Anxiety comes in two forms. When you are coping with an emergency situation, that feeling that you get is referred to as common anxiety. Some individuals feel anxiety even when there aren’t any particular situations or concerns to attach it to. Regardless of what’s going on around them or what they’re thinking about, they frequently feel anxiety. It’s just present in the background throughout the day. This type of anxiety is normally more of a mental health issue than a neurological reaction.
Both forms of anxiety can be very detrimental to the physical body. It can be especially harmful if you feel extended or chronic anxiety. Your alert status is raised by all of the chemicals that are secreted during times of anxiety. For short durations, when you really need them, these chemicals are good but they can be damaging if they are present over longer time periods. Specific physical symptoms will begin to appear if anxiety can’t be treated and lasts for longer periods of time.
Physical Symptoms of Anxiety
Some symptoms of anxiety are:
- Feeling like something dreadful is about to happen
- Physical weakness
- A feeling of being agitated or irritated
- Queasiness
- Bodily discomfort
- Depression and loss of interest in day to day activities
- Panic attacks, difficulty breathing and raised heart rate
But sometimes, anxiety is experienced in surprising ways. Anxiety can even impact vague body functions such as your hearing. For instance, anxiety has been connected with:
- Tinnitus: Are you aware that stress not only exacerbates the ringing in your ears but that it can cause the development of that ringing. This is known as tinnitus (which can itself be caused by many other factors). For a few, this might even reveal itself as a feeling that the ears are blocked or clogged.
- Dizziness: Dizziness, which can also be related to the ears, is often a symptom of prolonged anxiety. After all, the ears are generally in control of your sense of balance (there are these three tubes in your inner ears which are controlling the sense of balance).
- High Blood Pressure: And a few of the consequences of anxiety are not at all surprising. In this case, we’re talking about elevated blood pressure. Known medically as hypertension, high blood pressure can have really adverse effects on the body. It’s definitely not good. Dizziness, hearing loss and tinnitus can also be brought about by high blood pressure.
Anxiety And Hearing Loss
Since this is a hearing website, we usually 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 solitude is the first and foremost issue. When a person has tinnitus, hearing loss or even balance problems, they tend to withdraw from social interactions. You might have experienced this with your own family. Maybe a relative just stopped talking as much because they were embarrassed by having to constantly repeat themselves. The same goes for balance problems. It may influence your ability to walk or drive, which can be embarrassing to admit to friends and family.
Social isolation is also linked to depression and anxiety in other ways. Usually, you aren’t going to be around people if you aren’t feeling like yourself. Unfortunately, this can be something of a loop where one feeds the other. That sense of isolation can set in quickly and it can result in a number of other, closely related problems, like cognitive decline. It can be even harder to combat the effects of isolation if you’re dealing with hearing loss and anxiety.
Figuring Out How to Effectively Manage Your Hearing Loss Troubles
Hearing Loss, Tinnitus, anxiety and isolation can all feed on each other. That’s why finding the best treatment is so important.
If tinnitus and hearing loss are symptoms you’re dealing with, obtaining proper treatment for them can also assist with your other symptoms. Connecting with other people has been demonstrated to help reduce both depression and anxiety. Prolonged anxiety is more severe when there is an overwhelming sense of separation and dealing with the symptoms can be helpful with that. Check with your general practitioner and hearing specialist to explore your choices for treatment. Hearing aids could be the best option as part of your treatment depending on what your hearing test reveals. The right treatment for anxiety might involve therapy or medication. Cognitive-behavioral therapy has also been proven to help control tinnitus.
Here’s to Your Health
We recognize, then, that anxiety can have very real, very serious repercussions for your physical health and your mental health.
We also know that hearing loss can result in isolation and cognitive decline. When you add anxiety to the recipe, it makes for a very difficult situation. Fortunately, a positive difference can be accomplished by getting the right treatment for both conditions. The health impacts of anxiety don’t have to be permanent. The effect of anxiety on your body doesn’t have to be long lasting. The key is getting treatment as soon as possible.