With chronic tinnitus, it isn’t the ringing in your ears that’s the actual issue. It’s the continual never ending ringing, that’s the real issue.
The constant noise, perhaps rather modest in volume, may start as little more than an annoyance. But after a day or a week or a month, that ringing or buzzing can become irritating, frustrating, even debilitating.
That’s why it’s crucial that if you are living with tinnitus you follow some tips to make life easier. When you’re lying in bed, having trouble falling asleep because you keep hearing buzzing from your right ear, having a plan is going to do you a world of good.
How You Can Exacerbate Your Tinnitus
It’s important to remember 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. In other moments, that ringing could be as hard to dismiss as a full-blown, personalized symphony.
That can leave you in a very frightening place of uncertainty. Perhaps you even experience panic attacks while driving to work because you’re concerned about your tinnitus flaring up while you’re in a meeting. That panic attack, in and of itself, can trigger the very episode you’re worried about.
Tips For Living With Tinnitus
The more you know about tinnitus, the better you can prepare for and manage the effects. And management is the key since tinnitus doesn’t have a known cure. There’s no reason that your quality of life needs to suffer if you put in place the right treatment.
Think About Tinnitus Retraining Therapy
Many treatments for tinnitus incorporate some kind of tinnitus retraining therapy (or TRT). The sound of rain on a rooftop is a common analogy: very noticeable at the start of a storm, but you stop focusing on it after a while and that rain-on-rooftops sound goes into the background. It’s the same basic strategy with TRT, teaching your brain to move that ringing into the background of your thoughts where it’s easier to disregard.
It can take practice to master this technique.
Distract Your Brain
One of the reasons that tinnitus can be so frustrating is because your brain is constantly searching for the source of that sound, trying to alert you to its presence. So supplying your brain with more (and varied) stimulation to concentrate on can be helpful. You could:
- Enjoy some time outdoors listening to the sounds of nature.
- Take a bubble bath while reading a book.
- Do some drawing or painting while listening to music.
You get the point: engaging your brain can help you manage your tinnitus.
Alternately, many people have discovered that meditation helps because it concentrates your attention on something else, your breathing, a mantra, and so on. Another advantage of meditation, at least for some, is that it can lower blood pressure which is a known cause of tinnitus symptoms.
Think about a Hearing Aid For Tinnitus Management
Hearing aids that help minimize tinnitus symptoms are already being manufactured by several hearing aid companies. This solution is really convenient because they are small and out of your way compared to other approaches. The ringing will be managed by the hearing aid and you can relax and enjoy your life.
Make a Plan (And Stick to it)
Having a plan for unforeseen spikes can help you handle your stress-out reaction, and that can help you decrease certain tinnitus episodes (or at least keep from exacerbating them). Pack a bag of practical items to take with you. Anything that can help you be ready for a tinnitus spike, even creating a list of helpful exercises will be good because it will keep you from panicking!
The Key is Management
Chronic tinnitus is a condition that has no known cure. But that doesn’t mean that people cannot regulate and treat their tinnitus. Make sure you are dealing with your tinnitus not suffering from it by using these tips and any others that you find helpful.
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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
