What is Listening Fatigue?

Hearing loss is tiring—many people with hearing loss experience listening fatigue (also known as listener fatigue) at some point. The term refers to the mental, physical and emotional exhaustion from overworking your brain while trying to hear. That fatigue is an early sign of hearing loss and will happen more frequently as hearing loss progresses. People with hearing loss will likely have to take breaks from conversations and noisy environments to give their brain time to recoup.

Why do we experience listening fatigue?
With hearing loss, your brain has to work harder to hear and listen. Hearing loss can prevent your brain from processing auditory information, and you may find it difficult to keep up in conversation, follow along with a TV show or effectively communicate in noisy environments. As a result, many people with hearing loss will experience listening fatigue symptoms, such as low energy, difficulty concentrating, elevated stress or shifts in mood.

One thing to note: Listening fatigue usually doesn’t occur without hearing loss. If you have listening fatigue, you likely have some degree of hearing loss.

What parts of the brain process sound?
The sound-processing function of the brain consists of three main parts: the temporal lobe, Wernicke’s area and Broca’s area. Here’s a short summary of each part.

• The temporal lobe: The area where the primary auditory cortex lies, which is the part that receives sensory, auditory information from the inner ear;
• Wernicke’s area: The location that comprehends speech;
• Broca’s area: The part in charge of speech production

Sound first goes through the outer ear, then through the ear canal to the eardrum. The incoming sound waves vibrate the eardrum, which then goes along to the middle ear. Bones within the middle ear subsequently convert the vibrations into mechanical energy and send that energy to the inner ear. There, the mechanical energy causes tiny hair cells to move, creating electrical signals. Those signals are carried by the auditory nerve to the brain, where they are processed as sound. That’s when the auditory message is interpreted and understood!

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