There are lots of potential causes of tiredness, everything from being unable to sleep at night to respiratory problems like sleep apnea. But many individuals are surprised to find out that chronic tiredness and exhaustion can also be a result of something relatively common: hearing loss.
That’s at least partially because of the fact that hearing loss normally progresses slowly over time. You may not immediately distinguish the symptoms and, as a result, you might feel as though you’re constantly tired for no reason. This experience can be very frustrating. This fatigue can frequently turn into irritability which could cause you to socially seclude yourself. Fortunately, your energy levels will usually increase once you get your hearing loss treated.
Your brain will compensate for slowly developing hearing loss
Hearing loss is usually a gradually advancing condition that grows worse over time. You might not even recognize that you have a hearing impairment at first. Even common symptoms, like cranking the volume up on your TV and smartphone, can be easy to miss if you’re not looking for them.
Exhaustion is one of the most noticeable symptoms of hearing loss. You may feel depleted no matter how much sleep you got the night before. Regrettably, many individuals don’t instinctively associate this symptom with hearing loss.
That’s because the cause happens in your brain. When your ears aren’t getting as much information, your brain works overtime to comprehend it all. This continual extra work is taxing in the same way that extended periods of concentration can take a toll. Your ability to perform daily tasks and your general quality of life can be considerably impacted over time as your neglected hearing loss grows worse.
Stigma plays a role
So why don’t more people just go see a hearing specialist when they start feeling fatigued? One partial reason is that individuals just don’t associate fatigue with hearing loss. But the perception of stigma is another cause which can be even more detrimental. There’s an impression that hearing loss is terrible or ruins your life or that there’s nothing that can be done about it. All of these things are false, and they stop many individuals from seeking treatment.
However, as more people 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 modern hearing aids are small enough that the few people who can’t let go of this stigma won’t even notice them.
It’s unfortunate 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 gets worse over time when it may not need to.
How to manage hearing loss-associated fatigue
The earliest stages of hearing loss may not have any evident symptoms. That’s why hearing specialists favor taking a preventative strategy rather than the far more challenging and less effective reactive approach. For instance, scheduling routine screenings with a hearing specialist before you detect symptoms can help create a baseline of what your healthy hearing looks like. Early treatment will be a lot more effective once we have determined that baseline.
If your hearing loss is causing fatigue, there are some steps you can take to lessen that exhaustion as much as possible. Some of the simplest and most common steps include the following:
- See a hearing specialist: Keeping an eye on the state of your hearing is essential. Consulting a hearing specialist can help you detect 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.
- Take breaks from 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 day-to-day communication a bit more sustainable.
- Try to have conversations in quieter areas: When there is a lot of background noise, it can be challenging to sort out voices, even with hearing aids in some cases. It will be easier, and less fatiguing, to understand conversations if you move them to a quieter area.
- Be sure you use your hearing aids as often as you can: One of the primary 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 won’t experience the same level of fatigue.
So if you’re dealing with an abnormal amount of exhaustion and tiredness, with no discernible cause, it may be time to plan a visit to your hearing specialist. You can lessen your fatigue and boost your energy by treating your hearing loss. Don’t neglect your hearing loss because you’re concerned about the stigma.