Have you noticed that sometimes, there’s just days that are a little tougher than other days? Like, some days feel socially exhausting for no obvious reason. Meaning that nothing “bad” happened, nobody was rude, the plans were fine, and yet getting home feels like the battery got fully drained. Sure, you could blame being an introvert if you are one, maybe your mental health, or even just being out and being busy for way too long the day before.
But yeah, it’s like the brain is done, the body wants silence, and even a simple text reply feels like homework, or more than that, maybea whole entire thesis. So what gives? What’s with this whole intensity?
Well, yeah, it’s easy to chalk that up to being introverted, being stressed, being “overstimulated,” or just having too much going on. However, there’s actually another factor that gets ignored all the time: listening can be a ton of work, especially in loud, busy environments, and that work adds up fast.
It Might Not be Social Burnout
Well, it could be, but it also could not be too, you see? But it could even be listening fatigue, well, if you were somewhere loud at least. S, listening fatigue is basically what it sounds like. Actually listening can take serious effort when there’s background noise, multiple people talking, or someone who mumbles way too much.
In those moments, hearing isn’t just hearing. It’s decoding. It’s guessing what got missed. It’s trying to keep up without constantly saying, “Can you repeat that?” But at the same time, you also have to realize here that it also just adds the pressure of staying engaged, reacting normally, laughing at the right time, and not looking lost, and well, sure, it makes sense why it’s exhausting. You could compare it to thinking and speaking another language that you’re not really good at; it’s really hard on the brain to try to think of that language, to translate what other people are saying, it’s like that.
Loud Rooms Just Drain Energy
Well, honestly, it’s just as simple as that here. But yeah, restaurants are a perfect example for this. So, usually you can expect that the music will be playing fairly loud, plates are clanking, people are talking over each other, and the person across the table is competing with all of it. So if sound clarity isn’t great, the brain tries to fix it by concentrating harder. Well, granted, that sounds fine until it happens for two hours straight.
But What Can You Do to Make it Easier?
It makes sense that you want to go out, but it also makes sense that you don’t want it to be at the expense of a headache, embarrassment, just feeling tired, or even just irritable in general. So, what can you even do? Well, it might actually be time to get your hearing checked. Plus, when you go out to a concert or sports event, for example, are you taking breaks from the loud noise? Are you wearing earplugs to protect your hearing?
If you’re already wearing hearing aids, keeping things current, including hearing aid updates, can improve clarity and reduce the strain of trying to decode speech in challenging environments (and not having to stress over a bad or low battery all the time either). But overall here, please just be strategic about all of this.
It’s Really About Small Habits.
Well, the goal isn’t skipping social life here, and no, you really shouldn’t do that. Instead, it’s more about making social life easier to handle. For example, maybe just try shorter hangs instead of marathon ones. Better yet, try to plan quieter meetups sometimes, coffee, a walk, lunch, instead of always choosing the loudest option. Well, those, but maybe try to give the brain breaks during long events.
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