How Stress Can Affect Your Hearing

When you are stressed it can affect your whole body in some shape or form, even your ears.

Feeling stressed means you may find yourself unable to concentrate and pay enough attention to the things going on around you. It means even if you have excellent hearing you are not able to listen as you are not paying attention to what is being said.

"even if you have excellent hearing you are not able to listen"

You also may become forgetful in which case if you are doing a leisure activity or at work in a noisy environment you might find yourself forgetting to wear your ear protection, potentially damaging your hearing.

If you suffer with tinnitus the presence of stress can increase the loudness of your tinnitus in a similar way that can be found if you are to take high stimulants such as alchohol, caffine or nicotine. This can render you in to a cycle of stress meaning the increased loudness makes you further stressed.

If you have a hard of hearing, the difficulty in social and noisy environments can discourage you from attending such environments where you would normally enjoy listening and hearing about peoples news or attending meetings, lectures or gatherings. Stress can also be a factor in postponing seeking help in regards a hearing loss.

It is important to take time to think about yourself, a common reason such affects happen is that we don't have time or we don't give ourselves enough time to look after our OWN well being while juggling life and the well beings of those around us. 

"It is important to take time to think about yourself"

Today is #NationalStessAwarenessDay and although we are not a website to give you all the resources regarding stress relief, here are 5 fantastic website resources that can:

1. NHS choices How To Deal With Stress https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stress-anxiety-depression/pages/understanding-stress.aspx

2. Anxiety UK Stress https://www.anxietyuk.org.uk/anxiety-type/stress/

3. Mind How To Manage Stress https://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/tips-for-everyday-living/stress/#.WfoIDiRpE8o

4. British Tinnitus Assosiation Tinnitus and Stress https://www.tinnitus.org.uk/tinnitus-and-stress

5. Mental Health Foundation How To Manage and Reduce Stress https://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/publications/how-manage-and-reduce-stress