How Much Does (Lack of) Sleep Affect Tinnitus?

I'm thinking it varies from person to person, but I am really curious just how much sleep (or lack of it) affects tinnitus.

Please share what caused your tinnitus (if you know) and your experience of how sleep affects (or at least seems to) your tinnitus. If you know of any other people and how sleep impacts their tinnitus, as well as other details about them related to this subject, feel free to share that, too. Any other information you want to share related to this is welcome!

I didn't find a thread about this, so I figured I'd make one.

 

It doesn’t really seem to make a difference for me, but of course if I don’t sleep it’s just more discomfort so my mood is worse.

 

Yes, same here. I do feel a lot better when I wake up after getting a good sleep, but it doesn't automatically mean that I'll have a good tinnitus day or won't have a spike later. And then I've had really bad sleeps where I was tired and groggy the next day but the tinnitus was lower. So I'm not sure how much it really correlates or if the sleep just affects your reaction to it.

 

I think it's hard for me to conclusively say.

For one, I have been tracking my approximate hours of sleep per evening, as well as my general "day quality", and I do see a correlation between the two. Weaker nights of sleep will generally result in worse days the next day, but I don't think the days are poorer because the noise is worse. There are some days that have been exceptions, though.

It's probably best to just have the mindset that good sleep can help but poor sleep will hurt.

 

It will drive you more crazy, that's for sure. You can deal with tinnitus better with proper sleep. Go to bed now.

 

Sleeping poorly automatically provides me with less arrows to shoot at the tinnitus beast during the day.

 

If I sleep poorly I feel bad all day and mostly drink coffee and vaporize high-CBD oil to make it through the day. Everything annoys me more, including tinnitus.

Sleeping with my jaw clenched or in a bad position does much worse things to my tinnitus.

 

I notice that it's definitely harder to deal with tinnitus when I haven't slept.

However, in my case if I get a good night's sleep I've been waking up to complete silence. Now that doesn't mean it lasts all day, sometimes I have gotten a few days where I've had silence when I sleep really well.

When I do not sleep well, I wake up and notice it a lot more/it's definitely louder than when I get good sleep.

 

I feel the need to revise my original post and point out that I have now had two instances in the last seven days where very little quality sleep lead into a rough day. These days were each followed up by a night of relatively decent sleep and a subsequent day with a much more mild situation.

In other words, yeah, sleep has a big impact. I'm sure there are other characteristics to take into account, and there's a sizable variety of other factors that could still affect your mood and symptom for the day, but quality of rest is a key factor.

I should also mention that my experience upon waking up is similar to that of @shelbynn. If I just have a weak three-hour stretch, it's a bit pounding when I wake up and likely the reason why I can't get back to sleep. Alternatively, when I get one of my five-to-six hours, it's unnoticeable or not bothersome until I start thinking about it.

There's good reason why so many advocate for getting your sleep under control. Still wish I was at that point myself.

 

I think I can agree with distinguishing how much sleep you're getting vs. the quality of sleep. I tend to wake up in my sleep, probably 2-3 times, but that's normal for me. If I wake up more frequently, I can expect my tinnitus to start acting up. Getting less than 8 hours also makes it worse. I try to get into a routine and sleep in whenever I can. I wake up to near silence on days that I have slept well.

 

I started severely limiting my salt/sodium intake to <200 mg to help with my blood pressure and my tinnitus went away. If I eat the wrong thing at a restaurant it will come back but mine seems to be tied to sodium intake. Water intake helps too around 4 cups a day. I previously thought other things were the cause but it seems salt intake effects it the most.

I also noticed that when I sleep well tinnitus is much better.

Sleep and no salt really help!

 

Do you mean less than 2,000 mg or do you seriously eat less than 200 mg? One carrot has around 40 mg of sodium, so I'm not sure what a person would eat on less than 200.

I try to watch sodium as a rule, but I haven't noticed an immediate correlation between high sodium days and tinnitus. However, it's a definite factor for a lot of people.

There's no correlation for me with sleep. I can have a great sleep and terrible tinnitus the next day or crappy sleep and a quiet day. I think a good sleep might help handle the stress of it better, but I slept well last night and am having a terrible tinnitus day.

 

Hi FloralDawn, lack of sleep will really make the tinnitus worse as I have personally experienced.

As the clock starts ticking, and everyone is asleep, the pressure to fall asleep increases.

When the number of hours is nearing dawn, anxiety kicks in and the tinnitus worsens.

This is indeed a cycle that repeats everyday for that period of time.

 

My tinnitus is from a noise trauma. Neither lack of sleep, certain foods nor stress levels affect my tinnitus. Noise exposure is the only thing that does affect it.