There are two forms of anxiety. When you are coping with a crisis, that feeling that you have is referred to as common anxiety. And then there’s the type of anxiety that isn’t necessarily connected to any one worry or event. Regardless of what’s going on around them or what’s on their mind, they regularly feel anxiety. It’s more of a general sensation that seems to pervade the day. This sort of anxiety is normally more of a mental health concern than a neurological reaction.
Unfortunately, both types of anxiety are harmful for the human body. It can be particularly damaging if you feel extended or chronic anxiety. Your alert status is raised by all of the chemicals that are produced during times of anxiety. It’s a good thing in the short term, but damaging over a long period of time. Specific physical symptoms will start to appear if anxiety can’t be managed and remains for longer periods of time.
Physical Symptoms of Anxiety
Some symptoms of anxiety are:
- Exhaustion
- Feeling as if you are coming out of your skin
- Nausea
- General aches or soreness in your body
- A feeling that something horrible is about to occur
- Panic attacks, shortness of breath and increased heart rate
- Melancholy and loss of interest in activities or daily life
But persistent anxiety doesn’t necessarily manifest in the ways that you may predict. Anxiety can even effect obscure body functions such as your hearing. As an example, anxiety has been connected with:
- Tinnitus: You probably know that stress can cause the ringing in your ears to get worse, but did you realize that there’s evidence that it can also cause the ringing in your ears to develop over time. This is called tinnitus (which, itself can have numerous other causes as well). In some circumstances, the ears can feel clogged or blocked (it’s amazing what anxiety can do).
- 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 extremely negative effects on the body. It’s definitely not good. High blood pressure has also been known to cause hearing loss, tinnitus and dizziness.
- Dizziness: Dizziness, which can also be related to the ears, is often a symptom of chronic anxiety. After all, the ears are typically in control of your sense of balance (there are these three tubes inside of your inner ears that are controlling the sense of balance).
Hearing Loss And Anxiety
Because this is a hearing website, we typically tend to give attention to, well, hearing. And your ability to hear. So let’s talk a little about how anxiety impacts your hearing.
First of all, there’s the solitude. People tend to pull away from social activities when they suffer from hearing loss, tinnitus or balance troubles. Perhaps you’ve seen this with someone you know. Perhaps a relative just stopped talking as much because they were embarrassed by having to constantly repeat themselves. The same goes for balance problems. It can be tough to admit to your friends and family that you have a hard time driving or even walking because you have balance problems.
There are also other ways anxiety and depression can lead to social isolation. When you don’t feel yourself, you won’t want to be around others. Sadly, one can end up feeding the other and can become an unhealthy loop. The negative effects of isolation can happen rapidly and will trigger several other problems and can even result in mental decline. It can be even more challenging to fight the effects of isolation if you’re dealing with hearing loss and anxiety.
Figuring Out How to Correctly Manage Your Hearing Loss Troubles
Finding the correct treatment is significant especially given how much hearing loss, tinnitus, anxiety and isolation feed on each other.
If tinnitus and hearing loss are symptoms you’re dealing with, finding proper treatment for them can also assist with your other symptoms. And in terms of depression and anxiety, interacting with others who can relate can be very helpful. Prolonged anxiety is more severe when there is a strong sense of solitude and managing the symptoms can help with that. So that you can figure out what treatments will be most effective for your situation, check with your doctor and your hearing specialist. Depending on the results of your hearing test, the right treatment for hearing loss or tinnitus could be hearing aids. The right treatment for anxiety may involve therapy or medication. Tinnitus has also been found to be effectively treated by cognitive-behavioral therapy.
Here’s to Your Health
We recognize, then, that anxiety can have very real, very severe repercussions for your physical health and your mental health.
We also realize that hearing loss can lead to isolation and mental decline. In conjunction with anxiety, that’s a recipe for, well, a difficult time. Fortunately, a favorable difference can be achieved by getting the right treatment for both conditions. The health affects of anxiety don’t need 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.
