Does stress worsen the effects of tinnitus?

[naturalhearing]

A study by the Karolinska Institute in Sweden has shown that those suffering from stress, particularly long term stress, are twice as likely to suffer from tinnitus. This study comes at a timely junction what with Tinnitus Awareness Week just around the corner.

The effects of tinnitus and stress are something that we at Digital Hearing Care anecdotally have been aware of from comments our clients have told us over the years, the more stressed they feel the more prevalent the tinnitus that is already there seems to increase in intensity.

In the study, the test subjects were exposed to stressful situations, for example answering questions while at the same time being interrupted. After the test, blood tests were taken as were new hearing tests. The blood tests tested for levels of cortisol. Cortisol is a hormone which is activated in stressful situations and animal tests have shown that cortisol affects hearing.

“We found that tinnitus is 2.5 times more prevalent in people who are under long-term stress,” says Professor Barbera Canlon, who was one of the people leading the research.

Another interesting point of note was that hearing speech in noise was worse with the group that was exposed to stress. You could draw the conclusion that stress can lead to tinnitus and tinnitus can lead to stress, a bit of a vicious circle.

At Digital Hearing Care we have found that wearing hearing aids can lessen the prominence of tinnitus while you are wearing them, although not everybody gets a reduction in the perception of tinnitus it is quite common. For some the beneficial effects of wearing hearing aids to reduce tinnitus are very marked.

Most people that suffer from tinnitus also have some degree of hearing loss, although not exclusively so.

This article is based on information provided by hear-it.org a web site that has been established to increase public awareness of hearing impairment.