The actual problem with chronic tinnitus isn’t simply that you have a ringing in your ears. The real issue is that the ringing won’t stop.
At first, this may be a mild noise that’s not much more than a bit irritating. But the ringing can become frustrating and even debilitating if it goes on for days or months or more.
That’s why it’s essential that if you are living with tinnitus you follow some tips to make life easier. It can make a big difference if you have a plan when you’re lying in bed struggling to fall asleep because of the ringing or buzzing in your ear.
How You Can Worsen Your Tinnitus
It’s beneficial to keep in mind that tinnitus is often not static. Symptoms manifest themselves in spikes and valleys. Sometimes, your tinnitus might be an afterthought, hidden in the background of everyday life. At other times the noises will be screeching in your ears so loudly it’s impossible to disregard.
This can be a very uncertain and scary situation. You might be so worried about your tinnitus flaring up while you’re in a meeting that you get a panic attack while driving to work. That panic attack, in and of itself, can trigger the very situation you’re concerned about.
Tips For Living With Tinnitus
The more you understand about tinnitus, the better you can plan for and manage the effects. And, because there’s no known cure for tinnitus, management of symptoms is essential. With the correct management, there’s no reason that chronic tinnitus has to negatively impact your quality of life.
Tinnitus Retraining Therapy is One Approach
Several treatment options for tinnitus include some kind of tinnitus retraining therapy (or TRT). The analogy that gets floated around frequently is the sound of rain on your rooftops: very apparent at the start of a storm, but you stop focusing on it after a while and that rain-on-rooftops sound fades into the background. TRT uses the same principle to train your brain to move the tinnitus symptoms into the background of your thoughts so you will have an easier time tuning it out.
It can take training to master this technique.
Get Your Brain Distracted
Your brain is constantly searching for the source of the sound and that’s one of the reasons why tinnitus can be so frustrating. So supplying your brain with a range of different sounds to focus on can be very helpful. Try these:
- Play music while you paint a picture.
- Take a bubble bath and read a book.
- Take a book to the park and listen to the birds while you read.
you get the gist: engaging your brain can help you manage your tinnitus.
Meditation, as an alternate path, helps you concentrate your attention on a mantra, or your breathing which helps take your focus away from your tinnitus. Some people have discovered that meditation reduces their blood pressure, which can also be helpful with tinnitus.
Manage Tinnitus With a Hearing Aid
Hearing aids that help minimize tinnitus symptoms are already being developed by several hearing aid companies. Hearing aids are an ideal solution because you put them in and can forget about them the whole day, you won’t need to carry around a white noise generator or constantly use an app. You can relax and let a discreet hearing aid manage the ringing for you.
Make a Plan (And Stick to it)
Having a plan for unexpected spikes can help you control your stress-out response, and that can help you decrease certain tinnitus episodes (or at least keep from exacerbating them). Pack a bag of useful items to bring with you. Anything that can help you be ready for a tinnitus spike, even creating a list of helpful exercises will be beneficial because it will keep you from panicking!
The Key is Management
Chronic tinnitus is an affliction that has no known cure. But that doesn’t mean that people can’t regulate and treat their tinnitus. These everyday tips (and more similar to them) can help make certain you are living with tinnitus, and not suffering from tinnitus.
References
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3303565/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5050200/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17956798/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4447068/
https://journals.plos.org/ploscompbiol/article?id=10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008664