It’s not fun when you’re unable to sleep at night. And when it happens on a regular basis, it’s particularly vexing. You lie awake tossing and turning, checking the time again and again, and worrying about how exhausted you will be tomorrow. When these types of sleepless nights routinely happen, medical professionals tend to use the term “insomnia”. With insomnia, the drawbacks of not sleeping will then start to add up and can, over time, have a negative influence on your overall health.
And the health of your hearing, not surprisingly, is part of your overall health. Yup, your hearing can be negatively impacted by insomnia! Though the relationship between hearing loss and insomnia may not be a cause-and-effect scenario, there’s still a connection there.
Can your hearing be affected by lack of sleep?
How could loss of sleep possibly affect your hearing? There’s a significant amount of research that indicates insomnia, over time, can affect your cardiovascular system. Without the nightly restorative power of sleep, it’s more difficult for your blood to get everywhere it needs to be.
Insomnia also means an increase in anxiety and stress. Feeling anxious and stressed will affect you in physiological ways as well as mentally.
So, how does hearing loss play into that? There are little hairs inside of your ears called stereocilia. These fragile hairs vibrate when sound takes place and the information gets sent to your brain, which then translates those vibrations into sounds.
These little hairs have a hard time remaining healthy when there are circulatory issues. In some circumstances, poor circulation can damage these hairs, permanently. And once that happens, your hearing will be irrevocably damaged. Permanent hearing loss can be the consequences, and the longer the circulation problems continue, the worse the damage will be.
Is the opposite true?
If insomnia can impact your hearing health, can hearing loss stop you from getting a good night’s sleep? It’s definitely possible. Many people favor a little background sound when they try to sleep and hearing loss can make the world really quiet. This means that the quiet of hearing loss can in some cases prevent normal sleeping. Any kind of hearing loss anxiety (for example, if you’re stressed about losing your hearing) can have a similar impact.
If you have hearing loss, what can you do to get a quality night’s sleep? Wearing your hearing aids during the day can help lessen stress on your brain at night (when you aren’t wearing them). It can also help if you implement some other sleep-health tips.
How to get a quality night’s sleep
- Try to de-stress as much as you can: Get away from work and do something relaxing before bed.
- Refrain from using alcohol before you go to bed: Your natural sleep cycle will be disturbed by drinking alcohol before bed.
- Stop drinking caffeine after noon: Even decaf coffee has enough caffeine in it to keep you awake at night if you drink at night. This includes soda as well.
- Try to avoid drinking liquids a couple of hours before bed: Every time you need to get up and go to the bathroom, you start the wake up process. So, sleeping through the night is better.
- Try not to utilize your bedroom for other activities other than sleeping: Try to minimize the amount of things you utilize your bedroom for. Working in your bedroom isn’t a very good plan.
- Exercise regularly: You may go to bed with some extra energy if you don’t get enough exercise. Being active every day can help.
- For at least 60 minutes, avoid looking at screens: (Actually, the longer the better.) Your brain tends to be activated by looking at screens.
Pay attention to the health of your hearing
You can still control your symptoms even if you have hearing loss along with some insomnia.
Schedule an appointment for a hearing exam today!