There are two kinds of anxiety. When you are involved with a crisis, that feeling that you have is called common anxiety. And then there’s the type of anxiety that isn’t necessarily linked to any one worry or event. They feel the anxiety frequently, regardless of what you happen to be doing or thinking about. It’s just present in the background throughout the day. This type of anxiety is normally more of a mental health concern than a neurological reaction.
Both types of anxiety can be very damaging to the physical body. It can be especially damaging if you experience prolonged or chronic anxiety. Your alert status is raised by all of the chemicals that are released when anxiety is experienced. For short durations, when you really need them, these chemicals are a good thing but they can be damaging if they are produced over longer time periods. Certain physical symptoms will begin to appear if anxiety can’t be treated and remains for longer periods of time.
Anxiety Has Distinct Physical Symptoms
Symptoms of anxiety frequently consist of:
- Bodily discomfort
- Tiredness
- A pounding heart or difficulty breathing commonly linked to panic attacks
- Paranoia about approaching crisis
- A feeling of being agitated or irritated
- Loss of interest and depression
- Nausea
But in some cases, anxiety is experienced in unexpected ways. Anxiety can even impact obscure body functions such as your hearing. For instance, anxiety has been linked to:
- Tinnitus: Did you realize that stress not only worsens tinnitus but that it can also be responsible for the onset of that ringing. This is known as tinnitus (which, itself can have a variety of other causes too). In certain circumstances, the ears can feel clogged or blocked (it’s staggering what anxiety can do).
- Dizziness: Chronic anxiety can sometimes cause dizziness, which is a condition that could also be related to the ears. Keep in mind, the sense of balance is controlled by the ears (there are these three tubes in your inner ears that are regulating the sense of balance).
- High Blood Pressure: And then there are certain ways that anxiety affects your body in exactly the way you’d expect it to. Elevated blood pressure is one of those. Known medically as hypertension, high blood pressure often has really negative effects on the body. It’s certainly not good. Dizziness, hearing loss and tinnitus can also be caused by high blood pressure.
Anxiety And Hearing Loss
Generally on a hearing blog such as this we would usually focus on, well, hearing. And your how well to hear. So let’s talk a little about how your hearing is impacted by anxiety.
The solitude is the primary issue. People tend to pull away from social experiences when they suffer from hearing loss, tinnitus or balance troubles. You may have experienced this with your own relatives. Perhaps your mother or father got tired of asking you what you said, or didn’t want to be embarrassed by not comprehending and so they withdrew from conversations. Problems with balance present similar difficulties. It might impact your ability to walk or drive, which can be humiliating to admit to family and friends.
Social isolation is also associated with anxiety and depression for other reasons. When you do not feel yourself, you don’t want to be around other people. Sadly, one can wind up feeding the other and can turn into an unhealthy loop. The negative impact of isolation can happen rapidly and will lead to various other problems and can even result in mental decline. For somebody who suffers from anxiety and hearing loss, battling against that shift toward isolation can be even more difficult.
Determining How to Correctly Treat Your Hearing Loss Troubles
Finding the proper treatment is important particularly given how much hearing loss, tinnitus, anxiety and isolation feed each other.
If tinnitus and hearing loss are symptoms you’re struggling with, getting correct treatment for them can also help with your other symptoms. And when it comes to depression and anxiety, interacting with others who can relate can be extremely helpful. At the very least, dealing with these symptoms can help with the sense of solitude that might make chronic anxiety more extreme. So that you can determine what treatments are best for you, consult your doctor and your hearing specialist. Depending on the results of your hearing test, the right treatment for hearing loss or tinnitus might be hearing aids. The best treatment for anxiety may include therapy or medication. Tinnitus has also been found to be effectively treated by cognitive-behavioral therapy.
Here’s to Your Health
We understand that your mental and physical health can be severely impacted by anxiety.
Isolation and cognitive decline have also been recognized as a repercussion of hearing loss. When you add anxiety to the recipe, it makes for a very difficult situation. Thankfully, we have treatments for both conditions, and getting that treatment can make a huge, positive effect. Anxiety doesn’t have to have permanent effects on your body and the impact of anxiety on your body can be reversed. The sooner you get treatment, the better.
