Changing Volume, or Is It?

[Matt01]

Hi,

Looking for some advice here. Had tinnitus for 3 months in one ear, it's like a fast electrical beeping, or morse code. In these three months I have had two periods, once for about 5 days and once for 2 days, where I swear it dropped, especially at night, to like a 1/10, a level that I could for instance sleep with no problem. Since then, for the past few weeks it's been a constant slightly louder level, I would say 3/10. I am trying to get my head around whether it has actually changed at all, or whether it was just my brain starting to block out the sound.

Has anybody had similar experiences or thoughts?

Matt

 

[linearb]

Until we have better imaging to actually map the tinnitus signal through the brain in realtime and also measure the intensity/voltage, it's pretty hard to say, but my own observations are:
* the volume is not constant, it fluctuates
* certain things modulate that fluctuation, including: sleep habits, muscle tension, muscle strain, attention

So what'll happen to me is that I'll be doing okay with this stuff and not really thinking about T much, then I tweak a muscle and it gets a little louder, then I start focusing on it and it gets a lot louder.

I think there's every reason to think that the simple act of paying attention to the noise, might literally increase the strength of the signal. The reason I say that is that the brain is a big filtering mechanism, 99% of our sensory input is being discarded before it's brought to the attention of the conscious mind, and it's pretty obvious that when you focus your attention on something you're able to perceive it more clearly.

Since you asked for advice, if this makes sense to you, I'd say look into meditation! Meditation is all about training the conscious mind to focus on what you want it to, and not get pulled down rabbitholes of distraction. T is a big distraction, for sure...