Anxiety comes in two kinds. There’s common anxiety, that feeling you get when you’re involved with an emergency situation. Some individuals experience anxiety even when there are no particular situations or concerns to attach it to. No matter what’s going on around them or what they’re thinking about, they often feel anxiety. It’s just present in the background throughout the day. This second type is typically the type of anxiety that’s not so much a neuro-typical reaction and more of a mental health issue.
Regrettably, both kinds of anxiety are pretty terrible for the human body. Extended periods of persistent anxiety can be particularly negative. Your alert status is heightened by all of the chemicals that are released when anxiety is experienced. It’s a good thing in the short term, but harmful over a long period of time. 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 often include:
- Bodily pain
- Feeling as if you’re coming out of your skin
- Loss of interest and depression
- Nausea
- A feeling that something terrible is about to occur
- Panic attacks, difficulty breathing and raised heart rate
- Physical weakness
But sometimes, anxiety manifests in surprising ways. Anxiety can even effect vague body functions including your hearing. As an example, anxiety has been connected with:
- Tinnitus: Did you realize that stress not only exacerbates the ringing in your ears but that it can also be responsible for the onset of that ringing. This is called tinnitus (which can itself be caused by numerous other factors). In certain situations, the ears can feel blocked or clogged (it’s amazing what anxiety can do).
- Dizziness: Dizziness, which can also be related to the ears, is often a symptom of persistent anxiety. Do not forget, your 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 influences your body in exactly the way you’d expect it to. In this case, we’re talking about elevated blood pressure. Known scientifically as hypertension, high blood pressure can have an array of negative secondary effects on you physically. It’s certainly not good. Dizziness, hearing loss and tinnitus can also be caused by high blood pressure.
Anxiety And Hearing Loss
Because this is a hearing website, we typically tend to give attention to, well, the ears. And your how well to hear. With that in mind, you’ll excuse us if we take a little time to talk about how hearing loss and anxiety can influence each other in some relatively disconcerting ways.
The solitude is the first and foremost concern. When someone has hearing loss, tinnitus or even balance problems, they often pull away from social contact. You might have seen this in your own family members. Maybe a relative just withdrew from conversations because they were embarrassed by having to constantly repeat themselves. The same holds true for balance issues. It can be tough to admit to your friends and family that you have a difficult time driving or even walking because you have balance problems.
Social isolation is also associated with anxiety and depression in other ways. Normally, you’re not going to be around people if you aren’t feeling like yourself. Unfortunately, this can be something of a loop where one feeds into the other. That sense of solitude can develop quickly and it can lead to a number of other, closely associated issues, like decline of cognitive function. It can be even more difficult to overcome the effects of isolation if you’re dealing with hearing loss and anxiety.
Finding The Right Treatment
Getting the proper treatment is significant particularly given how much hearing loss, tinnitus, anxiety and isolation feed each other.
If hearing loss and tinnitus are symptoms you’re struggling with, finding correct treatment for them can also help with your other symptoms. And in terms of 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 severe. So that you can decide what treatments will be most effective for your situation, talk to your doctor and your hearing specialist. Depending on the results of your hearing test, the best treatment for hearing loss or tinnitus might involve hearing aids. And for anxiety, medication and other forms of therapy could be necessary. Tinnitus has also been shown to be effectively treated with cognitive-behavioral therapy.
Here’s to Your Health
We understand that your mental and physical health can be seriously affected by anxiety.
Isolation and cognitive decline have also been shown 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. Anxiety doesn’t need to have long lasting effects on your body and the impact of anxiety on your body can be reversed. The key is getting treatment as soon as you can.