Tiredness can have a wide variety of causes, ranging from a simple sleepless night to respiratory conditions like sleep apnea. But there is something more common that can also be the cause of fatigue and that’s hearing loss.
To some extent, that’s because hearing loss can be a gradually-moving, subtle condition. You might not immediately distinguish the symptoms and, as a result, you might feel as if you’re constantly tired for no reason. This experience can be really frustrating. Additionally, this exhaustion can often lead to irritability and, eventually, social isolation. The good news is that treating your hearing loss will frequently boost your energy levels, reducing tiredness and exhaustion.
Your brain will compensate for slowly developing hearing loss
Hearing loss is normally a slowly progressing condition that gets worse over time. In its early phases, you probably won’t even detect that you’re developing hearing loss. If you aren’t specifically watching for them, even conspicuous symptoms, like turning the volume on your audio devices way up, can be easy to overlook.
One of the more difficult to miss symptoms of hearing loss is often fatigue. Regardless of how much sleep you get, you could still feel exhausted. This symptom, regrettably, isn’t usually associated with hearing loss.
Because the cause takes place in your brain, the symptoms aren’t usually considered an ear problem. When your ears aren’t getting as much information, your brain works overtime to comprehend it all. In the same way as prolonged periods of intense concentration can leave you tired, the extra brain power needed to hear what individuals are saying can be exhausting. Left untreated, this exhaustion can get worse over time, impacting your quality of life and your ability to complete daily routine activities.
The role of stigma
So why don’t more individuals just visit a hearing specialist when they begin feeling tired? One partial reason is that individuals just don’t associate fatigue with hearing loss. But there’s another reason that may inevitably be more damaging: stigma. There’s a feeling that hearing loss is terrible or ruins your life or that there’s nothing you can do about it. Individuals will frequently avoid pursuing treatment because of these mistaken notions.
However, as more individuals are open about their hearing loss experience, the stigma has started to fade. It’s becoming a more prevalent understanding that hearing loss can happen to people of all ages and today’s hearing aids are small enough that the few people who can’t let go of this stigma won’t even see them.
It’s a shame that this social stigma can make it more difficult for people to find the care they need because this often results in hearing loss that grows worse over time when it may not have to.
Treatment options for hearing loss-related fatigue
The earliest phases of hearing loss might not have any apparent symptoms. That’s why hearing specialists favor taking a preventative approach rather than the far more difficult and less effective reactive method. For instance, scheduling routine screenings with a hearing specialist before you notice symptoms can help establish a baseline of what your healthy hearing looks like. Early treatment will be a lot more effective once we have determined that baseline.
You can minimize hearing loss related exhaustion by taking a few proactive steps. Here are several of the most common and simplest steps:
- Give yourself a break in between conversations: In between conversation, take a quiet rest somewhere. Your brain is working extra hard to engage in conversation and brief rests will make that more sustainable.
- Be certain you use your hearing aids as frequently as you can: Hearing aids are manufactured to help you focus on the sounds of human speech, meaning conversation will be considerably easier to understand when you are hearing them. This means your brain won’t need to work as hard and you won’t experience the same degree of fatigue.
- See a hearing specialist: It’s important to keep tabs on your hearing health. Visiting a hearing specialist can help you identify hearing loss in its early stages when it’s less of a problem and your brain doesn’t have to work as hard to compensate.
- Try to find more quiet, isolated spots for conversations: Distinguishing voices from background noise can be challenging when you have hearing loss (often whether you’re using hearing aids or not). Moving conversations to a location with less background noise can make it easier for your brain to focus on the voice you’re attempting to hear, reducing fatigue in the process.
So if you’re dealing with an unusual amount of exhaustion and tiredness, with no evident cause, it may be time to plan a visit to your hearing specialist. 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.