My PD fragmented sleep may be exacerbating my impaired hearing. See 1- 4 below.
Have Sleep Problems? Your Ears Could Be to Blame | Psychology Today
Excerpt:
... sleep deprivation can lead to health consequences. I’ve written about the connection between sleep and obesity, sleep and diabetes, and countless other chronic conditions.
It also can lead to, or accelerate hearing loss in the following ways.
Sleep Deprivation Leads to Mental Fatigue
[1] Countless studies have tracked the connection between reduced cognitive function and sleep deprivation. Think of sleep as the way our body restores itself, from muscle to cell repair. All of us don’t function as well. There was even a study from researchers at Baylor University that found that medical interns who were sleep deprived showed a significantly declined performance in patient care, which ties into previous studies that show we’re more likely to make more mistakes and have poor judgment when we’re sleep deprived.
[2] Hearing takes mental power. In order to understand speech, your brain must first shift through and filter background sounds and process information. Your brain’s ability to process that information is when mental fatigue has set in–meaning you may have more trouble hearing or aggravate an existing hearing loss condition...
[3] In a 2019 study published in Nature, researchers discovered that chronic sleep disorders or insomnia can lead to lower levels of a hormone called hypocretin, which is responsible for regulating sleep cycles. But they also found that sleep deprived mice developed significantly more plaques in the arteries.
[4] More plaque in the arteries and reduced circulation, meanwhile, has been tied to hearing loss. Your inner ear has a section called the cochlea, which plays a major role in hearing and processing sounds. In order for this to work, your arteries pump blood to this part of the ear. Reduced blood circulation from lack of sleep, we are learning, can account for cases of unexplained hearing loss...
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