10 Days without Earplugs... 10,000 ft... My Best Tinnitus Tamer Saner

I guess this should go in the "Positivity Thread" maybe, but there is a remedial component that is relevant here.

In May I posted about how the "Big Silence" of wide open spaces in nature seem to 'drown out' my incessant screeching T and make my H irrelevant (as there is no noise to protect from). Just not having earplugs in for days on end is fantastic. No trucks, cars, engines, screaming kids, supermarkets to shop at, and so on. This break is what the high mountains give me despite the somewhat tortuous drive of 9 hours to get to the trailhead parking area. Then I just head out into the wilderness and mostly don't see a soul once off the trails. (Ansel Adams Wilderness - California Sierra's). It is my best and strongest 'anti-depressant' for sure and the withdrawal symptoms of having to deal with everyday life stuff upon return are a helluva lot better than coming off Tramadol for sure!

Anyway, I guess I am suggesting this as a sanity treatment for handling "unhabituatable" T until Autifony or whoever comes up with a cure. If you can get out and find deep natural silence, be it on the ocean in a boat, the desert, the wilderness...I highly recommend it. For as many days as possible.

Here's a few photos that I hope inspire...and I mean a few! I don't want to chew up MB space here and picking which out of so many gorgeous places is going to be impossible. Apologies Moderators if this is bad form, but beauty can be good medicine.. so here goes:

My tent in red circle.











Peace!...Best, Zimichael

 

Fantastic scenery...!

Scenery like that can be found in Europe, but not on the same scale and vastness.

I agree, if human beings had stayed true to being outdoors for all of our lives, tinnitus probably wouldn't be the same problem.

Take care
Jakob

 

Great post! Thanks for sharing this!

 

Wow, stunning. I was born in California, grew up in the West in a camping and hiking family. If there is one thing I miss living in Florida, its mountains.

Did you have to pack in to your site? Great spot.

And yes, I have noticed when I am doing outdoors stuff, my tinnitus almost always disappears.

 

Zimichael
SO AWESOME!! I'm moving to the Sierras!! Proof that nature is not silent; just powerfully-peaceful. Thanx so much for sharing (great pix).

And, yes, make a link to your post on the positivity thread (great idea).

Mark

 

Beautiful!!

 

Wow that looks absolutely stunning...if there was any plausible way I could get up, take a tent, plot it in that scene somewhere and live there FOREVER...I would....unfortunately life don't quite work like that lol

So glad you had a nice time, and yes I imagine not wearing earplugs for so many days must be wonderful and give your ears a break.

Thanks for posting the beautiful pictures x

Going to look for woodland rural breaks in the uk right now.......

 

Hey, glad the pics were inspirational and evocative of "peace", etc. Sure was hard to pick which ones to post as I have about 50 of same caliber but different places. And yes it is HUUUUUGE out there...and I was in a narrower part of the Sierra's too and it goes on 'forever' seemingly. Very comforting to know that 'empty' (but full of rich silence) space is still out there.

@LadyDi ...yeah I back-packed it all in. Where I go you can't cheat and hire a mule to carry your stuff (they destroy the trails too so are big time unpopular with foot hikers like me). With the regulations requiring Kevlar bear canisters for food storage (versus tree hanging counterbalance I have done for decades) my pack was 50 pounds going in (23 kgs). A bit heavy for my little frame and age. One can't mess with the big mountains though and need full winter gear, survival stuff, and so on, even in the height of summer.

Super worth it though and I want to re-emphasize that having many days of 'open ears' with no plugs in, and big silence, is different from having silence at home say, in a house. And most certainly different from silence with earplugs in. Sort of like IWLM's "cotton wool rest your ears" thing but without the need for cotton wool.

My ears really like it and deserve the break...Me too of course

Best, Zimichael

 

Thanks, Zimichael. I had a feeling you were backpacking when I looked at the peaks around you. You were right at tree line. Then I spotted that green propane cylinder in one of your photos and thought: Gee, I bet that was one heavy pack. I was right! Hats off to you for carrying 50 pounds up a mountain.

 

Thanks a lot for that view, Zimichael, it makes me instantly dream myself away to a location like that.

It really makes you wonder, if the progress of mankind really IS progress. We always have an urge to go back to nature and enjoy the her beauty and conditions, and yet here we are in our apartment in the city on our computers. We have accepted our food as being heavily processed, cheap and in the case of meat from creatures raised under depressing conditions and on antibiotics, hormones and creatine for a diet.
Also replacing stimulants in form of physical activity and sunlight with coffee, smokes & sugar - and later in life artificial sweeteners and nicotine gum.
And our machinery, explosions, engines, etc creating sound environments that we were never built to be around. Without the invention of the speaker, I would have had a tinnitus-free life.

It is claustrophobic to realise just how trapped in this stress-mess we are..