There are lots of possible causes of exhaustion, everything from not being able to sleep at night to respiratory problems like 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 due to the fact that hearing loss normally develops gradually over time. You may not immediately recognize the symptoms and, as a result, you may feel as though you are constantly tired for no reason. This can be a frustrating experience. This fatigue can often turn into irritability which could cause you to socially isolate yourself. Fortunately, your energy levels will usually improve once you get your hearing loss treated.
Your brain will compensate for gradually developing hearing loss
For the majority of individuals, hearing loss is a very slow-moving condition that gets worse over time. You may not even recognize that you have a hearing loss at first. Even prevalent symptoms, like cranking up the volume on your TV and smartphone, can be easy to miss if you aren’t watching for them.
Fatigue 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.
Because the cause happens in your brain, the symptoms aren’t usually considered an ear problem. When your ears aren’t getting as much information, your brain works harder to make sense of it all. Just as sustained periods of intense concentration can leave you fatigued, the extra brain power needed to hear what individuals are saying can be exhausting. Your ability to complete daily tasks and your total quality of life can be significantly affected over time as your untreated hearing loss gets worse.
Stigma plays a role
So when individuals begin to feel tired, why wouldn’t they just consult a hearing specialist? One partial explanation is that people just don’t associate fatigue with hearing loss. But there’s another reason that might ultimately be more detrimental: stigma. Individuals frequently 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 untrue, and they prevent many people from seeking treatment.
However, this stigma is starting to fade away as more individuals become open to their hearing loss. It’s becoming a more common 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.
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 serious permanent hearing loss.
Treatment options for hearing loss-related fatigue
The earliest stages of hearing loss might not have any noticeable symptoms. That’s why hearing specialists prefer to take a preventative approach instead of the far more difficult 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 subsequent screenings. Once this baseline is achieved, early intervention is frequently a lot more effective.
If your hearing loss is causing fatigue, there are some steps you can take to minimize that exhaustion as much as possible. Some of the easiest and most common steps include the following:
- If you use hearing aids, wear them as often as possible: Hearing aids are designed to help you focus on the sounds of human speech, meaning conversation will be substantially easier to understand when you are hearing them. This means you won’t be as fatigued because your brain won’t need to work so hard.
- Give yourself a break in between conversations: Give yourself some quiet time to rest and recharge in between conversations. Your brain is working extra hard to take part in conversation and brief rests will make that more sustainable.
- Try to find more quiet, secluded places for conversations: 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 exhausting, to understand conversations if you move them to a quieter location.
- Consult a hearing specialist: Keeping an eye on the condition of your hearing is important. When hearing loss is in its early phases, your brain doesn’t need to work as hard as it does when the condition gets worse, and a hearing specialist can diagnose hearing loss when it first begins to develop.
So if you’re dealing with an unusual amount of fatigue and tiredness, with no apparent cause, it may be time to schedule a visit to your hearing specialist. You can lessen your fatigue and boost your energy by treating your hearing loss. Don’t let stigma cause your hearing loss to continue to be untreated.