Is Your Hearing Loss the Cause of Your Depression?
Depression, anxiety, and overall stress can be detrimental to your health. Over time, it can lead to chronic fatigue, hypertension, and even physical pain. Treating mental health conditions is critical to living a fulfilling life, but knowing the root of your depression and anxiety can also be helpful. While there are many potential causes of these mental health conditions, one of them might be hearing loss.
When you experience hearing loss, it can impact the way you interact with the world around you. You might notice that it becomes harder to keep up in the workplace because you are missing key updates during meetings and phone calls. Even more importantly, your relationship with friends and family can suffer. Hearing loss can make it difficult to feel involved during exciting group settings like birthday parties and weddings. Conversing in the middle of a lot of noise makes it hard to pick up important details and understand what is going on. There might also be an impact on more private settings. You might spend less time with your partner doing things like watching your favorite movies and television shows because you either need to increase the volume to an uncomfortable level, or you can’t hear what is going on.
After time, struggling through your interactions with others can take a toll on you. You might start withdrawing from your loved ones and avoiding social settings altogether. The loneliness might eventually cause you to feel depressed.
Many people feel anxious about medical conditions, especially with the cause is unknown. Hearing loss is a condition that can spike your anxiety. Whether it comes on suddenly or happens gradually overtime, worrying about the cause can consume your thoughts. Before you begin to feel overwhelmed by anxiety or depression, it’s important to take steps to keep your mind healthy. Here are some ways you can manage your mental health:
- Journaling
- Meditating
- Socializing regularly
- Exercising
- Maintaining a nutritious diet
- Contacting a healthcare provider
If your depression and anxiety is being amplified or caused by hearing loss, it’s important to seek help from a hearing healthcare professional. They may be able to determine if your hearing loss can be managed with hearing aids and may be able to ease some of the stress being caused by your hearing loss.
If you are worried about hearing loss negatively impacting your life, call us today to see how we can help.