\n<\/p>\n
F<\/span>or some it\u2019s a high-pitched mosquito whine; for others it\u2019s a low bass hum. It might come and go with periods of stress, or it might be the permanent, irritating background track to daily life and nightly sleep.<\/p>\n Whatever form it takes, tinnitus \u2013 hearing sounds like ringing, buzzing or hissing when no external noise is there \u2013 can be extremely distressing because it\u2019s quite literally in your head; there is no escaping it. Given that at least one-quarter of the population report experiencing tinnitus at some stage in their life, it\u2019s surprising how little is understood about why.<\/p>\n \u201cThe theory that\u2019s most supported at the moment is that there\u2019s some sort of change in the hearing pathway, and the nerves in the hearing pathway are basically firing more than they should do,\u201d says Dr Emma Laird, an audiologist at La Trobe University in Melbourne. \u201cWe\u2019re hearing this increased activity as that tinnitus sound.\u201d<\/p>\n There is no cure for tinnitus but the good news is that there is a variety of treatment approaches \u2013 audiological, psychological, physiotherapeutic and technological \u2013 that can be effective at helping people to manage the condition. \u201cI\u2019ve had tinnitus for probably 20 years now,\u201d Laird says. \u201cBecause I\u2019ve habituated to it \u2013 so my brain can just pop it at the back of my head \u2013 it\u2019s not causing distress day to day.\u201d<\/p>\n The first and most important step in finding the best treatment approach is to rule out more serious medical conditions for which tinnitus might be a side-effect. Laird looks for other symptoms such as headaches and vision changes that could point to neurological conditions such as migraines or stroke. If the tinnitus is only in one ear or the sound pulses with the heartbeat, that could suggest an acoustic neuroma \u2013 a tumour on the nerve that leads from the inner ear to the brain.<\/p>\n She also does full hearing assessment, because hearing loss is a common cause of tinnitus, particularly after exposure to loud noise.<\/p>\n \u201cIf they do have hearing loss, then hearing aids are actually quite beneficial,\u201d Laird says. \u201cYou\u2019re providing the hearing system with other sounds that it can focus on, so that tinnitus then becomes more of a background.\u201d<\/p>\n Even something as simple as a buildup of earwax can trigger tinnitus.<\/p>\n But for many people, tinnitus is unexplainable; an irritating noise that starts and persists without any clear physiological explanation. But far from being \u201call in the mind\u201d, tinnitus is very real, and for a small number of people \u2013 around 2% \u2013 it\u2019s extremely distressing.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s impacting their mood, it\u2019s impacting their functionality, like maybe they\u2019re not sleeping very well,\u201d says Paula Sieradzki, a Sydney psychologist specialising in tinnitus. \u201cMost people make changes to their life, they\u2019re not going out any more, some may give up work.\u201d<\/p>\n The goal of psychological therapies for tinnitus is not to get rid of the tinnitus, but to reduce or eliminate the distress associated with it. \u201cTo get to the point where tinnitus may still be there, but they\u2019re not reacting to it in such a negative way and it\u2019s not impacting them,\u201d Sieradzki says.<\/p>\n Cognitive behavioural therapy, or CBT, for tinnitus has good evidence supporting it, and has been endorsed by numerous audiology and hearing organisations. It works by challenging and resetting thoughts, behaviours and emotions around tinnitus.<\/p>\n Sieradzki starts by explaining to patients that tinnitus happens when the brain classifies an otherwise benign sound as harmful. \u201cIf people have classified in a negative way that tinnitus is important because it\u2019s really annoying them and they\u2019re fearful and it\u2019s really distressing them and it\u2019s caused upheaval in their life, it\u2019s telling the brain this is a threat,\u201d she says. That leads to a stress response, which in turn increases the perception of threat. \u201cWhen that\u2019s the case, the brain can actually almost selectively attend to tinnitus, even when there are other sounds going on.\u201d<\/p>\n The heart of CBT for tinnitus is helping people to habituate to the sound; breaking what Sieradzki calls the \u201ctinnitus distress loop\u201d by retraining the brain to realise that the sound is not important and not a threat.<\/p>\n A similar therapeutic approach is what\u2019s called acceptance and commitment therapy, or ACT, which focuses more on changing a person\u2019s relationship with their tinnitus. \u201cAcceptance is not so easy because people have been so wanting to get rid of it and ignore it,\u201d Sieradzki says, but this approach allows people to let their tinnitus be without attaching such intense negative thoughts to it.<\/p>\n Tinnitus is often associated with stress and anxiety. Dr Peter Selvaratnam, a physiotherapist and associate professor at the University of Melbourne, focuses on the neck and jaw in his work with tinnitus patients, because one thing many stressed people do is clench and grind their teeth.<\/p>\n \u201cThere is a nerve that goes to the facial region called the trigeminal nerve, which also goes to the neck and jaw and it goes to the middle ear muscle called the tensor tympani muscle and it also projects to the hearing centre, to the cochlear nucleus,\u201d Selvaratnam says. That clenching and bruxism \u2013 grinding \u2013 can lead to increased neural activity that can both cause tinnitus and be caused by it.<\/p>\n He uses a variety of techniques to address the bruxism, including getting patients to focus on changing the position of their tongue so it\u2019s behind their top teeth, working with acupressure points around the jaw, head and neck to release tension, as well as breathing and mindfulness techniques to address the underlying stress and anxiety. Selvaratnam says those methods help about 60% to 70% learn to accept their tinnitus, and about 10% find it goes away altogether.<\/p>\n Another approach uses sound to cut through the tinnitus feedback loop in the auditory pathway. \u201cIt\u2019s like an alarm system \u2013 it stays on in that person\u2019s brain \u2013 so by introducing external sound generation or therapies, that helps that system calm down over time,\u201d says Kathryn Penno, an audiologist at Perth Audiology and Dizziness.<\/p>\n <\/span>Sound enrichment might use the sounds of a waterfall or rustling leaves to calm the experience of tinnitus.<\/span> Photograph: ViewStock\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Sound enrichment is tailored both to the tinnitus \u2013 in terms of its pitch \u2013 and to the soundscape people want to hear; the sound of a waterfall, or summer cicadas, or wind-rustled leaves. It\u2019s not about masking the sound, but \u201cwe\u2019re actually trying to match from the central pathway the tinnitus frequency, so that this individual can habituate to it over time,\u201d Penno says.<\/p>\n For sound enrichment, it needs to be on all the time, even during sleep. \u201cYou can\u2019t skip a beat with it for your neural pathway to reorganise itself to calm down or habituate to your tinnitus,\u201d Penno says. That can take the form of an audio app listened to out loud or, if people are in a work or home environment where they want to minimise the impact on others, through headphones or hearing aids.<\/p>\n Penno says most people with tinnitus will show significant improvements from around three months of 24\/7 sound enrichment. And because tinnitus can recur, particularly during times of stress and anxiety, \u201cyou have the tools then in your remit to implement it again\u201d, she says.<\/p>\n Experts stress that most of the time tinnitus has nothing to do with the ear, and everything to do with the brain.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s lots of literature to show that you can have normal auditory or hearing and have tinnitus that\u2019s associated with these psychological impacts,\u201d Penno says. But with a range of effective management strategies and techniques available, most people are able to get relief.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you\u2019re consistent with any therapy, you will get benefit, and it\u2019s about finding the right fit for that person,\u201d Penno says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" For some it\u2019s a high-pitched mosquito whine; for others it\u2019s a low bass hum. It might come and go with periods of stress, or it might be the permanent, irritating background track to daily life and nightly sleep. Whatever form it takes, tinnitus \u2013 hearing sounds like ringing, buzzing or hissing when no external noise<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52212,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[9823,37,1317,8675,6200],"class_list":{"0":"post-52211","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-health","8":"tag-distressing","9":"tag-health","10":"tag-living","11":"tag-tinnitus","12":"tag-wellbeing"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52211","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52211"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52211\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/52212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52211"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52211"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52211"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Psychological therapies<\/h2>\n
Release tension<\/h2>\n
Sound enrichment therapy<\/h2>\n