MemberI think there is no quick fix but I do think there can be a fix. It's a journey for sure. There are a few key factors that can assist.
1) Really attending to inner relaxation, becoming gently mindful of when your body/mind is going into stress and learning stop-and-calm techniques to lower that tension level. MANY of us have been mindlessly co-existing with our overblown inner tension for years, since childhood, I'll bet. I know I have. I had a stressful background and just had to swallow down a lot of emotional pain and cope. I got good at it. I am a sunshiny person by nature, but the stress is there, something I learned to hold inside and live my life around.
And, I am high energy. For my 20s and 30s and 40s, it was coffee coffee coffee achieve achieve achieve. And some of that I LIKE. I like to create things and make them of high excellence. That is me. But now I see that I COULD exhale, just a LITTLE bit. I could breathe more. And, when something upsets me, I can be with myself for a few minutes, letting it process and then gently setting it down, rather than just shoving it into the emotional dumpster of my mind and heart and letting it spike my adrenals and cortisol levels, which, after all, DO have a cumulative stress-breakdown effect inside the body. Meaning: walking potential tinnitus case, ready to happen once it encounters the right trigger (acoustic, infection, etc., etc.).
2) Focusing your outlook, well, outwards!
Not that this means dashing around running away from the tinnitus (that's just a tinnitus-increasing stress loop), but rather, continually leading your mind and body back to both relaxation and focus on goals that are YOUR goals. You know, the ones you had and have and would still be tending to were it not that tinnitus came along and stole your attention away. These goals are your deeply held personal ones - your dreams, work, friends, relationships, and just things you like to do. By focusing back on them, you re-assert your self love, and claim THAT as the uppermost thing in your attention. Relegate tinnitus to the same status as the bag of trash you set in the can out back, just waiting to be taken to the curb on garbage collection day. Are any of us still thinking about the empty cereal box we threw away Monday morning? Right. That's where tinnitus thinking belongs, while we go about our real personal lives, working and conversing and tai-chi'ing the day away.
3) Better diet. Enough said here. Just ... yeah. Eat whole nutritional foods. Avoid additives like the plague. They are neurotoxic and increase neuroexcitability.
4) Sleep enough. Sleep is the body's down time to heal, re-set, restore, repair. It is NOT something to skimp on.
5) Be your own best friend. Guide yourself gently like you would a beloved child or even a little puppy! I am serious! We tend to "talk" to ourselves inside in all sorts of pressured and abusive ways. Let's say you are practicing relaxing so you can help to let go of tinnitus, and then something makes you snap and you have a temporary fit of anger. Then, afterwards, you realize that you are actually internally blaming yourself for the slip-up, tensing inside that you've just set yourself back, etc., etc. HALT! As soon as you realize you're not talking nicely to yourself, imagine that you are the kind mother or kind father to your own small child, and gently, GENTLY, re-guide yourself back to a place of calm. We are all humans and we all deserve sensitive, gentle, kind treatment. Love yourself like this.
6) Patience, patience, patience. It is a process. Just like you don't earn a college degree or learn to read well or do a skill in a day or a week (instead, months or years), give yourself the time and space inside your own head. Make the roadmap of your own gentle journey allow for some starts and stops along the way, and allow yourself enough time to make the journey peacefully. Then, you will arrive in the best condition.
Sending love and encouragement to everyone on their journeys.
1) Really attending to inner relaxation, becoming gently mindful of when your body/mind is going into stress and learning stop-and-calm techniques to lower that tension level. MANY of us have been mindlessly co-existing with our overblown inner tension for years, since childhood, I'll bet. I know I have. I had a stressful background and just had to swallow down a lot of emotional pain and cope. I got good at it. I am a sunshiny person by nature, but the stress is there, something I learned to hold inside and live my life around.
And, I am high energy. For my 20s and 30s and 40s, it was coffee coffee coffee achieve achieve achieve. And some of that I LIKE. I like to create things and make them of high excellence. That is me. But now I see that I COULD exhale, just a LITTLE bit. I could breathe more. And, when something upsets me, I can be with myself for a few minutes, letting it process and then gently setting it down, rather than just shoving it into the emotional dumpster of my mind and heart and letting it spike my adrenals and cortisol levels, which, after all, DO have a cumulative stress-breakdown effect inside the body. Meaning: walking potential tinnitus case, ready to happen once it encounters the right trigger (acoustic, infection, etc., etc.).
2) Focusing your outlook, well, outwards!
Not that this means dashing around running away from the tinnitus (that's just a tinnitus-increasing stress loop), but rather, continually leading your mind and body back to both relaxation and focus on goals that are YOUR goals. You know, the ones you had and have and would still be tending to were it not that tinnitus came along and stole your attention away. These goals are your deeply held personal ones - your dreams, work, friends, relationships, and just things you like to do. By focusing back on them, you re-assert your self love, and claim THAT as the uppermost thing in your attention. Relegate tinnitus to the same status as the bag of trash you set in the can out back, just waiting to be taken to the curb on garbage collection day. Are any of us still thinking about the empty cereal box we threw away Monday morning? Right. That's where tinnitus thinking belongs, while we go about our real personal lives, working and conversing and tai-chi'ing the day away.3) Better diet. Enough said here. Just ... yeah. Eat whole nutritional foods. Avoid additives like the plague. They are neurotoxic and increase neuroexcitability.
4) Sleep enough. Sleep is the body's down time to heal, re-set, restore, repair. It is NOT something to skimp on.
5) Be your own best friend. Guide yourself gently like you would a beloved child or even a little puppy! I am serious! We tend to "talk" to ourselves inside in all sorts of pressured and abusive ways. Let's say you are practicing relaxing so you can help to let go of tinnitus, and then something makes you snap and you have a temporary fit of anger. Then, afterwards, you realize that you are actually internally blaming yourself for the slip-up, tensing inside that you've just set yourself back, etc., etc. HALT! As soon as you realize you're not talking nicely to yourself, imagine that you are the kind mother or kind father to your own small child, and gently, GENTLY, re-guide yourself back to a place of calm. We are all humans and we all deserve sensitive, gentle, kind treatment. Love yourself like this.
6) Patience, patience, patience. It is a process. Just like you don't earn a college degree or learn to read well or do a skill in a day or a week (instead, months or years), give yourself the time and space inside your own head. Make the roadmap of your own gentle journey allow for some starts and stops along the way, and allow yourself enough time to make the journey peacefully. Then, you will arrive in the best condition.
Sending love and encouragement to everyone on their journeys.
