How to Beat Anxiety and Habituate?

[JuliaGulia]

I recently posted about how I wasn't sure if I had tinnitus. After a week I've determined that I definitely hear a ringing any time there aren't any noises to mask it. It's very high pitched and makes me feel really helpless. I'm reply struggling with anxiety about it and wondering if I will ever hear silence again. I'm wondering if any of you have advice on how to habituate to the noise and stop the negative, anxious thoughts about it. Thanks

 

[Ronnie Ercolani]

I got Tinnitus about 2 1/2 years ago. At the time I could only hear it when I am in a quiet room. What I did to habituate at first was to use a Tinnitus app on my iPhone to mask the sound. Whenever it bothered me I would put on my headphones and use the app. The name of the app was Hear&Tinnitus. Then after a while I stopped using it because I realized that my T was so low that I could only hear it when it was quiet, so what I did was I started counting how many minutes a day I would hear it. My total average was about 5-15 minutes per day. With that I realized that out of 24 hours a day I would only hear this awful ringing several minutes a day. After realizing that I started to get comfortable with it. I don't know if this will work for you but I just wanted to response to your post to let you know what I did.

Unfortunately at the moment my right ear is ringing so loud. I don't know what happened and I don't know what I will do to habituate since now I hear it over everything. This T is merciless.

 

[daniel1111]

Hi Julia,

I know it's difficult, but you have to try not to think about your future with tinnitus. Take it a day at a time, busy yourself as much as you can. The idea is to keep your mind distracted and being in situations where you notice your tinnitus less.

Do things that make you happy, because if the tinnitus causes you to be depressed, the tinnitus sound can be even more noticeable.

You are still new to it, and these early moments of tinnitus are always extremely difficult. I am sure you will feel better about it as time goes on and notice the sound less and less.

Stay positive!

Regards,
Daniel

 

[I who love music]

After 40 years of T, and medicine, and X rays and cat scans, and chiropractors, and drops, pills, spray, lots of books, accupressure and you name it, NOTHING helped me like this has -
https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/back-to-silence.7172/