Stress and Its Relationship With Tinnitus

Hello Dr. Nagler,

I was wondering if I would be able to get your opinion on stress and how it correlates with T.

I have heard some people say that extreme stress is the cause of their T. I was curious if you think that if you go through extreme stress if it can cause T, or make your existing T worse?

I have always been a bit of an anxious person and have had some small run ins with depression in the past. So I find that for myself, getting a hold of stress seems to be the biggest hurdle and challenge for me. I believe that exposure to gun fire (with some ear protection) in the summer may have made my T worse, but the bigger issue is that it caused me to re-ignitie that emotional connection to my T. Even though for about 6 years before, I never really thought of my T and would go about me day and have a social life and not think about my T.

I think another issue for people with more moderate/severe T is getting over the negative-reaction feeling when exposed to noise. I had an incident two days ago where I was exposed to a street sweeper truck, and even though I plugged my ears properly, I would then let my stress take over and make me feel that my T got permanently worse.

I feel getting over that hurdle for many people is one of the biggest challenges of getting used to making friends with this thing that we call Tinnitus.

 

Hi @kmohoruk -

I tried to address that issue a bit at:

https://www.tinnitustalk.com/threads/overactive-nerves.7035/

Just insert stress wherever I said anxiety in my response. I hope that answers your question.

Well here I might have something new to say. I realize that some folks (and even one noted "authority") talk about making friends with tinnitus. To me that concept is so ludicrous and foreign that it would be laughable were it not so sad. I can see getting to the point where you don't care about tinnitus one way or the other - that's what the habituation process is all about. But making friends with it? I'll tell you this. Anybody who has managed to make friends with his or her tinnitus could not possibly have suffered anywhere near as much as I suffered. Not a chance!

My suggestion: Do not try to make friends with your tinnitus. Just focus on getting to the point where you are largely indifferent towards it!

Best to all -

Dr. Stephen Nagler