Tiredness can have a wide range of causes, ranging from a simple sleepless night to respiratory conditions such as sleep apnea. But there is something more common that can also be the cause of tiredness and that’s hearing loss.
That’s at least partially because of the fact that hearing loss usually develops slowly over time. You may find yourself constantly exhausted for no apparent reason because you failed to detect the symptoms of early hearing loss. This experience can be very frustrating. This exhaustion can frequently turn into irritability which could cause you to socially isolate yourself. The good news is that treating your hearing loss will often improve your energy levels, mitigating tiredness and exhaustion.
Your brain will compensate for gradually progressing hearing loss
For most individuals, hearing loss is a very slow-moving condition that gets worse over time. In its early phases, you probably won’t even notice 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 harder 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 typically associated with hearing loss.
Because the cause happens 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. In the same way as extended periods of intense concentration can leave you worn out, the extra brain power required to hear what people are saying can be exhausting. Your ability to perform daily tasks and your total quality of life can be substantially impacted over time as your untreated hearing loss grows worse.
Stigma plays a role
So why don’t more people just visit a hearing specialist when they start feeling tired? One partial explanation is that people just don’t connect fatigue with hearing loss. But the perception of stigma is another reason which can be even more damaging. Individuals often feel as if others will think they’re old if they have hearing loss and that admitting it will ruin their lives. All of these things are false, and they stop many individuals from finding treatment.
However, as more people are open about their hearing loss experience, the stigma has begun to disappear. It’s becoming a more prevalent understanding that hearing loss can happen to people of all ages and today’s hearing aids are discreet enough that the few people who can’t get over this stigma won’t even notice them.
It’s a shame that this social stigma can make it harder for individuals to find the care they need because this frequently leads to hearing loss that gets worse over time when it may not need to.
How to manage hearing loss-associated fatigue
There are often no noticeable symptoms of early phase hearing loss. That’s why hearing specialists favor taking a preventative approach rather than the far more challenging and less effective reactive method. For example, scheduling routine screenings with a hearing specialist before you detect symptoms can help establish a baseline of what your healthy hearing looks like. Early treatment will be much more effective once we have determined that baseline.
If your hearing loss is causing fatigue, there are some steps you can take to minimize that exhaustion as much as possible. Here are several of the most common and easiest steps:
- Try to have conversations in quieter areas: Distinguishing voices from background noise can be challenging when you have hearing loss (often whether you’re using hearing aids or not). It will be easier, and less fatiguing, to understand conversations if you move them to a quieter area.
- Give yourself a rest in between conversations: In between conversation, take a quiet break somewhere. Your brain is working overtime to participate in conversation and brief rests will make that more sustainable.
- 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 an issue and your brain doesn’t need to work as hard to compensate.
- Make sure you wear 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 you won’t be as tired because your brain won’t have to work so hard.
It’s most likely time to make an appointment with a hearing specialist if you’re experiencing exhaustion with no obvious cause. Treating hearing loss can help you minimize your exhaustion and boost your energy. Don’t neglect your hearing loss because you’re concerned about the stigma.