How can we reach the state of habituation earlier? With masking the sound or shall we listen to the sound? There are different opinions about it. Joey Remenyi with her Rock Steady program says that masking is not the way "to healing". That is why I am so insecure how to deal with it. But when I don't mask the sound I just HAVE TO listen to it, I can't overhear it, but that would be my greatest wish, that I can ignore it when it's silent. How can I learn to overhear it? I am so afraid that I won't get to that place. I would be very thankful for your advices.
Mask the noise or not?: How can we reach the... - Tinnitus UK
Mask the noise or not?
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Petra1988
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27 Replies
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Hi Petra, In my experience fully masking the sound is not a route to habituation but rather a pause button to give you a chance to have some time without the sound.
The theory goes (and in my case worked) that you should have other sound(s) around you to allow your brain to focus on something other than the sound of the T. This, over time, will help deprioritise the T sound. I wore a hearing aid for over 12 months that would play a noise, much like a white noise, which over time reduced my focus on the Tinnitus sound.
This is turn, reduced anxiety, in turn reduced the loudness perception of the T.
I know only hear it when i focus on it, like now, losing emotional and anxiety relationship with it. Hard to imagine you will get to this spot but you will, as others have. It just takes time and a positive attitude to get there.
How bad was your tinnitus though? And how long did it take to habituate? As I have had it for 15 years now, but briefly (for a few years after) Prozac helped me to habituate and then after 4 years or so its silver bullet like effect gradually wore off (and I had no idea then that pills did this!) there then followed many years of floundering about trying to find another pill or pills that could do the same thing but alas and as I sit here today typing this I think I have now exhausted all the pills that are out there!? And have retaken some too but to no effect now sadly - well without going on any more combinations with using bloody antipsychotic pills too to augment an SSRI which can give you horrendous side effects and don’t do much else!
And, over the years what with additional surprise loud noises I’ve inadvertently exposed myself too “out there in the World” (like; bus air brakes, alarms, kids screaming, motorbikes etc) I think my T and the Hyperacusis has all worsened? Or, is it just the perception (???) anyway it’s making my life a bloody misery, and so I’m wondering if I’ll ever habituate ever again / get better??
Any useful advice would help. Note I believe I suffer with OCD too which could be hindering me too? Plus I’ve tried ADHD pills too as do have a bit of that and once read they can help - but they’ve done nothing either! And as I said I think I’ve now exhausted all pills. I have also tried CBT, ACT, acupuncture, hypnotherapy, the mindfulness app, even prayer, and nothing really “touches the sides”?! I do wonder if these alternative “talking / relaxation” treatments are only useful if you have low level to medium grade tinnitus, but if you have intrusive and chronic tinnitus and Hyperacusis like me - it doesn’t really help??
So anyway just wondered if anyone has any other ideas?? Or perhaps some positive comeback to this “rant” for me? Maybe you’ve experienced a similar journey? I’m 53 and had this since 38, I wouldn’t mind so much if I was in my 70’s or 80’s and lived the best years - but I still should have a lot of living left to do and add to that I’ve two small boys who are 9 and 13 who need me? As I can’t do a lot with them either due to this. I do also take magnesium and statins as have high genetic cholesterol, and that’s it. I’m all out of ideas now.
Hi MAC0811,
In response to your question, my tinnitus was very very loud at first, my hyperacusis was also horrendous and kept me housebound. My tinnitus would be reactive to my hyperacusis, meaning ANY sound i heard would make my tinnitus spike further. I was housebound with ear plugs for a while. (not a recommended path to habituation i note).
It took me around 18 months to feel like I was on the way to habituation. I did CBT, relaxation techniques and sound therapy. From the 18 month mark I gradually reduced the hyperacusis to 0 and the tinnitus is still with my but not as loud and I dont have any emotional reaction to it. I hear it only when i think about it or talk about it on forums such as this.
Everyone is different, I think we all agree that and what may work for others may not work for you. In my conversations though and from my time spent running an online support group, I would say the common factors in people that are on the path to habituation would be acceptance, positivity and active stress reduction. Methods such as CBT, mindfulness, acupuncture and more are all ways to achieve this but the underlying factors are still the same.
I hope you can find some peace. It maybe worth joining one of the support groups of Tinnitus UK to be able to hear from other people in real time, they really helped me when i was at my wits end.
How long have you had tinnitus for though Darren? And how long after it started did you habituate? As I habituated soon after I started with it, but for the last 10 years or so I wasn’t habituated having come out of it for those first 6 years or so. So just wondered has anyone experienced this but then perhaps they have re-habituated much later on again?
You can't rush habituation, and masking is more to do with maintaining sanity than anything else. You can't have habituation and leave sanity out.
Hello,
I can't say that I have ever managed completely to habituate, and you are certainly right to observe that the opinion of therapists varies. Darren6 has already offered good advice, but I would just add this - and believe me, I know how immensely difficult, how paradoxical this sounds, but if you are thinking about habituation often (and we all did), that will slow your path to it. One needs a consistent strategy (for some it is maskers, for others it is none, some rely on CBT, others mindfulness), but that strategy must not include an hourly assessment of the extent to which it has succeeded. People who manage to do that find that their T fades.
Best wishes.
Yes, but what you have experienced is my greatest fear...Not to habituate. How can you have a good life without habituating? I am so worried about that.
I wish that I could give a nice reassuring answer to that question, yet at the same time a bleak response would be misleading and wrong.
I have had T for about 24 years now. It has affected my life, and my outlook on life. It has done those things in a more extensive way than did the Stage 4 cancer from which, with chemo, I recovered 14 years ago, or the rather spectacular bout of depression I suffered in 2017 (and from which I recovered). So, I do not mean to minimise its impact on anyone. I am, however, as you see, still here and even generally cheerful - my wife may not entirely agree, but she hasn't left me after 50 years together, so I can't be that bad.
One thing I have learned is that for many of us (there is nothing in T that affects all of us, we are all different), T will change over time, whether we follow a program of habituation or not. Partly this is because almost everyone's hearing will deteriorate over a long enough time, but our individual brains' cope with that in different ways. (Incidentally, I assume that your hearing has been tested and that you have any necessary hearing aids - they do help in the majority of cases). So, you can look forward to change in your T, and it may well settle down and improve.
Come what may though, if your T has now been present for long enough that it is not temporary thing (it happens), then you are going to have life that is different from the one you anticipated, and you might become a person who is not the one you expected to become, but it is wrong to think that it won't be a good life. Many people here will tell you that it can be. You didn't sign up for this adventure, but you are on board now 🙂
Best wishes
as has been said, Petra. Habituation just happens.
Let me give an example. I bought a flat on a main road. On the first night what kept me awake? The noise of traffic (as normal background tinnitus). I’d get to sleep : Sirens and motorbikes and people coming out of the pub (like tinnitus giving different noises, or spiking). Within a week I was a wreck.
Within about six weeks though I had habituated. Because my brain realised the noise was the new normal; the primitive part of the brain realised that the noise wasn’t going to hurt me.
The way to help habituation on its way is acceptance, relaxation, maybe cognitive behaviour therapy.
If you haven’t done so lately, a read through the website of Tinnitus UK might be helpful.
That is my problem, I just can't accept it. And I cannot focus away from the noise. My brain is there every minute
I'm with you Petra, this torture is with me every second, resonating through my skull. I can't habituate to this because I don't know what's coming next. Apart from the baseline ringing/hissing I get loads of other noises, I never know what is coming or when, so I know habituation is never going to happen.I mask it with a snooze band and have a 15khz masking sound louder than the tinnitus background baseline. It's the only way I get anywhere near coping.
The NHS had me talking to a psychologist last year. He had been dealing with people suffering with T for over 20 years. Habituation was something he mentioned regularly, although it seemed to me that all the people who had managed to habituate had either hearing loss induced tinnitus or tinnitus lite, not the life wrecking somatic T that some of us have.
I guess we all have to find our own way as we search for a way to cope.
Good luck to you.
What excellent advice, well worth remembering.
hello, have you tried yoga to try and calm yourself? It’s all about being in a neutral place to tell yourself you’re okay with the sound. It’s more about being very relaxed when it happens. The more you adopt this, the sooner the sound will dissipate and you’ll learn to ignore it.
Thank you for this advice. My problem is that - no matter what I am doing - I never feel fine with my noise. It just is disturbing me all the time and I don't know how to switch into positive thinking about my T
How do you manage this?
I had to tell my brain to ignore it and focus on something entirely different. It mostly disturbed me at night and often woke me up. It’s not gone entirely it’s just less and I’m used to it. But if it wakes me up again I have to tell myself it’s okay. I’m okay with it ignore it… and sooner than I would used to I’d fall asleep. It’s brain training and hard but it does help
There is no positive thinking about tinnitus. Perhaps trying to defy this truth is where your grief is mainly coming from. There is acceptance of it, just like with any other chronic medical condition. The English phrase is 'go with the flow'. We get carried along in life most of the time, the options available to us are not nearly as numerous as we like to think. Hope this helps.
It is easier said than done trying to ignore tinnitus especially if you have the more louder intrusive variety and like me have hyperacusis to contend with too! As try as you might you can’t ignore it!? I’ve been round the track countless times trying everything; CBT, ACT, mindfulness, acupuncture, been on nearly every pill out there, and exhausted some pills to the point that they no longer work for me? I even go to the gym (in my garage) 2-4 times a week, eat a reasonably healthy diet, Meanwhile this has all got worse (or is it just the perception??) so no idea what I do from here!? lol!! As I’ve seemingly just been kicked into the long grass basically by the medical World in the UK, only a few weeks ago I saw an ENT Specialist who said basically this “Sorry but there’s nothing I can do for you!” And I sat there and thought - Wow here we are in the 21st century and you can’t even give me a pill or perhaps an injection somewhere in the head that would just bring it down even a tad? Not even asking for a cure!! 😆 But No, all we’ve got is talking therapy and this seemingly only works on those with low to moderate tinnitus and hyperacusis or/and have a diff type of brain perhaps which lets them get past it? Well I don’t have that type of brain either - if it exists?
Ja wir sind ziemlich auf uns alleine gestellt, im Endeffekt muss jeder selber damit klar kommen. Mein t. ist nicht einmal sehr laut, eher leise bis mittel, trotzdem belastet er mich und auch die Psychotherapie hat mir da wenig geholfen
I see no point in masking. You don't want to hear this noise and instead you just... put another noise? I just let it as it is.
How long has it been since you had it?
My tinnitus is too loud to mask now, after many years, tho my hearing itself seems fine. I used to hate it, which is a common reaction among people who post here. Now, the sound just reminds me that I made a decision to be positive about all of life, the good and the awful, all the things we don't get to choose. A person is worse off giving way to hate than just seeing (hearing) what's real and doing what can be done, and accepting it when nothing can be done. I'm in the U.S. and that's my attitude about Trump too.
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