Skye's advice on concentration fatigue
Published Date: 30 May 2024
Concentration and listening fatigue is extremely common in D/deaf people. We have to concentrate much harder to understand conversations, hear what people are saying and deal with the background noise. Whether that’s through a hearing device, lip-reading or sign language, it’s all very tiring and draining.
Effect on deaf people
For some deaf people, concentration fatigue can cause:
- sleepiness in the morning
- difficulty concentrating
- giving up easily as tasks are trickier
- getting frustrated quicker
- mood changes.
On a personal level I struggle with concentration fatigue immensely. I come home most days absolutely exhausted and in bad moods as I’m so tired and overstimulated. During work I can get stressed and emotional because I don’t know how to deal with it all, and the only thing I want to do is crawl into bed and take my implants out.
People tend to not realise that I have to listen even harder to interpret a conversation (I can only hear approximately 50% to 60% of conversation with lip reading). It’s even worse when there is immense background noise, meaning everyone’s speech is more muffled.
Tips
The following has helped me with my concentration fatigue.
- wearing a hearing device
- have quiet times in the day where you can take your device out and breathe
- do not overload your schedule
- explain to those around you about your struggle with it
- find a safe way to help destress, whether that’s music, watching TV, naps or so on.
Make sure that you think of yourself first and feel confident enough to explain to people if you need to move into a quieter room or if you need to cancel plans in order to rest and relax.
Please take care of yourself, and if you need time in silence then you have every right to it.
Stay kind,
Skye x
