Imagine trying to make do with bits and pieces of sounds here and there throughout the day. You want to laugh at a joke but you never heard it. You want to respond to a colleague but you never quite heard what they said. You want to participate in a conversation but you cannot hear the responses clearly. Hearing loss does this and much more on a daily basis.
When our brain is constantly trying to make sense of intermittent sound signals that result from hearing loss, we can suffer from listener’s fatigue. This occurs to those who have been listening to any type of sound for an extended period of time.
Hearing loss tends to make it a challenge to listen to pretty much anything on a daily basis, since it prevents sound signals from reaching the brain. Due to this insufficient auditory information, the brain tries to make sense of the limited sound signals reaching it, which can result in mental exhaustion and fatigue.
Spending too much time in loud, noisy environments can worsen listener’s fatigue. Even wearing headphones can also result in similar exhaustion since sound levels are closer to the eardrums. Even those without hearing loss can experience fatigue caused by loud environments and overuse of headphones.
Ultimately, what mental fatigue comes down to is sensory overload. The problem with hearing loss is that it causes the brain to go into overdrive and try to let in too much information since it is no longer able to tell which ones are important and which ones are not. This overload is what ultimately leads to fatigue.
Too much of anything is a bad thing; the same is true for sound. If you constantly listen to any type of sound, especially loud ones, you can experience mental fatigue. This is even more common for those who have hearing loss, since their hearing is disrupted.
Hearing is already a complicated process as it is, without adding hearing loss to the mix. With hearing loss, your mind becomes puzzled as to how to balance so much multitasking. The brain is trying to make sense of simple sounds when it has other important tasks to do simultaneously, such as work-related tasks. This is why a person with hearing loss experiences mental fatigue at the end of the day. It is therefore important to get hearing aids to improve your efficiency at work and also provide some much-needed relief to your ears and brain.