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Depression and noise sensitivity


Emotional Exhaustion Can Lead to Noise Sensitivity - Depression Center

Women today are exhausted and stressed-out! Between jobs, children, household chores, and social obligations, women today are busier and more tired than ever. One recently discovered consequence of this exhaustion is hypersensitivity to sound, when the noise level of a normal conversation can seem uncomfortably loud.

Now you know why certain music might stress you, why loud-talkers might upset you, and why traffic noise might make you feel a little on edge.

Scientists at the Karolinska Institute and Stockholm University's Stress Research Institute in Sweden looked at how sensitive women were to sounds immediately after a few minutes of artificially induced stress. The study builds on past research showing a link between stress, emotional exhaustion, and hearing problems such as tinnitus, a constant ringing in the ears.

"We know that stress and hearing are related, and that those with stress-related disorders often display maladaptive reactions to acute stress," explains Dan Hasson, PhD, an associate professor in the Karolinska Institute's department of physiology and pharmacology who is also affiliated with the Stress Research Institute. Hasson and his fellow researchers decided to dig deeper by investigating the effects of acute stress on hypersensitivity to sound in people with different levels of chronic emotional exhaustion. Their main question: Would people with chronic emotional exhaustion be more sensitive to sound after being exposed to short-term stress?

Observing experimentally induced stress: To find the answer, the researchers exposed 208 women and 140 men, 23 to 71 years old and with low, medium, or high levels of emotional exhaustion, to five minutes of experimentally induced stress. That stress took three forms: physical (placing one of their hands in ice), mental (performance on a computer-based test), and social (being observed).

The results: Women with a high level of emotional exhaustion were more sensitive to sound after artificially induced stress than those who were not exhausted. Some women experienced hearing sound at 60 decibels -- the level of a normal conversation -- as a noise so loud that it was uncomfortable to them. Men in the study experienced a similar reaction, but it was not statistically significant.

Link between stress and hearing: So what do these results mean? From a broad perspective, there's a clear link between hearing problems and stress, Dr. Hasson says, so when a woman presents a hearing issue to her physician, potential stressors in her life should also be evaluated.

There are also some implications in terms of physiology: Health care professionals may be able to use stress hormone levels to determine the risk for hearing problems in emotionally exhausted women.

"It was interesting to see the individual variation between the subjects in terms of their sensitivity to stress," says Jonas Bergquist, PhD, a chemistry professor at Uppsala University in Sweden and a co-author of the study. "The study presents new and exciting data suggesting objective biochemical markers, like stress hormones, can be analyzed over time."

The research also points out a need to recognize the potential consequences of being overly sensitive to sound. Hypersensitivity to sound can be disabling for some people, forcing them to isolate themselves and to avoid stressful situations.

"It's also important to note that, pre-stress, there was no difference in sensitivity to sounds between the emotional exhaustion groups," Hasson says. The emotionally exhausted women developed hypersensitivity to sound only after they were exposed to one of the acute stressors. "This is important clinically, because there may be a need to induce some form of stress in these patients in order to make a proper hearing assessment and treatment," he explains.

What it means to the average person: All of this may have implications for the average person. If you're emotionally exhausted from work, from taking care of children and family, from a lack of sleep, or any combination of these circumstances, pay attention to changes in your hearing, particularly after you've been exposed to a short-term stressor. If you notice symptoms like ringing in your ears or sudden loud noise, talk to your doctor.

Also try to combat sources of your emotional exhaustion. "Don't try to do everything at once. Instead, set priorities," advises LeslieBeth Wish, PhD, a psychologist and social worker in Sarasota, Fla. If you start to feel stressed and overwhelmed, take a break and don't be afraid to delegate some of your responsibilities to your partner or children, she says.

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On Noise, Answering the Telephone and Making Decisions

Living with Depression, With Audio | by Blurt Team | Print This Post

Depression both heightens and numbs. It’s an illness full of contradiction and confusion. The simple things become the hard things; sapping our motivation, headspace and energy. Fighting the negative thoughts is a never-ending cycle of frustration, anguish and despair. It’s no wonder then, that seemingly simple tasks become anything but simple.

Things which were never a problem before, become overwhelming. Frightening, even. A source of shame.

We wanted to shine the spotlight on three everyday things which are easily taken for granted when we’re well. These three seemingly simple things can affect our day-to-day lives and lead us to feel incredibly misunderstood.

Depression and Noise

Many people with depression experience a deafening barrage of thoughts, all day (and night). They’re intense, loud, painful, and emotionally draining. It’s a noisy illness in that respect. Sometimes they grow so loud and so vast, that they merge into a ball of numbness. We can’t make head nor tail of them.

Which might explain why there’s often a sensitivity to external noise or anything which might overload our senses; chatter, loud music, noises competing against one another, bright lights and clutter. Everyday ‘normal level’ noise which doesn’t bother us when we’re well nor does it tend to bother those around us. They just sound so loud, threatening and intense. We’ll do anything to avoid them; decline social invitations, wear headphones and avoid busy places.

Answering the telephone

A texter, not a talker? You’re not alone. Many of those with depression agree that a ringing telephone can be a source of stress, as well as the prospect of having to make a telephone call.

In a day and age where there are so many non-talking means of communication, you’d think that talking on the telephone could be avoided. That’s not always the case.

Making a telephone call can take a lot of courage. We plan what we might say but worry that we might be interrupting what you are doing. Or that you might not answer and we’ll have to go through the courage build-up all over again.

We’re not being standoffish, rude, or ignorant if we don’t answer the telephone. It just feels darn impossible; our hearts start to race, we feel on edge and we will the phone to just. Stop. Ringing. We don’t mean to push you away.

Text communications allow us time to think, to consider our responses. If we’re being asked to do something, saying ‘no’ is much easier via text. We don’t always have the strength either, to pretend we’re okay. That’s far easier via text too.

Making decisions

We make hundreds of teeny decisions in a day. Some of them are easy, some of them much harder. Depression changes our cognitive functions. Decisions are difficult.

You see, ordinarily, our feelings are our signposts – they guide us to make decisions, tell us what works for us and what doesn’t work for us, who we enjoy spending time with and those who we don’t enjoy spending time with. It’s so important to listen to those feelings, to digest them and explore the route of them too. They also highlight our wonky boundaries (you know, those times we’ve agreed to do something for someone because we feel we ought to, and then resented every single second of it or because we’re so exhausted and have nothing to left to give). But we don’t trust our feelings when we’re unwell with depression. We know our perspective is skewed.

Sometimes decisions are hard because we don’t have the headspace. Sometimes they’re hard because we just don’t care enough about the outcome. Sometimes they’re hard because they’re too big. Sometimes we just want the decision to be made for us. And sometimes, we know that the decision should wait because the indifference we feel will lead to a poor choice.

We’re scared of making mistakes, you see. They validate the thoughts of being worthless, useless, hopeless and helpless. They give depression fuel. Mistakes hurt us. Our confidence, in ourselves, is at an all-time low. The grey, muddy filter that depression adds to our outlook, only serves to make all choices, not-so-great ones.

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Mental hyperesthesia

Mental hyperesthesia — painful exacerbation of elementary sensitivity. Sometimes it is possible to establish that the amplification concerns only one component of sensations - emotional or receptive. In the first case, patients emphasize an unpleasant, irritating shade of sensations, in the second, they first of all note an increase in the intensity of sensations. More often, perhaps, both of these components are amplified. In those frequent cases when hyperesthesia is accompanied by a distinct reaction of suffering, one should apparently state the fact of painful mental hyperesthesia - by analogy with painful mental anesthesia. nine0005

Both of these phenomena, if they occur in depression, can replace each other. For example, in mild depression, symptoms of painful mental hyperesthesia are more common. With the deepening of depression, manifestations of painful mental a- or hypoesthesia come to the fore. For example, the patient notes that he is irritated by bright lights and loud noises. At the same time, he experiences a vagueness of perception and even the unreality of what is happening around him, a dulling of tactile sensitivity. He also reports that at times he does not feel his legs and arms, as if he does not have them, but at the same time “the head does not float, it becomes clear, and everything around is perceived quite clearly.” nine0005

It is not uncommon for patients to report an increase in only some of the submodalities of the corresponding sensations. There are complaints in which there is an increase in the intensity of some sensations (or submodalities) and at the same time a dulling of others. For example: “Quiet sounds are perceived louder than usual, and loud ones, on the contrary, they seem to fly past the ears ... The light is so bright that it hurts the eyes, and I hear the sounds as if at a distance.” With intoxication psychoses, the phenomena of hyperesthesia of external sensations often predominate, with endogenous psychoses - in the area of ​​someesthesia. The noted dissociation primarily affects, apparently, reciprocal sensations and their modalities. We believe that such symptoms should be designated by a special term, such as, for example, the phenomenon of paradoxical sensitivity. Let us indicate the following manifestations of mental hyperesthesia. nine0005

Mental hyperalgesia - exacerbation of pain sensitivity. It is observed in various disease states and apparently has a different nature. So, in patients with mild depression, various pains, both acute and chronic, localized in various parts of the body, often appear or worsen. This kind of pain often does not have any anatomical basis and appears, apparently, in connection with vegetosomatic disorders and hyperactivation of self-perception mechanisms. Sometimes, at the same time, the former, as if forgotten pains “come to life”. These are, for example, pains in places of old fractures and wounds. Depressive hyperalgesia N. Petrilovich (1970) described it under the name algic melancholy. With the deepening of depression, hyperalgesia is replaced by analgesia. The phenomena of hyperalgesia in the form of a recurrence of pain previously observed in somatic diseases often occur during opium morphine intoxication.

It is known that pains can appear or intensify if the patient watches someone hurt another person - synpsychalgia. There is such a type of pain when patients seem to appropriate the pain of another person. Someone broke, for example, a leg, and the patient feels pain at the same time, and in the same place. There are imaginary pains. Reincarnating, for example, in another person, the patient feels the same pain that this person has or should have. And he suffers from this pain. Probably, the words that the pain of another person is best tolerated are not always true. Cases are also described when an actor or writer gets used to someone's role so much that they experience real pains that correspond to this role. The hysterical algias and the pains of hypochondriacs seem to have the same origin. In all the cases just mentioned, the pains are imaginary, associated with a violation of self-perception. nine0005

In more than half of the cases of chronic pain, the pain does not have an actual organic basis. It occurs much later after illness, accompanied by severe and persistent pain. Such pain arises, probably, because the patient, firstly, is interested in it for some reason, he seems to want to return to the position of a sick person. Secondly, this pain is not just a memory of it. The patient really feels it, albeit in an exaggerated form. Forgotten pain returns, perhaps because the idea of ​​it is somehow transformed into pain itself. The only explanation for why this is happening seems to be that morbid fantasies are turned into subjective reality by the disruption of self-perception. Interest in pain can have different motives. nine0005

Some patients with chronic pain syndrome use pain as a means of pressure on others, subordinating them to themselves. Such patients really become tyrants in the family. Cases are known when such patients try to subjugate doctors to their will, each time triumphing in their futile attempts to eliminate pain with the help of medicines - the syndrome of killing luminaries. The desirability of pain may also be related to the fact that pain enables the patient to freely use drugs. Pain as an effective way of self-punishment for sins has always been in demand by the saints and martyrs of the church. For sexual masochists, pain, to its known limits, is important as a necessary element of the intimate side of their life. In other words, a person would not be such if he did not find the meaning and use of pain to his advantage. nine0005

Nyctalgia or hypnoanalgesia is manifested by increased pain during sleep. Morning pain is the pain of depressed patients with diurnal mood swings, when the symptoms of depression are worse in the morning hours. Evening pains are observed in depression, if its manifestations increase at sunset or closer to night. Painful akinesia is a state of immobility from pain, which is aggravated by movement. This symptom is described in hysteria, endogenous depression, schizophrenia (Mobius, 1891).

Paresthetic brachialgia is manifested by pain and paresthesia in the hands upon waking from sleep (Wartenberg, 1932). According to the observations of Lopez-Ibor (1973), it often occurs with latent depression. A similar disorder is the Wittmann-Ekbom (1861, 1945) restless leg syndrome, which occurs with various disorders, including the phenomena of neurolepsy.

Psychic hyperopsia - painful exacerbation of visual sensations. Ordinary illumination is perceived by patients as excessive, blinding - galeropia. The symptom is described, in particular, in carbon monoxide poisoning. Patients report that the light cuts, tires the eyes, irritates them, forces them to wear dark glasses, curtain windows during the day, leave the house only in the evening. At the same time, the color perception is exacerbated. Colors seem excessively bright, saturated, color shades are perceived much more clearly. The contours of objects are perceived much more clearly. The letters of the text are seen as “convex, faceted, gothic”, the objects are sharp, standing out against the background like a bas-relief. This violation is often found in asthenia, depression, mania, intoxication with psychostimulants, at the beginning of acute psychosis. nine0005

Psychic hyperacusis — painful exacerbation of auditory sensations. Sounds of normal intensity seem to patients unbearably loud, deafening, causing irritation and even physical pain: “I can’t stand noise, knocks, sounds of conversation, they torment me, I dream of complete silence ... The sounds literally hit the brain, penetrate the skull, the head, it seems, is about to split from them ... Hearing sharply sharpened. I hear the cat stomping, the clock strikes like a sledgehammer. I even hear a mouse rustling in a hole and a sparrow jumping on the roof. The noise behind the wall is exhausting, I don’t know how to distract myself from it. I began to hear the neighbor snoring on the floor above, and if a child runs there, it just torments me ... I never thought how many different sounds there are in the night, I hadn’t heard them before, but now I can’t understand what those sounds are. . Psychic hyperacusia can be combined with auditory agnosia and with typhus - Botkin's phenomenon (1868). nine0005

Psychic hypergeusia — painful exacerbation of taste sensations. It is often selective, that is, it concerns individual submodalities of taste sensitivity. Often the taste and even the appearance of food cause disgust, accompanied by nausea, and sometimes vomiting. There is also the opposite picture, when taste sensations deliver unusual pleasure, up to pleasure.

Psychic hyperosmia is a painful exacerbation of olfactory sensitivity. Often it is very selective and is combined with hypergeusia. Smells are not only perceived very sharply, but are also accompanied by various emotions, both negative and positive. This indicates the prevailing mood background. Elevation of mood is combined with a pleasant emotional accompaniment of smells, depression is usually accompanied by unpleasant emotions: “I can’t stand the smell of tobacco and fumes, they make me sick . .. sick people smells so strongly of something very unpleasant that in the crowd I can identify one of them ... I can’t stand the smell of cologne at all, I feel sick ... I don’t try soup or borscht for salt, I determine by smell, is there enough salt in them... I really like the way girls smell, this feeling of something spring and joyful. nine0005

Psychic hypernaphia — painful exacerbation of sensations of touch. It can relate to different tactile submodalities: “Clothes literally dig into my body, crush, constrain, squeeze ... I feel the slightest movement of air ... I feel before the rain, how damp it pulls ... I can’t stand it when they touch me, I even shudder ... I can’t comb it, it hurts to touch my hair ... I hear wheezing in my daughter’s lungs with my hands.

Psychic hyperbaresthesia — painful exacerbation of sensations of pressure and weight: “The body is heavy, as if made of lead... Such a heaviness has fallen, as if some kind of load has been placed on top. .. There is such heaviness in my arms and legs that I can hardly move them.. The bucket of water has become terribly heavy, I can’t believe that I used to lift something heavier as a joke ... I took off the chain, it presses so hard that it hurts. nine0005

Psychic hyperbatesthesia — painful exacerbation of kinesthetic sensations: "I feel my eyes moving, my hair moving... It became difficult to move, I could hardly move my legs." Some patients catch ideomotor acts: “As soon as I think about doing something, I immediately feel that the body starts to move ... I’m just about to say something, but my tongue is already moving.” Many patients report that they cannot remain at rest for a long time, as soon they begin to feel aches, pulling sensations in the muscles, some kind of discomfort, a desire to change position. nine0005

Psychic hyperstatesthesia — painful exacerbation of static feeling. Many patients complain, for example, of "dizziness" in the head, swaying sensations when walking, an easy feeling of loss of balance, for example, when turning or raising the head, tilting the body. There is even a slight acceleration of movement in a bus, train, not to mention passenger transport, an airplane.

Psychic hyperpallesthesia - painful exacerbation of vibration sensations:

“I feel in my body how the window panes rattle from the noise... First I feel that a car is moving, and only then I hear the sound of the engine... Everything inside is shaking like jelly... Everything inside is trembling, trembling, as if rolling over in waves. .. The pulse beats like a hammer in the temples and gives off throughout the body ... The heart beats heavily, strongly, hits like a sledgehammer. S.S. Korsakov (1912) described the intensification of internal sensations under the name disproportionate perceptions.

Psychic hyperthermesthesia - painful exacerbation of temperature sensitivity: “It seems that I am burning all over, but the temperature is normal ... From a distance I feel that the child’s temperature has risen ... I am completely cold, in the summer I dress in everything warm, but I can’t get warm, I'm still cold. " It also happens like this: “I’m burning all over and at the same time I’m freezing ... I feel that I’m all cold, sweaty, but inside it’s hot, it’s hot there. Or I’m burning all over, red, but inside it’s cold, I freeze there. The temperature is normal." nine0005

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Treatment of depression, dizziness and tinnitus – Tinnitus Neuro Clinic.

1 Dec 2017 Causes of subjective tinnitus Tinnitus, Diagnosis, Treatment, Tinnitus

Neurologists often have to work at the intersection of neurological and psychiatric problems. A vivid example of this is the combination of depression with typical neurological symptoms - dizziness, noise in the head, tinnitus. nine0005

The most difficult thing in working with such patients is to find what comes first in these symptoms. Only then can we expect that the assistance provided will be effective, and the result achieved will be lasting.

Contents of the article:

  • 1 Dizziness, tinnitus, depression - what do you have in common?
  • 2 What causes tinnitus and depression?
    • 2. 1 What are the complaints against the background of depression?
    • 2.2 Diagnosis
    • 2.3 Treatment
      • 2.3.1 Advanced treatment for depression and tinnitus

Dizziness, tinnitus, depression – what do you have in common?

In recent decades, much attention has been paid to the psycho-emotional state of patients. Thanks to this, it was possible to discover parallels between organic damage to brain tissues and behavioral reactions.

An inverse relationship between mental personality accentuations and vestibulo-cochlear disorders has also been proven.

Prolonged and exhausting bouts of dizziness, incessant tinnitus, inevitably affect the patient's psyche. In such cases, the development of depression is just a matter of time. nine0005

In turn, the depressive state is manifested by:

  • Irritability.
  • "Flying" pains.
  • Bad dream.
  • Noise in the head.
  • Vertigo.
  • Memory disorders.
  • Cardioneurosis.

Depending on the severity of certain symptoms, a patient with depression will go to therapists, orthopedists, cardiologists, neuropathologists for months or years.

As a rule - without much success, which will further spur and provoke the patient's negative moods. nine0005

When contacting the Tinnitus Neuro Restorative Neurology Clinic, each person is guaranteed to receive a consultation from a highly qualified specialist.

What causes tinnitus and depression?

The statistics of visits show that lesions of the brain tissue in one way or another lead to depression. Reasons for similar:

Similar:

  • Atherosclerotic processes.
  • Osteochondrosis.
  • Instability of the cervical spine. nine0087
  • Injuries and their consequences.
  • Chronic endocrine and autoimmune diseases.
  • Tumors of the central nervous system.
  • Stenosis of the vertebral, carotid, subclavian arteries.
  • Infectious diseases - meningitis, encephalitis.

What are the complaints against the background of depression?

The patient begins to worry about the weakening of memory, reduction of adaptive properties, flexibility of behavior, noise in the head, ears. This mechanism is more common in older people, combined with dementia. nine0005

Constant background noise leads to chronic stress, and through it - to depression.

It may be the other way around - depressive neurosis or psychosis cause psychogenic cochleo-vestibular disorders.

In favor of the fact that the problem requires a serious attitude is indicated by a significant number of young people of working age who turn to doctors with such complaints.

It is important to know that as the vascular disorder progresses, the patient's complaints decrease. This does not indicate a relief of the condition, but that a sick person in a state of deep depression ceases to pay attention to health problems. nine0005

In such cases, it is very important to be attentive on the part of relatives, whose task is to immediately consult a person with a qualified neuropathologist.

Diagnostics

When specialists find the true cause of neurological and psychological problems, then its elimination will be the main step for the patient to recovery.

The Tinnitus Neuro clinic uses the widest possible range of techniques:

  • Clinical and biochemical tests. nine0087
  • Blood electrolytes and trace elements.
  • Functional tests to evaluate the work of the CNS departments.
  • Comprehensive audiometry.
  • CT or MRI of the neck, head.
  • Ultrasound using Doppler transducers.
  • Electroencephalography.
  • Consultation by a qualified psychiatrist.

The results obtained are carefully analyzed by our specialists, which allows us to confidently find the source of the pathology.

Further actions depend on the established diagnosis. nine0005

Therapeutic measures

The Tinnitus Neuro clinic uses the most effective conservative methods:

  • Modern nootropics.
  • Vasodilator drugs.
  • Drugs that improve the metabolism of brain cells.
  • Vitamin complexes.
  • Normalization of the electrolyte balance of the blood.
  • Psychostimulants.
  • Anxiolytics.

If necessary, we organize psychotherapy sessions at a high professional level. nine0005

Advanced treatment for depression and tinnitus

Tinnitus Neuro Restorative Neurology Clinic uses unique innovative techniques in practice:

  • Virtual reality technology.
  • Biofeedback system.
  • Neurocomputer interface.

The latest developments, advanced and in many ways unique experience of the clinic's specialists, make it possible to achieve a positive effect in the vast majority of patients. nine0005

If conservative care obviously turns out to be ineffective, for example, in case of tumor processes, we will refer the person to a specialized doctor with all the results of the research.

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