How Too Much Stress Can Lead to Hearing Loss

It is safe to say that we all live with an abundance of stress in today’s world, but none of us really want to live with stress. It really is not that fun and is, in fact, quite harmful to be living with too much stress. It is known for a fact that too much stress can cause a whole host of problems. It can keep us up at night and make us lose sleep, it can interfere with work performance, and also, it can take a massive toll on the relationships we have. These things are all more or less known. What you may not know is that too much stress can actually lead to a loss of hearing.

The Negative Impacts of Stress

In the world of today, stress is a very natural part of this world. This is, in essence, a way in which the body responds to situations that are difficult by giving you a kind of burst of energy or, sometimes, even strength. This instinct, the fight or flight response, was very handy in prehistoric times as it enabled us to know when we needed to run to save ourselves from becoming prey or getting killed. However, in modern society, this type of response is not that beneficial. With the type of lives that we are leading today, this kind of stress response does us no good, and it can, in fact, be extremely damaging to a person. It has the ability to wear us down and to exhaust ourselves and our bodies completely. Also, many people believe that stress only causes problems with our emotions. This is not true. It is a considerable health risk as it can weaken the immune systems in our bodies, cause anxiety attacks and headaches. It can even lead to higher blood pressure readings, diabetes, and so much more.

It has the ability to cause hearing loss

The hair cells that we have in our inner ears always rely on a steady stream to make sure that it receives enough oxygen and other nutrients. However, stress has the ability to disturb the blood circulation of the body. When our bodies are responding to stress, there is an overproduction of adrenaline. This has the ability to impact the flow of blood to the ears and can potentially damage it or even destroy it sometimes. It also can cause immediate hearing loss if the person involved becomes too stressed and the blood flow to the ears gets stopped completely.

Hypertension, a form of high blood pressure that comes with the package of stress, has some very negative effects on our ability to hear properly. This is especially true for those of us who are over the age of 65. If you are experiencing stress during the day, what you are going through is known as hypertension, and it is terrible for your hearing and health in general. It can quite easily lead to a sudden loss of hearing and can also cause tinnitus. If you think you might be suffering from hearing loss or a stuffed or a blocked ear, be sure to look out for symptoms such as pain in the ear, blocked feeling within the ears, loss of hearing in one or both of the ears, or hearing sound in a muffled manner. You should take an online hearing test if you are suffering from stress.

How to manage stress

Managing stress has become very important these days, with so many stressors impacting us from all directions. It is absolutely vital that we actively take steps to cope with our stress levels not to harm our health, both mental and physical. As we have already mentioned, stress has the genuine ability to harm our hearing. Therefore, for the sake of one of our senses, we must make sure that we take proper precautions against stress.

In fact, if you are too stressed, you may not notice a lot of the sounds that you are missing. You may not even realize how severe the problem is until it is too late. If stress happens to be one reason you are experiencing hearing loss, it will be an excellent idea to manage stress not to suffer further damage.

If you think you are too stressed right now, make sure that you take a big breath. In fact, take a few of those. Also, try to relax your body and breathe as normally as possible. Breathing deeply has numerous benefits, and one of the major ones is that it can drastically reduce the resting heart rate, relax the muscles of the body, reduce blood pressure, and decrease the rate of metabolism. If you ever find yourself too overwhelmed with stress, make sure that you take some time off to breathe. You should also try to walk away from the situation if that is possible.

It is also important to make sure that you do things that you love daily. It can be anything from listening to music to working out to taking your dog out for a walk. One of the best ways to deal with stress is to take up a new hobby that you actually enjoy and want to invest time in.

If you find a hobby that takes up a lot of your time and energy, you will notice that more of your brain’s resources are spent on more positive things. Hence, fewer resources of the brain will be left to focus on the negative aspects of things.