It’s common knowledge that stress, particularly for extended periods, can be extremely harmful to the body. Stress can cause serious muscle aches and headaches. But tinnitus, a clicking, buzzing, or ringing in the ears can also be the result.
Stress isn’t the only thing that can cause tinnitus, it can also be brought about by a sinus infection, loud noises, and other variables. Let’s have a look at a few potential causes of that irritating ringing in your ears.
How to Distinguish Unhealthy Stress
You might be asking yourself how stress lends to tinnitus. It’s often easy to ignore how serious the medical impact of stress can be on our bodies. Ignoring stress is a bad idea.
Healthy Stress
Stress that lasts a few minutes, or even a few hours, can actually play an important role in getting necessary tasks completed. Stress can provide a boost of energy and adrenalin to accomplish tasks and projects that really need to get done.
There is a difference, though, between healthy, temporary stress and unhealthy, destructive stress. The ability to accomplish goals can be assisted by healthy stress while unhealthy stress can physically harm you.
Unhealthy Stress
Unhealthy stress is caused by the fear of something that, in most cases, never actually occurs. When someone remains in a heightened state of anxiety, the outcome is often unhealthy stress.
Unhealthy stress is associates with our “fight or flight” response, a natural reaction that helps keep us protected in dangerous situations. Harmful physical symptoms happen when someone remains in a hyper-stressful situation for prolonged periods.
Worrying
Worrying is a really common cause of unhealthy stress. We might exaggerate the significance of a situation or a relationship with another person. We may have ourselves convinced that we did or said something to hurt our chances at a promotion. Unreasonable worrying can produce intrusive, seemingly uncontrollable thoughts.
Unhealthy Stress And Intrusive Thoughts
We might believe that we are falling behind and failing to complete our daily routine. Fixation, endless internal dialog, and even panic are a typical part of this type of stress. Eventually, our unhealthy stress wears on our bodies unless we take steps to curtail these thoughts.
Usually, unhealthy stress impacts the upper part of the body by creating pain and muscle tension. The shoulders, neck, head, and jaw are areas that can be impacted.
Jaw Tension And Anger
Have you ever read a book where the author portrays a character as being so angry his jaw clenched in rage? Stress, anger, worry, and invasive thoughts commonly come with jaw strain.
Continuous strain can put pressure on the fragile bones of the eardrum and inner ear. Eventually, this strain can lead to ringing in your ears.
Sinus Infections And Ear Strain
From sore throats to stuffy noses, sinus infections produce lots of unwelcome symptoms.
Sinus pressure, headaches, and pressure in the ears are typical symptoms of a sinus infection. A buzzing, clicking and ringing can be the outcome.
During a sinus infection, your nasal congestion frequently spreads to your ears. Clogging in the ears and extreme pressure on the eardrum will develop because of the excessive earwax this produces. And with this comes ringing in the ears.
If the ringing is brought on by a sinus infection it will most likely go away by itself and you won’t need to consult a hearing professional. But you should absolutely schedule an appointment with us if the ringing lasts for more than a few days.
Prolonged Exposure to Loud Noises
Lasting ringing in the ears will most likely not manifest as a result of the occasional concert. If you routinely expose your ears to very loud sounds, however, you could be putting stress on the tender areas of your ears.
When you expose your ears to intense noises frequently, your eardrums and the bones of the inner ears are strained, which can produce ringing, buzzing, or clicking.
Above and beyond ringing in the ears, temporary or even permanent hearing loss can be the outcome of repeated exposure to loud sounds. Listening to music at a sensible volume and wearing ear protection when necessary is indispensable for hearing health.
Safeguarding Your Ears
Whether caused by stress, muscle tension, an illness, or loud noises, tinnitus is nothing to ignore. Having your hearing tested by a hearing specialist frequently is your best bet. If you suspect the ringing in your ears has a serious underlying medical cause, you should have them checked for your peace of mind.