What @MrGrimm888 wrote. Your ear canal is supposed to have a natural oil that happily has wax & bug bits etc slowly sliding out of your ear all by itself. Cotton tends to remove the oil, breaking the coveyance and leading to backups and clogs and blocks leading to reduced hearing, infections, etc.
Oh and in addition to that, touching too far in can actually do direct permanent damage that could affect your hearing. So don’t.
Every year or so I end up going to a doctor and having them clean out the horrible accumulations of earwax from if/when I use my finger or q-tip and it gets all blocked up. Except when I don’t. Once I noticed my hearing fall off after a month or so. This last time, I’ve been avoiding q-tip use and I think I’m still pretty good after maybe 9 months.
When the doctor does it, he uses a water pick, bucket, and sometimes a light and tweezers etc.
I know people who have had that treatment from a technician and have to come back on a later day to finish it. Ears can get pretty full of stuff.