Does Mindfulness Really Help With Tinnitus?
Woman with dark hair wearing a green top and jeans. She is sitting with her legs crossed on a chair with her hands over her ears.
What Is Tinnitus?
Often described as a ringing or buzzing noise, it can also sound like a lawnmower under your pillow when you're trying to sleep at night.
It can change in frequency and volume, sometimes it's a mild irritation that you can distract yourself from by having the radio or tv on in the background, other times it's loud enough to drown out the conversation around you.
What Causes Tinnitus?
There are many possible causes, including hearing loss, allergies or high blood pressure.
Certain antidepressants and antibiotics can affect it to, so if you’re experiencing this for the first time or it’s got worse after a change in your medication, go and see your GP.
Other things that can affect it include smoking, alcohol and caffeine, so cutting back on these may help.
Trying to cope with tinnitus can cause anxiety, depression, irritability, poor concentration, fatigue, memory problems, frustration, mood swings, stress and headaches. Various studies like this one have shown a corelation between tinnitus and migraines.
Hearing a constant loud noise that no one else can hear is very isolating. It can feel like no one else knows what you’re going through or understands. You may feel you are going crazy or worry that there’s a serious medical cause.
Tinnitus and Hearing Loss
One of the most common causes, also the cause of my own tinnitus, is hearing loss. Because of damaged hair cells in the inner ear, the brain can’t pick up the sounds that it’s used to.
Some theories say that the damaged hair cells in the inner ear cause the nerve endings to misfire, creating the sound. Others say that the brain, in an effort to be helpful, recreates the appearance of sound to compensate for what’s missing.
There is no cure, research into treatment is ongoing. Some people find it goes away by itself, others find a way to live with it using distraction techniques like white noise machines or having the radio on in the background at night.
Lots of articles will tell you to make sure you’re getting enough sleep and reduce stress as these both make it worse. I used to think this was really unhelpful because the cause of my sleepless nights – and my constant stress, was tinnitus.
It appeared at random, often when I was struggling to hear someone speaking.
Or waking me up in the night, making it impossible to get back to sleep.
Sometimes it would last the whole day, making me stressed and irritable.
The more stressed out I got, the louder it became. I’d be worrying all day about getting to sleep that night.
I can’t wear my hearing aids at night so having a radio playing as a distraction wasn’t an option. It would keep the neighbours awake.
Lack of sleep, being anxious and stressed out has a knock on effect. It effects your interactions with everyone, both at work and at home.
You have less patience, become snappy and grumpy, maybe angry or withdrawn. Everything seems hopeless and you can’t see a way to break the cycle.
Tinnitus and Mindfulness.
Mindfulness is about reducing the distress and suffering we feel. Part of this happens by changing the way we react to the things that happen.
When we react to things like tinnitus with negative thoughts, try to fight it or distract ourselves from it, our mind is always focused on the tinnitus, and the hopelessness and anger it creates keeps getting bigger.
Mindfulness (MBCT) courses help you to retrain your attention and focus whilst reducing our brains natural tendency for negative thinking. The course also trains you in self compassion and non judgement (e.g. how to stop your thoughts from beating you up all the time)
How does it work?
Instead of being a distraction technique, mindfulness teaches a different approach. It can help you to drop the struggle with the annoyance and frustration of tinnitus, letting it be and allowing yourself to turn towards the sound instead of fighting it.
Once we learn to notice the recurring thought patterns or resulting behaviours that aren’t helping us, the ones that are making the stress and anxiety worse, we can learn to let them go.
Mindfulness cultivates attitudes of kindness, compassion, gentleness and appreciation. Things we often show easily to others, but not ourselves.
Many studies have shown that Mindfulness is beneficial to those suffering with tinnitus. In particular the 8 week MBCT programme. You can read more here. Participants have reported that their tinnitus is less intrusive than before, they have lower stress and anxiety levels and better sleep patterns.
When you first start a mindfulness practice it’s important to take things slowly. If you find sitting in silence makes the buzzing noise too distracting, listen to a guided meditation instead or have some peaceful music in the background. If you prefer mindful movement or mindful walking, focus on those first and try others later on.
Many meditations focus on sound, but visual practices work just as well, particularly if you have hearing loss.
There are lots of meditation apps and online practices, but it’s important to find a mindfulness teacher that understands tinnitus and the problems that go with it. This means that they can tailor and adapt the classes to your needs.
Click here for current mindfulness classes.