hearing them. This means your brain won’t need to work as hard and you will not experience the same level of fatigue.
- Try to have conversations in quieter spots: When there is a lot of background noise, it can be challenging to sort out voices, even with hearing aids in some circumstances. It will be easier, and less exhausting, to understand conversations if you move them to a quieter place.
It’s most likely time to schedule an appointment with a hearing specialist if you’re experiencing fatigue with no evident cause. Treating hearing loss can help you minimize your exhaustion and boost your energy. Don’t neglect your hearing loss because you’re afraid of the stigma.