Hearing Loss Can be Exhausting
Have you ever found yourself feeling drained after a day, even though you have not been participating in any physically challenging activity? Do you find yourself exhausted simply after having conversations with your friends and coworkers? Do you need to strain in order to catch parts of the conversation? Hearing loss could be at the root of all your problems.
Imagine trying to read a sentence when parts of the sentence are missing: “j s l ke t is!” In case you were wondering what you just missed out on, it reads “just like this!” Simply trying to figure out what the previous sentence actually was must have been quite puzzling. Imagine having to do this all day, every day! This is what people with hearing loss have to deal with on a daily basis, which is what leads to mental fatigue.
When your ears can no longer hear properly, your brain struggles to make sense of what is being said with the limited number of sound signals that is being sent its way. This is called cognitive overload, when the brain tries to fill in the gaps of everyday speech. This takes a huge amount of effort in the working memory and leads to exhaustion. Add in background noise and stress, and you would pretty much feel like you’ve run a marathon by the end of it all!
We have enough stress in our lives as it is, without having to deal with the added stress of mental exhaustion due to hearing loss. Be kind to yourself and take a break every now and then to simply relax and put yourself at ease. Go to a place where you do not have to listen to anything; somewhere you can simply sit quietly and watch the world go by. Be it a walk in the park or sitting down at home with a cup of tea; take some time out every day to give your ears some rest. Sometimes even taking a nap can do wonders in recharging your batteries.
Stress does us no favors when it comes to hearing loss. We may not be able to undo hearing loss, but we sure can let go of the stress that is attached to it. Take a yoga class, get some exercise, or practice some meditation to calm your mind and body. Physical activity can even help with blood circulation and help retain the remainder of your hearing, while giving you a healthy boost of adrenaline as well.
Hearing loss can be a challenging condition, but thankfully you can utilize several gadgets to help you remain organized and on task. Record your meetings, presentations, or lectures so that you do not miss out on any vital information. You can even find gadgets and smart phone applications that work in collaboration with your hearing aids and these can help stream phone calls directly into the hearing device. You can transcribe any vital information using voice recognition features that are available at various websites and cell phone applications.
When it comes to hearing loss, nothing addresses it as effectively as hearing aids. You are working hard enough as it is, so why not let your hearing aids figure out trivial things like speech sounds. Talk to your audiologist about getting a hearing examination to see which hearing aids will suit your unique hearing needs.