Anxiety comes in two varieties. You can have common anxiety, that feeling you get when you’re dealing with an emergency situation. And then there’s the type of anxiety that isn’t really linked to any one event or concern. They feel the anxiety frequently, regardless of what you’re doing or thinking about. It’s more of a generalized feeling that seems to pervade the day. This second form is typically the type of anxiety that’s not so much a neuro-typical reaction and more of a mental health problem.
Unfortunately, both types of anxiety are harmful for the human body. It can be particularly damaging if you have prolonged or chronic anxiety. Your alert status is raised by all of the chemicals that are produced during times of anxiety. It’s a good thing in the short term, but harmful over a long period of time. Over the long run, anxiety that cannot be dealt with or brought under control will start to manifest in certain physical symptoms.
Anxiety Has Distinct Physical Symptoms
Some symptoms of anxiety are:
- A pounding heart or shortness of breath commonly associated with panic attacks
- Exhaustion
- Feeling like something dreadful is about to occur
- Bodily pain
- Depression and loss of interest in day to day activities
- Feeling like you’re coming out of your skin
- Nausea
But persistent anxiety doesn’t always appear in the ways that you may anticipate. Anxiety can even impact vague body functions like your hearing. As an example, anxiety has been associated with:
- 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 called tinnitus (which, itself can have numerous other causes too). For some, this might even manifest itself as a feeling that the ears are blocked or clogged.
- Dizziness: Dizziness, which can also be caused by the ears, is commonly a symptom of prolonged anxiety. After all, the ears are generally responsible for your sense of balance (there are these three tubes inside of your inner ears that are regulating the sense of balance).
- High Blood Pressure: And a few of the effects of anxiety are not at all unexpected. Elevated blood pressure is one of those. Known scientifically as hypertension, high blood pressure can have various negative secondary effects on you physically. It is, to make use of a colloquialism, not so great. Dizziness, hearing loss and tinnitus can also be triggered by high blood pressure.
Anxiety And Hearing Loss
Generally on a hearing blog like this we would usually concentrate on, well, hearing. And your ability to hear. So let’s talk a bit about how anxiety impacts your hearing.
The isolation is the first and foremost concern. People often pull away from social activities when they have hearing loss, tinnitus or balance troubles. You might have experienced this with your own family members. Maybe one of your parents got tired of asking you what you said, or didn’t want to deal with the embarrassment of not understanding and so they stopped talking so much. The same is true for balance problems. It might influence your ability to drive or even walk, which can be humiliating to admit to friends and family.
Social isolation is also linked to depression and anxiety in other ways. Normally, you’re not going to be around people if you’re not feeling like yourself. Sadly, one can end up feeding the other and can turn into an unhealthy loop. The negative effects of isolation can occur rapidly and will bring about various other problems and can even result in cognitive decline. It can be even harder to overcome the effects of isolation if you’re dealing with hearing loss and anxiety.
Figuring Out How to Properly Manage Your Hearing Loss Troubles
Tinnitus, hearing loss, anxiety and isolation can all feed on each other. That’s why finding the correct treatment is so crucial.
All of the symptoms for these conditions can be helped by getting treatment for your tinnitus and hearing loss. And when it comes to anxiety and depression, connecting with others who can relate can be really helpful. Prolonged anxiety is more serious when there is a strong sense of solitude and dealing with the symptoms can help with that. In order to figure out what treatments are best for you, check with your doctor and your hearing specialist. Hearing aids may be the best solution as part of your treatment depending on what your hearing test reveals. The most appropriate treatment for anxiety may involve therapy or medication. Tinnitus has also been shown to be effectively treated with cognitive-behavioral therapy.
Here’s to Your Health
We recognize that your mental and physical health can be severely affected by anxiety.
Isolation and cognitive decline have also been recognized as a consequence of hearing loss. Coupled with anxiety, that’s a recipe for, well, a difficult time. Fortunately, a positive difference can be accomplished by getting the correct treatment for both conditions. The health affects of anxiety don’t need to be permanent. What anxiety does to your body doesn’t have to be long lasting. The sooner you find treatment, the better.