There are two types of anxiety. When you are involved with a crisis, that feeling that you have is called common anxiety. And then you can have the kind of anxiety that isn’t really connected to any one worry or event. They feel the anxiety regularly, regardless of what you’re doing or thinking about. It’s more of a general feeling that seems to pervade the day. This second type is generally the type of anxiety that’s not so much a neuro-typical reaction and more of a mental health concern.
Regrettably, both kinds of anxiety are harmful for the human body. It can be particularly harmful if you feel sustained or chronic anxiety. When it’s anxious, your body releases all sorts of chemicals that heighten your alert status. For short periods, when you genuinely need them, these chemicals are a positive thing but they can be damaging if they are present over longer time periods. Specific physical symptoms will start to appear if anxiety can’t be managed and persists for longer periods of time.
Anxiety Has Distinct Bodily Symptoms
Symptoms of anxiety commonly include:
- Feeling as if you are coming out of your skin
- Exhaustion
- General pain or soreness in your body
- Depression and loss of interest in activities or daily life
- Nausea
- Panic attacks, difficulty breathing and raised heart rate
- Feeling like something terrible is about to happen
But sometimes, anxiety manifests in surprising ways. Anxiety can even effect obscure body functions including your hearing. As an example, anxiety has been associated with:
- Tinnitus: Are you aware that stress not only worsens tinnitus but that it can cause the development of that ringing. This is called tinnitus (which can itself be caused by numerous other factors). In some situations, the ears can feel clogged or blocked (it’s staggering what anxiety can do).
- High Blood Pressure: And then there are certain ways that anxiety influences your body in precisely the way you’d expect it to. In this case, we’re talking about elevated blood pressure. Known medically as hypertension, high blood pressure can have all kinds of negative secondary effects on your body. It’s definitely not good. High blood pressure has also been recognized to lead to hearing loss, dizziness and tinnitus.
- Dizziness: Persistent anxiety can occasionally cause dizziness, which is a condition that could also stem from the ears. After all, the ears are generally responsible for your sense of balance (there are these three tubes inside of your inner ears which are controlling the sense of balance).
Hearing Loss And Anxiety
Because this is a hearing website, we typically tend to give attention to, well, the ears. And your ability to hear. So let’s talk a bit about how anxiety impacts your hearing.
The isolation is the first and foremost issue. When someone suffers from tinnitus, hearing loss or even balance issues, they often pull away from social contact. You may have seen this in your own family members. Perhaps a relative just withdrew from conversations because they were embarrassed that they have to constantly repeat themselves. Issues with balance come with similar troubles. It can be tough to admit to your family and friends that you have a difficult time driving or even walking because you have balance troubles.
Social isolation is also linked to depression and anxiety in other ways. When you don’t feel like yourself, you don’t want to be around other people. Unfortunately, this can be something of a circle where one feeds the other. The negative impact of isolation can occur rapidly and will lead to numerous other issues and can even result in cognitive decline. For someone who suffers from anxiety and hearing loss, fighting against that shift toward isolation can be even more challenging.
Determining How to Correctly Treat Your Hearing Loss Troubles
Tinnitus, hearing loss, anxiety and isolation can all feed on each other. That’s why finding the proper treatment is so key.
All of the symptoms for these conditions can be helped by getting treatment for your tinnitus and hearing loss. And when it comes to depression and anxiety, connecting with others who can relate can be really helpful. Certainly, treating these symptoms can help with the sense of isolation that might make chronic anxiety more extreme. Check with your general practitioner and hearing specialist to explore your choices for treatment. Depending on the results of your hearing test, the right treatment for hearing loss or tinnitus could involve hearing aids. The best treatment for anxiety might involve therapy or medication. Cognitive-behavioral therapy has also been shown to help deal with tinnitus.
Here’s to Your Health
We recognize that your mental and physical health can be seriously impacted by anxiety.
Isolation and cognitive decline have also been shown as a repercussion of hearing loss. Together with anxiety, that’s a recipe for, well, a difficult time. Luckily, we have treatments for both conditions, and obtaining that treatment can make a huge, positive difference. The health impacts of anxiety don’t need to be permanent. The effect of anxiety on your body doesn’t need to be long lasting. The key is finding treatment as soon as possible.