Do you have a ringing, whistling, or buzzing sound in your ears? Tinnitus can impact every area of your life. If you live with chronic, persistent tinnitus, you may have a hard time focusing on tasks, enjoying time with your loved ones, and getting a good night’s sleep. There is no cure for tinnitus, but there are a number of treatment options to consider.
Lifestyle Changes
Tinnitus treatment focuses on reducing the severity of tinnitus, making it easier for you to live your life. Treatments are designed to reduce the emotional and cognitive impact tinnitus has on your life. One way to manage tinnitus is through lifestyle changes. Prioritizing your health and wellness can reduce the impact of tinnitus.
Exercise
Staying active can reduce your tinnitus! Physical activity is good for your body, your emotions, and your brain. Getting enough exercise can minimize the impact of tinnitus by reducing stress and releasing endorphins.
Social Activity
If you have tinnitus, you may be feeling socially isolated. Tinnitus can make conversations more challenging, and you may be spending more time alone. However, social isolation can increase stress, and lead to feelings of loneliness and anxiety. Staying social is one way to minimize your tinnitus symptoms.
Diet
The foods you eat can impact your experience of tinnitus. When you eat a well-balanced diet, you can reduce hypertension, lower blood pressure, and improve your overall health. This can reduce stress and bring tinnitus relief.
Caffeine
For some people, coffee can make their tinnitus worse. Caffeine may lead to worse tinnitus symptoms, so try cutting back on coffee and see if this affects your tinnitus.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Tinnitus can cause stress, anxiety, and even depression. Cognitive-behavioral therapy can help you learn to recognize and manage your thoughts and behaviors. This therapy helps you develop emotional coping skills, and pay less attention to the tinnitus. This will diminish the effect of tinnitus in your life, and make the tinnitus symptoms less noticeable.
Sound Therapy
One of the most common tinnitus treatment options is sound therapy. Tinnitus is a sound that’s only in your mind, but you can use an external sound to mask the tinnitus. South therapy can be white noise, pink noise, or even music that masks the tinnitus and fades it into the background. This helps you become habituated to the sounds, and you can more easily ignore the tinnitus.
Tinnitus Retraining Therapy
This therapy uses a combination of sound therapy and counseling to change how you experience tinnitus. During counseling sessions, you’ll wear a device to mask tinnitus as you work on changing your perception of tinnitus. Tinnitus retraining therapy can help you ignore your symptoms and feel less distressed by tinnitus sounds.
Hearing Aids
If you have tinnitus, you probably also have hearing loss. That’s because the damaged cells that can case hearing loss are the same cells associated with tinnitus. Tinnitus treatment and hearing loss treatment should go hand in hand. Hearing aids help you hear more of the sounds around you. By getting a complete picture of the sounds in your environment, your experience of tinnitus is often reduced. Just by wearing hearing aids and hearing more external sounds, you can get tinnitus relief.
Tinnitus Management Programs
Modern hearing aids also have built-in sound therapy programs! These tinnitus management programs will play a masking sound to fade your tinnitus into the background. The program is calibrated to match your unique experience of tinnitus, and you can choose the kind of sound you want to hear. This could be white noise, nature sounds, or even your favorite music. By masking tinnitus, you will reduce your stress and reduce your tinnitus symptoms so you can focus on the important things in life.
Treating Tinnitus
Hearing aids with tinnitus management programs will treat your hearing loss and tinnitus at the same time. These hearing aids will help you hear all the sounds in your environment. They’ll also make it easier to follow conversations. When you choose hearing aids with a tinnitus management program, you’ll also get relief from tinnitus symptoms. Enjoy your day without worrying about tinnitus, and find out how easy it is to focus on tasks and connect with loved ones when you’re not focusing on your tinnitus.