Will my tinnitus get worse over time is one of the most commonly asked questions. The answer, however, should fill you with hope.
Will my tinnitus get worse with time?
If you seek medical attention immediately and identify the issues that may have caused your tinnitus (i.e., exposure to loud sounds), tinnitus does not worsen over time. Aside from spikes (temporary increases in perception lasting 2-3 days), tinnitus generally lessens as your tinnitus habituation progresses.
Why your tinnitus seems worse some days.
When you notice an increase in your tinnitus intensity, take note of what you are doing.
Odds are, you are both physically and mentally idle whenever your tinnitus is roaring in your ears. With nothing else to focus on, you fix your attention on the noise. Without even realizing it, you have blundered into an ambush.
A tinnitus ambush is crazily deceptive. Even if you think you know what is happening, you are wrong. You may even believe the problem is you’re focusing too much on the sound of your tinnitus. Wrong! You aren’t not even listening to it.
Nope, what you are doing is thinking about the future ramifications of this change in your tinnitus. You think you cannot possibly cope with your tinnitus if it gets any worse.
Your escape from this ambush is closed tight the instant you begin to imagine your tinnitus reaching an unbearable level. Once you do, your tinnitus will seem much, much louder today than ever before.
Don’t get trapped in negative thoughts about tinnitus.
Never overreact when you think the ringing in your ears is worsening.
Your fears about tinnitus are certainly normal and natural. However, the initial onslaught of tinnitus can be distressing, confusing, and threatening.
However, catastrophizing your tinnitus (imagining the absolute worst possible thing that could happen) is dangerous. A severe adverse reaction will delay your healing process and make your tinnitus seem louder.
Therefore, it’s critical to understand the facts in your first three months. The vast majority of tinnitus suffers recover and lead everyday lives. You can counter negative thoughts and speed up your recovery by:
Anticipating daily fluctuations in tinnitus intensity.
Learning a few coping methods.
Adopting a positive attitude about your eventual recovery.
Need more help? You can access my book The 15 Minute Challenge for free on Amazon if you are a Kindle Unlimited subscriber.
Spikes do not mean your tinnitus is getting worse.
Tinnitus spikes are sudden, sharp increases in the intensity of your tinnitus sound. They can be painful (like having an ear infection) and demoralizing. The first thing a spike will do is convince you this is the new normal. It is not. Spikes usually subside within 1-3 days. The only practical thing you can do with a spike is wait it out.
While we all bitch and moan about spikes, they are beneficial. Like it or not, you start to habituate to the newer, louder level even during a short spike. As a result, it sounds a bit muted when your regular tinnitus returns.
So, don’t be fooled or dismayed when you get a few spikes every once in a while. Hunker down, and wait them out. Then, if you want to, spend some time exploring the potential causes of a spike. Were you eating something potentially unhealthy? Were you drinking too much alcohol? Not getting enough sleep?
To sum up, spikes are temporary, unpredictable, and always bearable. They are not signs your tinnitus is getting worse.
Tinnitus intensity changes may be related to your emotional state or activity level.
There is no better relief from tinnitus than a good night’s sleep. Rested and with your batteries charged, your tinnitus will often seem significantly reduced in the morning. If you have a solid plan for handling your day job and how you will function at work with tinnitus, your mood will also take the edge of the tinnitus noise for another eight hours.
You can also get a couple more hours of freedom from your tinnitus noise by working on simple chores.
Are you noticing anything yet? You have a great deal of control over your tinnitus. That control comes the moment you eliminate your emotional response to tinnitus. When separated from constant attention and fear, tinnitus fades for hours at a time.
Always be too busy to give your tinnitus any attention.
Tinnitus does not get worse with time; it gets better.
Within 6-18 months, you will have moved through the four stages of habituation. Often, despite your own worst efforts to prevent it. Then, in the final stage, you’ll find the peace you once thought was gone forever.
You’ll barely pay any attention to your tinnitus. The ringing in your ears will not intrude on your thoughts or have any effect on your daily activities. And finally, you will have no emotional reaction to your tinnitus.
Knowing how to measure tinnitus noise is a critical skill for tinnitus sufferers. In addition, you need to track your progress over time. The evidence you collect today will erase all doubts tomorrow.
How to measure tinnitus noise yourself.
Measuring tinnitus noise yourself is done in two steps.
Step One: Determine your tinnitus perception (how loud is it right now).
Step Two: Grade your tinnitus habituation level (your emotional reaction to the noise).
Use these two readings to take daily measurements of your tinnitus noise.
How to determine your current tinnitus perception level.
Perception is a measurement of how loud the volume of your tinnitus is right now. You can use the grading system below to help you take this measurement.
Grade 1 (Slight Tinnitus): You can only hear your Tinnitus in quiet environments. It has not affected your sleep or daily life.
Grade 2 (Mild Tinnitus): Everyday background noises are louder than your Tinnitus. It does not affect you during the day, but it is loud enough to affect your sleep often.
Grade 3 (Moderate Tinnitus): Your Tinnitus noise is louder than your usual environment. It has some effect on sleep and daily life.
Grade 4 (Severe Tinnitus): Loud and constant tinnitus sounds. It disturbs sleep and interferes with daily life.
Grade 5 (Catastrophic Tinnitus): The volume is too loud, and the noise never ceases. You cannot sleep, and you are losing the ability to function in daily life.
Your tinnitus perception will vary throughout the day. For example, Tinnitus sounds seem louder for most at bedtime and just after awakening, resulting from being in ordinarily quiet environments. Therefore, these two times are perfect for taking measurements that are reliable for comparison later.
My Book, The 15 Minute Challenge is available free for Amazon Kindle Unlimited users. If it helps, please leave a review. Thanks!
How to determine your current tinnitus habituation level.
Your tinnitus habituation level measures your emotional reaction to the noise. Grading habituation is easy of your start by asking yourself these two questions.
How much time do I spend thinking about my condition?
How do I feel when I think about my Tinnitus?
Once you have the answers, compare them to the levels below to determine your current tinnitus habituation status.
Fully Habituated: You rarely think about it and have no emotional reaction to your Tinnitus.
Adapted: You think about your Tinnitus once in a while, but you have accepted it and do not have an emotional reaction.
Irritated: You think about your Tinnitus many times a day. When you do, you become moody or angry.
Threatened: Thoughts about Tinnitus take up significant portions of your day. As a result, you find yourself constantly dwelling on the noise and are anxious or fearful about your condition.
Devastated: You are in a state of total panic. You are sleep-deprived and have suicidal thoughts.
STOP! If you have suicidal thoughts or believe your Tinnitus is harming you or the quality of your life—seek immediate professional medical attention. A doctor can help you treat your emotional reaction to Tinnitus.
You must measure tinnitus levels daily, and record them.
Measuring and recording your tinnitus level is the only way you will be able to convince yourself you are getting better.
Tinnitus noise is rarely constant and predictable. The volume may go up one minute and down the next. It may change frequencies or start making entirely new sounds. The ever-changing nature of Tinnitus makes it impossible for you to notice your progress toward complete habituation casually. You need accurate, daily data. You need a tinnitus log.
Create a tinnitus log and record your daily tinnitus perception and habituation levels in it. Make sure you take at least two daily measurements (Just before bedtime and just after you wake up). As the weeks and months pass, you will see any improvements.
When your tinnitus spikes or changes in some dramatic fashion, record those events as separate entries. Spikes and other such anomalies are generally short-duration events. Be sure to capture them in your log, noting the dates they begin and end and your perception and emotional reaction to them.
It may be hard to believe, but your brain is already learning that the ringing in your ears is just a false alarm. As with any constant and unhelpful sensory input, your brain will begin to filter out this wrong information. Like an unpleasant odor that seems to fade over time, you will gradually start to take less notice of your tinnitus noise.
In a few months, you will realize that even when your tinnitus spikes, your reaction to it will be something much more bearable. With time, you will stop dwelling on your tinnitus. You will go from being afraid of it to being mildly irritated. Eventually, you should reach a level of acceptance that guarantees an normal and happy life.
And if you kept accurate measurements of your tinnitus perception and habituation, a rare bad day will cause you no concern. You will have your own all the evidence you need to prove you are on the right track.
Tinnitus Habituation: How to Cope with Ringing in Your Ears
You can learn to cope with the ringing in your ears using Tinnitus Habituation. While normal tinnitus habituation takes 6 to 18 months, there are ways to speed it up. Here’s how to do without buying any equipment or using masking devices.
What is tinnitus habituation?
Tinnitus habituation is a four-stage, natural process that ends your emotional reaction to tinnitus.
Stage One: Constant awareness and fear.
Stage Two: Brief moments of relief when busy.
Stage Three: Noise is a nuisance but not a threat.
Stage Four: No emotional reaction and return to everyday life.
Habituation is unavoidable. Your brain knows how and when to turn off useless sensory information. Take the tip of your nose. It is visible from the moment you are born. You cannot open your eyes without seeing it. Yet you seldom notice it. Trust me; your tinnitus sound is just as worthless. It, too, will soon only be a fleeting thought.
Tinnitus habituation isn’t something you have to work for to achieve. As long as you do not willfully interfere, you’ll get there in 6 to 18 months. If you fight it, it just takes longer.
Are you thinking, “18 months! That’s too long!” Don’t worry. The improvements you notice in the early weeks and months will be profound. I dare say you will be pretty pleased by Stage Two.
Now, you’re probably thinking you will never be able to cope with your tinnitus. Your particular sound is too loud. As a result, you will never be able to adapt to it.
But are you sure you are in the less than 3% of people who don’t eventually reach habituation?
Are you willing to bet on that? Because if you are, I’ve got a little challenge for you.
In my book The 15 Minute Challenge, I describe my method to finally shut my tinnitus off long enough to sleep. The technique quickly became the tool I would use throughout my entire recovery.
Got 15 minutes? Give this a try, and I will see you in the next chapter.
Spend 15 minutes in a relaxed position, with your eyes closed in a quiet room, focusing only on the sound of your tinnitus.
During this period, mentally try to “grab” that sound and hold on to it. Seize it, study it, and attempt to shut out every other thought while you listen to it.
Every time a random, unrelated thought intrudes, immediately refocus your attention back onto the sound of your tinnitus.
Related: If you need a more detailed, step-by-step guide to take the challenge, it’s available here.
Speeding up your tinnitus habituation.
I’ll be shameless here and say, “I think the fastest way to speed up your tinnitus habituation is to take the 15 Minute Challenge at least twice a day.” Once at bedtime, and again whenever the noise is bothering you. Hey, the book is accessible free through Amazon for Kindle Unlimited customers. Feel free to try the challenge for 30 minutes. I never made it that far without falling asleep.
Why does the challenge speed up your tinnitus habituation? First, the challenge helps you because it completely and instantly destroys the worst myth of tinnitus, that you are powerless.
If you paid attention during the challenge, you noticed that your mind drifted off the sound every few seconds. When it did, you were daydreaming about something silly, like tapioca pudding or the size of the moon. Catching yourself, you tried multiple times to refocus and concentrate only on the sound of your tinnitus. And you failed every single time.
Did you also happen to notice that you did not hear your tinnitus while you were daydreaming? It’s incredible but, when you deliberately spend 15 minutes trying to listen to the ringing in your ears, it is impossible.
Exploiting this little oddity is how you will speed up your tinnitus habituation.get little breaks from the ringing in your ears.
Getting little break from the ringing in your ears is just the first step.
Yes, it is a huge step, but still, just the first one. So, before we proceed, let’s review (while it is fresh).
Your tinnitus is not constant. You just shut it off, however temporarily, all by yourself. You accomplished this without any tools or drugs. And, despite what you may think, there will be other periods of silence during the day.
These periods will come when you have other essential things on which to concentrate. They will also occur when you combine physical activity with a task requiring constant awareness (Carpentry or mowing the lawn and listening to a book on tape simultaneously).
What’s the second step to speeding up your tinnitus habituation? Creating more breaks and extending the periods of relief.
Let’s begin by showing you how to get an eight-hour break from your tinnitus.
How sleep and work can speed up your tinnitus habituation.
For most, insomnia is the worst thing about tinnitus. Lack of sleep increases your anxiety about your condition. That anxiety worsens your tinnitus condition. It quickly becomes a cycle that gets more and more vicious every day.
But get just one good night’s worth of sleep, however, and that anxiety loosens its grip. If you can sleep, you realize tinnitus isn’t such a terrible threat; it’s just a bloody nuisance.
So, you need to learn how to shut off your tinnitus just long enough to fall asleep. Since I’ve written a more detailed article on how to sleep with tinnitus, I’ll link it again here. Click the link to open the article in a new browser and read it later.
Work is another area of great concern for you. Tinnitus seems like it might wreck your career. After all, insomnia is sapping your ability to concentrate. The noise depresses and distracts you. How long before the boss realizes your productivity has collapsed as well?
Dispelling this fear should be possible now that you have tried the 15 Minute Challenge. You now know tinnitus’ weakness (it can’t compete with concentration). Now all you have to do is design a workday around what you learned. Then, with a solid plan for how to work with tinnitus, you can enjoy another eight hours of stress-free quiet.
Again, I have written an article on working when you have tinnitus. Sorry, but I will ask you to open another browser and then return here to keep reading.
How to create shorter breaks from the ringing in your ears while at home.
Cheer up! I promise this will be the shortest chapter (because it needs a separate article).
You can also create small breaks from the ringing in your ears by using a technique cops use on DUI suspects. More on this in a second.
As mentioned above, tinnitus hates activity and concentration. Tinnitus needs your undivided attention to thrive. That’s why it roars when you are sitting on the couch watching tv. Unfortunately, many household chores don’t require much attention or skill. So we have to trick your brain a tiny little bit by confusing it—like a cop talking to a DUI suspect.
When a police officer stops you and suspects you may be under the influence, they use the Divided Attention test. It begins when the officer asks you to present your license and registration. Then, as you are turning toward your glove box, they hit you with a question like, “Where are you coming from tonight?”
If you’ve been drinking too much, your brain stalls, and you start giving the officer reasons to have you step out of your vehicle.
Use the Divided Attention method to silence the ringing in your ears.
To kill tinnitus noise for an hour or two at a time, you can modify the divided attention test like this:
Create a list of chores to do around the house.
Work on the mindless chores (mowing, gardening, painting) while listening to a book on tape—with the volume just slightly above the sound of the recording.
With more complicated chores (things that already require a certain amount of concentration), add an element of physical complexity to the tasks. Good examples that work are setting a timer or standing on one leg. The (good) stress of a time limit or the need to remain balanced, coupled with the complexity of the task itself, creates a poor environment for tinnitus to thrive.
Oh, the low-volume book-on-tape trick? It’s my all-time favorite—especially during tinnitus spikes. You have to pay attention to hear and understand the narrator. My tinnitus is all but gone when mowing the lawn or chopping wood and listening to a book-on-tape.
Photo credit:IStockPhoto/ Kar-it
Don’t stall your tinnitus habituation.
If you are not careful, it is easy to slow down your habituation. To avoid this, after you seek medical assistance, be mindful of what you consume (both media and so-called cures).
The first and the best advice is to stay off of tinnitus forums. And here I will tell you a secret: Most people who recover from tinnitus are wary of talking about it. It’s as if announcing your success is begging for trouble.
Whatever the cause, the most prolific commenters on the web are those shrieking in fear and disbelief. They can’t help you. Stay away from them.
You should also ignore any miracle cures or pills you find for sale. If you need medicine, your doctor will recommend it. If you genuinely need something for anxiety or depression, ask your doctor.
You may also be tempted to make significant changes to your diet and lifestyle. So here, and again with medical supervision, have at it. Just don’t go crazy!
Hey, something you try might work. Tinnitus may not have a cure, but it sure cures a lot of bad habits. One can only imagine the number of people who started protecting their hearing, started working on their weight, or gave up drugs or alcohol due to the ringing in their ears.
This brings us to the next chapter.
Take advantage of the ringing in your ears to build some good habits.
If developing a good habit takes three months, you have time to build at least two. Diet and exercise are obvious choices, but could you possibly go further?
What if, while waiting for that glorious tinnitus habituation to take place, you accomplished an important goal?
You know, that one thing you have always wanted to do but never did? Who kept you from accomplishing it? Why, it was you, right? Maybe it was a lack of motivation that kept stalling your dream. Perhaps you just never had a coach or some other constant source of encouragement to propel you forward.
Well, congratulations, you lucky dog. You now have everything you need—all thanks to the gift of tinnitus. We will talk more about this in another article, but for now:
Dust off that dream sheet.
Select one primary goal.
Create a SMART plan to achieve it.
Use concentration and physical activity to distract your tinnitus.
Use the need to keep tinnitus at bay as a motivator to work daily to achieve your goal.
Act soon, your tinnitus will fade fast.
You may have to work fast. At best, you have 18 months of free coaching. Use that time to turn tinnitus habituation into some excellent lifetime habits. The clock is ticking soon tinnitus will be a rarely noticed, minor irritation.
Author’s note: My tinnitus has no emotional effect on me any longer. Unfortunately, it remains loud at times. It still affects my conversations over the phone and makes talking to groups of people frustrating. Fortunately, with the distraction writing involves, I can sit in a quiet room and pen this article without noticing the sound in my ears.
Tinnitus habituation does not happen in a straight line.
Expect good days and bad days. Be prepared to handle tough tinnitus spikes but also to enjoy days of significantly reduced noise.
Over time, your habituation will increase, resulting in more and more days of normalcy and even joy.
For now, use the 15 Minute Challenge to increase your power over tinnitus and to conquer your fear of it. And remember, you are already on your way to a happy, everyday life.
Don’t hesitate to reach back and help someone still dealing with their tinnitus when you get there.
How you handle your tinnitus at work can make you an invaluable employee. Unfortunately, average employees (those without tinnitus) spend a lot of time seeking distractions from their jobs. On the other hand, you can use your tinnitus to increase your work productivity and turn yourself into an irreplaceable asset.
How to handle tinnitus at work.
The trick to handling your tinnitus at work is to:
Many of them do things that make your tinnitus rage, like checking social media or mindlessly surfing the internet.
As an employee with tinnitus, you have to dive into your work. A job for a tinnitus sufferer is an eight-hour distraction with benefits. Oh, it can be a cruel taskmaster, but only when you get a little lazy. Like an invisible boss looking over your shoulder all day, tinnitus lets you know the instant you are not being productive.
This need to work, not only to secure an income but to escape the sound of your tinnitus, makes you an invaluable employee.
If you haven’t quite figured out how to handle your tinnitus at work, then read on.
Use your job to lower your perception of tinnitus.
It is 100% natural to worry that your tinnitus could affect your job. The noise in your ears is irritating. Your sleep has suffered, and you are tired during the day. Potential adverse outcomes flood you with fear and stress. You worry you may not be able to work at all.
But think about when your tinnitus bothers you the most. What do all those moments have in common? If you are like most tinnitus sufferers, they are moments of idleness. Tinnitus thrives in thoughtless inactivity. But even in the middle of a severe tinnitus spike, the sound disappears when you are too busy to pay attention to its wail.
And you can quickly learn how to use your job to silence your tinnitus for most, if not the entire day.
Let’s break down the three steps to learning how to handle your tinnitus at work.
Just one night of good sleep can all but eliminate your emotional reaction to tinnitus. Good sleep is liberating. It charges up your willpower and proves to you tinnitus isn’t the bogeyman you thought.
With your batteries fully charged, you are ready to handle the ringing in your ears without overreacting to it. If you have planned your morning power hour correctly, you’ll hardly notice your tinnitus until you start your morning commute. Once at work, however, it’s time to quieten it down again, for another eight hours.
So, how do you get a good night’s sleep? Well, more importantly, how do you silence the ringing in your ears long enough to get to sleep? Simple, by spending 15 minutes concentrating on it. The method is almost too easy, but it works and requires no special equipment.
Step Two: Set challenging work related daily goals.
This step turns you from a typical employee into a super productive, highly profitable asset.
I’ll be honest here, and some careers are nearly immune to the effects of tinnitus. For example, if your job combines physical activity with mental concentration (think carpenter, auto mechanic, etc.), you probably won’t be bothered by tinnitus at work.
What? You don’t believe me that concentration can reduce your tinnitus volume? Then try this little game.
The same is true for those who work at places with louder background sounds. Factories and shops often produce a level of sound above that of your tinnitus. With your tinnitus effectively drowned out, you should have almost no perception of it during the day.
If you work in an office setting, the quieter environment and lack of physical activity mean you’ll have to work harder to reduce your perception level. Masking may be a temporary fix, but I think it’s a needless crutch. Instead, distract yourself by increasing your workload.
Making your job more challenging will help you handle your tinnitus at work.
The truth is, the busier you are, the less you will perceive your tinnitus. At work, the more you commit to getting it done each day, the harder you will have to work to achieve it. The tremendous concentration and the difficulties involved will completely distract you from your tinnitus.
What? You don’t believe concentration can distract you from something as huge as your tinnitus? Well, try this little experiment.
Trust me; you have to set a specific goal for yourself. For now, we will use 10% more work per day as your goal. Feel free to adjust it up or down, as needed.
However, before you set these new work goals, you’ll need to spend a little time measuring your usual output. Once you know what you normally get done in an average workday, you must determine which parts of your job can be increased.
For example, an insurance salesperson could commit to making 10% more cold calls every day. A lawyer, however, shouldn’t try to review 10% more contracts. Likewise, a real estate agent could schedule 10% more open houses but probably not sell 10% more homes.
Once you have identified what you will do more of, make a plan to accomplish it. I recommend the SMART method of goal setting. Make your goals Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and fixed to a Time frame.
Use your tinnitus as a competitive edge at work.
Yes, properly used tinnitus is a competitive advantage for you at work. You are a distraction-free, goal-oriented, and highly motivated employee. Even without setting up additional work goals, you’ll put 10-15 more hours of effort into your work each week than your coworkers.
Can’t find places to improve your productivity? Well, don’t be afraid to look around your workplace and find some other extra work for yourself. Can you find ways to improve quality, shorten production time, and increase profit?
Can you see now how your tinnitus makes you impossible to replace at work?
The truth is you don’t have to handle your tinnitus at work.
Your tinnitus, correctly applied, is a career benefit. So start using it to generate more profit for your employer. Eventually, your job security and salary will prove that tinnitus is a blessing.
After all, where else can you make a profit while you comfortably habituate?
Full disclosure: The vast majority of people habituate to tinnitus within 6-18 months. After that, tinnitus has lost its edge and become as noticeable as the socks on your feet.
So, there’s a countdown clock over your head. I suggest you make use of your tinnitus gift before it runs out.
Yes, you can quickly get to sleep with tinnitus without any expensive tools. Furthermore, this surprisingly simple method is effective despite your tinnitus volume or whether you have it in one ear or both. Got 15 minutes? Great! Let’s get you to bed.
The fastest way to sleep with tinnitus.
Use the 15 Minute Challenge. Begin by laying down in bed and flexing and relaxing every muscle from head to toe. Next, spend 15 minutes concentrating only on your tinnitus. Focus on it like you were straining to hear a distant conversation. When a stray thought pops up, refocus on your tinnitus.
What happens? Within minutes your brain determines the sound is not a threat. Suddenly, you find yourself wondering if you have enough dog food or what the forecast is for tomorrow. Distracted, you drift away from the sound of your tinnitus more and more frequently. Each time you do, the sound of your tinnitus lowers in volume and often becomes completely silent.
Try it now, and then come back in the morning to read more.
Tinnitus’ only power over you is its emotional impact. Once you can divorce the emotional reaction from the sound, tinnitus loses its hold over you.
Deliberately concentrating on just the sound of your tinnitus is impossible. Why? Because the human attention span is less than 10 seconds. When you take the 15 Minute Challenge, your brain cannot remain focused on just one thing (the sound) for that long. It needs a break, ninety breaks for most of us. During each interval, the sound fades, and intrusive thoughts enter.
Desperate for something more important to focus on, your mind turns to other critical thoughts. At what age should a horse have its teeth cleaned? How many soup cans would it take to reach the moon?
At some point during the 15 minutes, you catch yourself 1,000 miles away. You are thinking about a distant, future event, and then you realize the noise in your ears is gone. This first fleeting victory fills you with power. The sound will quickly return, however, you now know how to chase it away.
And you will chase it away, many times, right up to the minute you fail the 15 Minute Challenge and fall asleep.
A deeper dive into how to get to to sleep with tinnitus.
Need a more detailed explanation of how to do the 15 Minute Challenge? Here’s how to do it, step-by-step.
Step one: Relax.
Your bedroom should be a quiet, cool, and dark place. A place only to sleep in, not watch tv, or use electronic devices.
Begin by lying down in a comfortable position and just breathing normally. Close your eyes and begin to relax. Working down from your head to your toes, you will give every significant muscle group a quick squeeze and then release it. Feel free to skip over any injured or sore areas.
Starting with your forehead, lift your eyebrows as high as possible, then let them go limp. Tense the muscles in your jaw, then release the tension. Next, pull your shoulders toward your ears, and press your head back. Slowly release the tension and allow your arms, neck, and shoulders to relax. Continue down, giving each set of muscles a quick flex and release. Finally, tightly curl in your toes while flexing your calves. Now, shake off your legs and let them drop.
You may rearrange this process to match your favorite sleeping position in the future.
Step two: Concentrate.
Your sole purpose for the next 15 minutes is to concentrate only on the sound of your tinnitus.
If you have tinnitus in both ears, it may be easier for you to concentrate on one side per session.
Listen intently to the sound of your tinnitus. Explore it for a moment. Take note of its tone and frequency. Imagine there is a control dial for your tinnitus. Now use that dial to lower and raise your tinnitus’ volume. When you find yourself thinking about anything else, instantly refocus your attention back on your tinnitus sound.
It’s usually beneficial to have an internal talk with your tinnitus. So, feel free to chat with the sound (see below).
Remember, this is a challenge. You can’t focus on just your tinnitus for more than 10 seconds. Yes, you could swear that you dwell on it all day, but that’s just you paying attention to it every few minutes and thinking negatively about it. When you deliberately concentrate on it and it alone, it almost seems to try and elude you.
Your brain is an expert at shutting off worthless information.
In reality, your brain quickly tires of the false alarm tinnitus keeps sending. In fact, your brain has a long history of harshly dealing with incorrect or needless information. So it simply isolates this “fake news” and stops delivering it to your doorstep.
Need an example? Did you know your ears pop every time you swallow? Try it. Imagine how annoying that would be to hear 700 times a day. Fortunately, your brain knew this information wasn’t helpful and has effectively deafened you to it.
As for the sound of your tinnitus, whether you try the 15 Minute Challenge or not, your brain is already working on it too. So while you are wrestling with your powers of concentration, your tinnitus is doing two things: reducing your perception of the tinnitus noise and habituating you to it.
We will talk more about this in future blogs. But, for now, understand your tinnitus will not ruin your life. You are already back on track to your future. And for some of you, tinnitus may be the best thing to ever happen to you.
Still a little puzzled about how to take the Challenge? Follow along on one of my sessions.
Lying comfortably in bed with earplugs (I prefer complete silence), I begin with an internal monologue that goes something like this:
“Ah, there you are,” I think, as I notice my tinnitus and mentally begin talking to it. “You’re loud today. Not jackhammer loud, but still way too loud for me to get any sleep.”
For several seconds I can hear my tinnitus clearly, but soon the volume starts to lower. It’s as if the tinnitus was moving farther away from me. I imagine reaching for it and trying to pull it back towards me.
It’s impossible and frustrating to keep my thoughts only on the sound of my tinnitus. I struggle to concentrate. Before I realize it, I’m wondering, “Is there food in the dog’s dishes?”
“Oops! I’ve messed up already,” I tell myself, “Got to get back on target.”
“Where are you, T?” I spend a few seconds searching for it. “There you are. Did your volume go way down?”
The fight goes back and forth many times. I can hear my tinnitus; then, it seems to slip away. At some point, I have to imagine I have it held tightly in both hands.
“I’m not letting you go,” I tell it. “Struggle all you want. You can’t get away from me.”
But it does. Almost instantly, I’m thinking about how old the milk in the fridge is. Has it gone sour? During all of these start thoughts, my tinnitus has gone silent.
I usually can only go for a few minutes before the world goes completely silent, meaningless calm thoughts take over, and I drift away into unconsciousness.
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What really happens during the 15 Minute Challenge.
At first, your tinnitus was easy to hear, but you did not have a strong emotional reaction to it in the calm, relaxed setting you were in.
Your brain quickly started to filter out the sound as irrelevant sensory information (like miles of road on a long drive), making it increasingly difficult for you to hear it (perception).
Your mind started wandering off your tinnitus because you were less vigilant about it (habituation).
Without even realizing it was happening, your focus drifted off and latched onto unrelated thoughts for several seconds to minutes at a time. During these wanderings, you were completely unaware of your tinnitus.
Tired, relaxed, and with your tinnitus now nearly silent, you can now finally fall asleep.
