Using Annoying Sounds to Make the Brain Focus Less on Tinnitus?

[Jesse Pinkman]

I do not know if this really works, or how effective it is but I was thinking that maybe exposing yourself from sounds more annoying than your tinnitus may steadially make the brain focus less on the tinnitus. I thought about this while reading one of RaZaH's posts where he said that its pretty much the most bothersome sound that has stayed and the other sounds are pretty much gone. Maybe the sound you expose yourself to doesnt even have to be that loud, as long as its bothersome and makes the brain focus on it more than the tinnitus. I would also think that its important that the sound does not completely mask the tinnitus. By doing this my theory is that the brain will focus less and less on the tinnitus and it will fade away slowly or make you habituate faster. However, Im kind of new to this so i dont know if this new sound could create a new tinnitus or make it worse. Any ideas on this matter?

 

[Ilija]

Don't know about sounds but mostly for me the minute I stop focusing on my Tinnitus/Sound sensitivity it lessens to like 10-20%, if I'm playing a game and really get into it I forget about Tinnitus all-together.

 

[Marcini]

As long as the distraction sound is a safe level i.e. below 85dB then it certainly won't worsen your tinnitus. Any distraction is good. A lot of people like the sound of fans. They may not cover the tinnitus completely but they can be a partial distraction and the monotonous low drone can be relaxing and seems to help some people sleep. Not focusing on the tinnitus, regardless of how you do it, is the #1 trick.

 

[I who love music]

I've read other people's posts describing this idea and how it works for them. I too, tried using masking sounds and other environment sounds but it didn't work for me because it seems, I'd have to 'check in' on my T to see if the volume of it was going down. In the end, I learned to not listen to my T at all. You may find this interesting - https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/back-to-silence.7172/

 

[flkb]

I Who Love Music---Good read. I'll have to try that.