Tinnitus can be inconvenient and frustrating. The constant ringing may make it hard to hear or concentrate, and its ongoing presence has been known to cause stress. These effects make living with tinnitus difficult. It can also cause some ripple effects throughout your health, and one such effect is brain fog.
What Is Brain Fog?
As the name suggests, brain fog tends to make you feel a little hazy in the brain. Brain fog is characterized by feelings of diminished mental energy (also called mental fatigue). This could look like:
- Difficulty concentrating
- Issues with executive function
- Feeling mentally slow or sluggish
- Communication difficulties, such as having a hard time following a conversation or thinking of what word you want to say
- Forgetfulness
- Spacing out
- Feeling physically fatigued
Your brain needs energy to function, and you do not possess infinite reserves of it. If your brain is running low on energy for any reason, you might experience brain fog.
How Does Tinnitus Cause Brain Fog?
Tinnitus can use up a lot of your mental energy. It taxes the auditory processing center—the part of your brain responsible for receiving, processing and hearing sound—by obscuring the sounds you do need to hear and requiring the auditory processing center to process the sound of tinnitus like it would any other sound. As a result, the brain has to work harder, expending more energy and causing brain fog and cognitive impairment.
Furthermore, focus takes mental energy. If you’re focusing on the sound of tinnitus, you have less energy to focus on other things, such as a task you’re trying to accomplish or a conversation you’re trying to participate in. This can lead to many of the symptoms listed above; difficulty concentrating and being unable to recall words, for example. That is how tinnitus causes mental drain that leads to brain fog.
How to Cope with Tinnitus and Brain Fog
Brain fog can be helped by prioritizing a healthy diet, good sleep and a consistent routine. Be intentional about getting energy into your system and be efficient about how you spend your energy. Good sleep is truly vital, and it is linked to helping with tinnitus, too.
Managing tinnitus can be done in a variety of ways. Tinnitus is closely linked to stress, so any de-stressing activities may help reduce tinnitus. Masking tinnitus with white noise or background music has also been successful for some people.
You can also seek out a hearing health professional and ask about starting a tinnitus management plan, such as tinnitus retraining therapy or cognitive behavioral therapy. If you’re interested in this, give Gulf Coast Audiology a call. We can help with your tinnitus, and indirectly, with your brain fog.