Tinnitus or ringing in the ears is a difficult condition to cope with. If the condition on its own weren’t bad enough already, the accompanying stress and anxiety can make it even more debilitating. It’s a vicious circle that can significantly exacerbate Tinnitus in the long run. It is therefore critical that you break this vicious circle if you want your Tinnitus to subside. This post will hopefully serve as your guide on how to manage stress and anxiety related to your Tinnitus.
Can Stress and Anxiety Induce or Increase Tinnitus?
It certainly can! It is estimated that 75% to 90% of all doctor visits are stress related, according to WebMD. Stress and anxiety can cause conditions such as headaches, skin problems and high blood pressure. It can even cause chronic conditions like arthritis and diabetes.
What is Your Tinnitus Handicap Score?
Calculate your THI Score in about 2-3 Minutes
It’s often stress induced high blood pressure that causes your Tinnitus to flare up or even come on in the first place. A higher blood pressure changes the way your ear functions. The pressure on your ear drums changes the amount of oxygen your ear receives changes. This can affect your hearing which can then affect your Tinnitus. If you didn’t know already, Tinnitus is often a side effect of hearing loss. Stress and anxiety can accelerate hearing loss that in turn makes your Tinnitus worse. Many people also worry that having Tinnitus means they have a serious illness. However, please note that Tinnitus generally doesn’t affect life expectancy very adversely, unless you have Pulsatile Tinnitus that isn’t treated.
Out of an estimated 50 million Americans who suffer from Tinnitus in their lifetime, only 12 million seek medical attention, like showing up for a hearing test.
How to Overcome Tinnitus Stress and Anxiety?
There are a number of things you can do to alleviate your Tinnitus and with it also your stress and anxiety levels. Let’s go over them one by one.
How Severe is Your Tinnitus?
Find out by using this THI (Tinnitus Handicap Inventory) Scoring Calculator
1 Test your hearing
Have you tested yourself for hearing loss? While Tinnitus might be the more obvious problem, it could just be a side effect or symptom of hearing loss, even if such hearing loss is partial. When you suffer from even partial hearing loss, your brain is confused by the lack of auditory signals from your ear or ears. It then compensates for this lack of auditory signals. The compensation is the form of an invention of a ringing, whooshing, clicking or high-pitched sound that only you can hear.
Hearing loss can be corrected or alleviated by the use of hearing aids. When hearing aids amplify sounds your ears can’t hear on their own, they can potentially cause your brain to correct itself, by shutting off the Tinnitus sound. Even a marginal reduction from your baseline Tinnitus levels can give you significant relief from stress and anxiety. This will in turn help your Tinnitus subside even more or at least let you better habituate to it. This is essentially the opposite of the vicious cycle, where both your hearing health and mental health go from strength to strength.
Therefore, it is imperative that you first test yourself for hearing loss, to fight Tinnitus and stress and anxiety that comes along with it.
2 Stop the Fight or Flight Response
If Tinnitus is causing you stress or anxiety, it is very likely that you are having a fight or flight response to it. When you are frustrated, angry and restless about wanting your Tinnitus to go away, you are having a fight response. If you can’t stop worrying about your Tinnitus and wish it will go away, you are having a flight response. Neither response is helpful or productive. A much more useful response is habituation. With habituation, you learn to live with your Tinnitus. This doesn’t mean you have to be resigned to it. But it will at least not allow you to be frustrated or worried about it. We discuss this more in this post about top 10 Tinnitus habituation tips.
3 Recognize and Manage Anxiety before It Sets In
Anxiety usually has a pattern, especially when you have a causative condition like Tinnitus. Being anxious means you are fearful. If you are mindful about it, you will notice that anxiety usually sets in at about the same times every day. For example, if your Tinnitus most bothers you when you sleep, you probably get really anxious as bedtime approaches. While it might be impossible to completely eliminate anxiety, mindfully reducing it is definitely possible. Using the same bedtime anxiety example above, you could try to circumvent it by practicing some meditation, breathing exercises or another activity that will distract your thoughts away from anxious feelings. It will take a few days to break such patterns. But, once you manage to manage your anxiety better, you will notice that your stress begins to come down as well.
4 Try to find a way to sleep better
Insomnia or lack of sleep can significantly worsen your Tinnitus and also your stress levels. Sleep is when the body and mind recuperate. Here are several tips that will help you sleep with Tinnitus. Even a 10% to 20% improvement in sleep quality can arm you with a much better ability to manage stress and anxiety.
5 Clean Up Your Diet
A poor diet can by itself increase your already high stress and anxiety levels. Diets containing high amounts of processed foods, salts and sugars are very detrimental to physical and mental health. To begin with, try to eliminate these worst foods that increase Tinnitus. Alcohol, marijuana and cigarette smoking are also all bad for the ringing in your ears and your general well-being.
6 Practice Meditation and Mindfulness
Read about this Tinnitus meditation method where you actually focus on your Tinnitus sound. Though it might sound counterproductive, focusing on the ringing in you hears can actually help decrease its intrusiveness. Do bear in mind that meditation is a method that will take time and consistent effort to yield results.
7 Reconsider Your Antidepressant Use
Are you taking antidepressants or anti-anxiety pills for the stress and anxiety caused by Tinnitus? Almost 15% of the adult American population is on antidepressants or anti-anxiety pills. Perhaps you were taking them before your Tinnitus even came on. Either way, you will be quite alarmed to know that most antidepressants are harmful for the ears. This adverse relationship is described by the term ototoxicity. Talk to your doctor about switching to a less ototoxic pill. The link we just provided gives you suggestions on the best antidepressant if you have Tinnitus, also giving you a natural pill recommendation. You can also consider talk therapy to try to better your mind without the use of pills.
8 Be More Active
Exercise, workouts or just being active can all release endorphins that are naturally produced stress busters. A very sedentary lifestyle will mean that your body never experiences the benefits of these stress fighting hormones. Pick up an active habit like walking, jogging, going to the gym or even engaging in physically active hobbies like gardening. The key is to be active consistently.
You can also read these posts about yoga for Tinnitus and specific exercises you can do for Tinnitus relief.
9 Check for Ear Wax
All that ringing, stress and anxiety could be because of excess ear wax. When ear wax accumulates, it tends to become impacted. Hardened ear wax can cause hearing loss that in turn causes Tinnitus. Q-tips aren’t the answer though, if you were immediately thinking about reaching for one. They can actually make your ear wax problems worse. It is best you visited your ENT to have your ear wax checked out. This post tells you everything you need to know about ear wax and Tinnitus.
10 Try Alternate Treatments to Get Tinnitus Relief
A number of alternative treatment modalities can potentially give you Tinnitus relief. While the ringing might not go away, they can potentially lower your baseline. As mentioned earlier, any reduction in your baseline Tinnitus will mean that your stress and anxiety levels decrease, usually more than proportionately. Here are posts we wrote about treatments that can possibly help with your Tinnitus; Acupuncture, Reflexology and Hypnosis. If your Tinnitus is caused by problems or injuries to your jaw, even a chiropractor can help with your Tinnitus. Please however know that there is officially no cure for Tinnitus.
11 Try Supplements
There are a number of anecdotal references where people have claimed that natural supplements have resolved or at least alleviated their Tinnitus. Read my own success story in managing my Tinnitus here, being able to keep it dormant for months at a time. And here are posts where we researched popularly used supplements or treatment solutions to help people with Tinnitus; Hydrogen Peroxide for Tinnitus. Vitamin B12 and Gingko Biloba. Taking a thyroid supplement can also help lower or eliminate your Tinnitus, if you have are either hypo or hyper thyroid.
