(NEW YORK) -- A new study indicates that emotionally exhausted
women are much more sensitive to sounds when they are stressed,
Health Day reports. Swedish researchers found that even a normal
conversation can be painful for some of these women, and the
study suggests that doctors may need to consider patients'
stress and exhaustion levels when treating hearing problems,
Health Day says. The researchers exposed 208 women and 140 men
between 23 and 71 years of age who had low, medium or high
levels of emotional exhaustion to five minutes of physical,
mental and social stress. Although none of the groups had
different sensitivity to sound before being exposed to stress,
the study showed that women with high levels of emotional
exhaustion were much more sensitive to sounds after being
exposed to stress than other women who were not exhausted. The
study's authors noted that although similar changes could be
seen in men, the differences were not statistically significant,
according to Health Day. The study was rece