Member- Mar 26, 2016
- 476
- Tinnitus Since
- 12/2015
- Cause of Tinnitus
- acoustic
I've had a pretty good run of days, lately!
I'm not gonna post in "Success Stories" just yet, though I feel some success here. But I'm a writer/details person and when I do that one, I want it to be really well-written in a way that does the most good to whoever reads it. Also, I feel that I have more "successing" to go along this path, so I'm not ready for that particular thread.
That said, I've had a run of pretty good days lately! I've been dealing with this for months, had the typical freak-out/break-down reactions for several of those months, kept food logs, sound logs, log logs
etc. (I'm a little logy, a little logical, and ... a writer! I LIKE to write things down!). I was searching, like all of us, for CLUES. Fixes. Etc.
I had to go through that. I had to do that in order to come to a place where I do NOT have to do that.
But anyway, to get to the point ... lately I've had a pretty good run of days.
The tinnitus I've experienced since the beginning I would categorize in the mild/moderate range, gradually (but not CONSISTENTLY) getting more toward the mild. By mild, I do NOT mean "Lah-dee-dah-I-am-OH-so-happy!-This-is-nothing-more-than-a-fly-at-my-picnic" mild. By "mild," I mean: This freaking SUCKS. Disturbs my peace. Hurts my heart. I never had this and now I do and this ROTS. THAT kind of "mild." The kind of "mild" that drives a peace-and-quiet-loving soul to take up residence with a purple snail icon on a tinnitus forum (my other hobbies are more scintillating!).
But anyway, I know that I have it "mildly" in comparison to some of the others here whose stories I have been sad to read.
Why do I think I've had this run of better days? Well, THAT'S the POINT that I've been getting to, and why I decided to post THIS today. I couldn't have HAD these better days without a lot of things falling into place, with regards to the psychological responses that can help tinnitus fade a bit into a corner.
Here's what I hope can be of help to anyone here who is still, like me, walking that daily walk on the hopeful way to a better place with this malady: Calm down.
I've been a doer/striver/overthinker/hyperthinker forever. I plan to continue to be because it's related to a lot of the best of who I am.
BUT. Tinnitus, in how it's made me have to calm myself, has been a good instructor in FINALLY after all these years of living with a "high tolerance for stress and tension" made me ... STOP. Really look at myself. And ... STOP tolerating the stress and tension.
Instead of just sloughing off all that advice you read about "slowing down, taking a few deep breaths," I have actually ... SLOWED DOWN. Really learned how to breathe and get good calmness in my physical body from that.
TWO: Sleep gets priority.
THREE: Hydration. Just do it. Drink the water. It doesn't cure tinnitus, but it DOES take good care of your body. You need a well-cared for body if you are going to improve ANYTHING in life. There comes a stage (most of your life) when you no longer have the "I can eat a bag of cookies for dinner and an ice pop for dessert and be just fine" nine-year-old bodily constitution. Accept that. And sooooo ...
FOUR: Eat well. It helps enormously.
FIVE: ALLOW YOURSELF TO REST. During the day. At night. Accept one less invitation and stay home when you need to. ***Just give your mind and body and soul and psyche some BREATHING ROOM!!! There is no race to the finish line in life. You are going to die at some point. That day you will have a to-do list too! And it won't matter. So start today and stop bugging yourself with excess mental stress and worry. It doesn't help.
SIX: I have watched lots of youtube clips of people who have helped me to really be in the now. Eckhart Tolle. Ram Dass. Marianne Williamson. Carolyn Myss. Others. Some will resonate with you more than others. But find some calming philosophies and pour them into yourself. Until one day, you find yourself in a stressful predicament and you begin to realize ... here is the chance to re-structure your reaction/to change your response/to slow down and breathe. And then you find yourself gradually becoming less and less stressed and anxious, even though you may have the same amount of challenging situations in your life. Because YOU begin to change. And people (YOU) CAN change. It is built into the human experience that we can learn and grow. So by practicing this stuff, in little bits and pieces, calmly, without imposing a "sudden results" expectation on yourself, one day you'll find you've reached a "critical mass" and the calmness response will just seem to come more naturally.
And I think THAT'S what's happened to me the past few weeks. I just feel that something is settling. And so even though the tinnitus is present, it also recedes down to about 5-10% strength at times, and I am not attached to latching onto that and freaking out about how to "get it to stay." I am just ... breathing.
One more thing: This is so crucial and it works: The other day, I had a bit of an upswing in the tinnitus and the rear head buzzing feeling. It was early in the day and I was more rattled/upset by it. Suddenly, I was called to message back and forth with someone online, and the conversation went on for quite a while. I was giving and taking with someone in a thoroughly engaged way, and when that conversation was done, the tinnitus had gone waaaaaaaay down again, and the rest of the day was peaceful bliss.
I have no science to back this up, though I am certain it is true, and it is my truth, anyway, so I'll state it here for whoever wants/needs to think it this way: I believe that being super-engaged in a really pleasurable creative activity OR in a very caring/giving/helping activity for others actually reinforces and builds neuronal connections in your brain that can act in a tinnitus-suppressive manner.
Again, I don't state that as hard science. But I do believe that, more and more, when I find myself irritated by the tinnitus (which I continue to experience), I can actively and masterfully bring it down by simply walking into OTHER rooms in the "house of my mind," the rooms of creativity and helpfulness, and then the tinnitus just backs down into a forgotten state in a corner.
And one day, I expect to leave the back door unlocked so it is free to just wander away, unattended. <<-- That's the image I'm giving it.
(Oh, and one more thing! I will NEVER call this "my" tinnitus. And that's not a game of semantics for me. It's as close-to-the-marrow crucial as any significant belief or life philosophy I hold dear. I will say things like "the tinnitus I experience" or "this tinnitus." But I simply refuse to adopt it and call it "mine." This is just me sharing what works for me. But I like the idea of not empowering something that I consider to be so VERY UNrelated to who I am. Again, it may seem like mere semantics, so if it doesn't impact you to call it "my tinnitus," that's fine. It WOULD impact me if I did that. I think that words are blessed symbols for all that happens to us, around us, IS us. They're what we use to tell all our human stories.)
Okay, that WAS long. I hope this is helpful to whoever it's meant to resonate with. I have great care for the members of this forum and wish for everyone to be as successful as possible in mitigating the effects of this.
I'm not gonna post in "Success Stories" just yet, though I feel some success here. But I'm a writer/details person and when I do that one, I want it to be really well-written in a way that does the most good to whoever reads it. Also, I feel that I have more "successing" to go along this path, so I'm not ready for that particular thread.
That said, I've had a run of pretty good days lately! I've been dealing with this for months, had the typical freak-out/break-down reactions for several of those months, kept food logs, sound logs, log logs
etc. (I'm a little logy, a little logical, and ... a writer! I LIKE to write things down!). I was searching, like all of us, for CLUES. Fixes. Etc.I had to go through that. I had to do that in order to come to a place where I do NOT have to do that.
But anyway, to get to the point
... lately I've had a pretty good run of days.The tinnitus I've experienced since the beginning I would categorize in the mild/moderate range, gradually (but not CONSISTENTLY) getting more toward the mild. By mild, I do NOT mean "Lah-dee-dah-I-am-OH-so-happy!-This-is-nothing-more-than-a-fly-at-my-picnic" mild. By "mild," I mean: This freaking SUCKS. Disturbs my peace. Hurts my heart. I never had this and now I do and this ROTS. THAT kind of "mild." The kind of "mild" that drives a peace-and-quiet-loving soul to take up residence with a purple snail icon on a tinnitus forum (my other hobbies are more scintillating!).
But anyway, I know that I have it "mildly" in comparison to some of the others here whose stories I have been sad to read.
Why do I think I've had this run of better days? Well, THAT'S the POINT that I've been getting to, and why I decided to post THIS today. I couldn't have HAD these better days without a lot of things falling into place, with regards to the psychological responses that can help tinnitus fade a bit into a corner.
Here's what I hope can be of help to anyone here who is still, like me, walking that daily walk on the hopeful way to a better place with this malady: Calm down.
I've been a doer/striver/overthinker/hyperthinker forever. I plan to continue to be because it's related to a lot of the best of who I am.
BUT. Tinnitus, in how it's made me have to calm myself, has been a good instructor in FINALLY after all these years of living with a "high tolerance for stress and tension" made me ... STOP. Really look at myself. And ... STOP tolerating the stress and tension.
Instead of just sloughing off all that advice you read about "slowing down, taking a few deep breaths," I have actually ... SLOWED DOWN. Really learned how to breathe and get good calmness in my physical body from that.
TWO: Sleep gets priority.
THREE: Hydration. Just do it. Drink the water. It doesn't cure tinnitus, but it DOES take good care of your body. You need a well-cared for body if you are going to improve ANYTHING in life. There comes a stage (most of your life) when you no longer have the "I can eat a bag of cookies for dinner and an ice pop for dessert and be just fine" nine-year-old bodily constitution. Accept that. And sooooo ...
FOUR: Eat well. It helps enormously.
FIVE: ALLOW YOURSELF TO REST. During the day. At night. Accept one less invitation and stay home when you need to. ***Just give your mind and body and soul and psyche some BREATHING ROOM!!! There is no race to the finish line in life. You are going to die at some point. That day you will have a to-do list too! And it won't matter. So start today and stop bugging yourself with excess mental stress and worry. It doesn't help.
SIX: I have watched lots of youtube clips of people who have helped me to really be in the now. Eckhart Tolle. Ram Dass. Marianne Williamson. Carolyn Myss. Others. Some will resonate with you more than others. But find some calming philosophies and pour them into yourself. Until one day, you find yourself in a stressful predicament and you begin to realize ... here is the chance to re-structure your reaction/to change your response/to slow down and breathe. And then you find yourself gradually becoming less and less stressed and anxious, even though you may have the same amount of challenging situations in your life. Because YOU begin to change. And people (YOU) CAN change. It is built into the human experience that we can learn and grow. So by practicing this stuff, in little bits and pieces, calmly, without imposing a "sudden results" expectation on yourself, one day you'll find you've reached a "critical mass" and the calmness response will just seem to come more naturally.
And I think THAT'S what's happened to me the past few weeks. I just feel that something is settling. And so even though the tinnitus is present, it also recedes down to about 5-10% strength at times, and I am not attached to latching onto that and freaking out about how to "get it to stay." I am just ... breathing.
One more thing: This is so crucial and it works: The other day, I had a bit of an upswing in the tinnitus and the rear head buzzing feeling. It was early in the day and I was more rattled/upset by it. Suddenly, I was called to message back and forth with someone online, and the conversation went on for quite a while. I was giving and taking with someone in a thoroughly engaged way, and when that conversation was done, the tinnitus had gone waaaaaaaay down again, and the rest of the day was peaceful bliss.
I have no science to back this up, though I am certain it is true, and it is my truth, anyway, so I'll state it here for whoever wants/needs to think it this way: I believe that being super-engaged in a really pleasurable creative activity OR in a very caring/giving/helping activity for others actually reinforces and builds neuronal connections in your brain that can act in a tinnitus-suppressive manner.
Again, I don't state that as hard science. But I do believe that, more and more, when I find myself irritated by the tinnitus (which I continue to experience), I can actively and masterfully bring it down by simply walking into OTHER rooms in the "house of my mind," the rooms of creativity and helpfulness, and then the tinnitus just backs down into a forgotten state in a corner.
And one day, I expect to leave the back door unlocked so it is free to just wander away, unattended.
<<-- That's the image I'm giving it.(Oh, and one more thing!
I will NEVER call this "my" tinnitus. And that's not a game of semantics for me. It's as close-to-the-marrow crucial as any significant belief or life philosophy I hold dear. I will say things like "the tinnitus I experience" or "this tinnitus." But I simply refuse to adopt it and call it "mine." This is just me sharing what works for me. But I like the idea of not empowering something that I consider to be so VERY UNrelated to who I am. Again, it may seem like mere semantics, so if it doesn't impact you to call it "my tinnitus," that's fine. It WOULD impact me if I did that. I think that words are blessed symbols for all that happens to us, around us, IS us. They're what we use to tell all our human stories.)Okay, that WAS long. I hope this is helpful to whoever it's meant to resonate with. I have great care for the members of this forum and wish for everyone to be as successful as possible in mitigating the effects of this.
