How's Your World?

Hi Good Folks here at Tinnitus Talk,

I wanted to pose this question to you, not so much as "Tell me about your world", but
to consider and "Think" long and hard about your world.
(All of it being t related of course.)

So here's a set of questions to promote the thought process:

1. Is your world - outside on the street - noisy?
2. Do you get away from that noise - ever?
3. Take walks in nature - or the park?
4. Get to the beach, where nature provides natural masking - the sound of waves on shores?
5. Do you have late nights, not getting enough sleep - apart from t interruption?
6. Is your diet good - no processed sugars, no saturated fats, zero fast foods, no MSG, zero GM foods?
7. Drink good clean water, filtered, not bottled - and especially never from the tap!?
8. Drink too much alcohol, or equally as bad if you don't drink alcohol at all, tonic water?
9. Do you get enough vitamins, minerals and amino acids?
10. Ever tried natural super foods that are rich in vitamins, minerals and amino acids - not supplements!?
11. Stressful job - ever considered something different, or put your passion to the test - as your job?
12. Thought about having relaxing massage, or even better chiro-massage?
13. Have anybody to talk too, who understands your difficulty - apart from this fine website?
14. What would you do differently if you didn't have t - would your world still be the same?
15. When was the last time you laughed 'til you cried - or at least enjoyed a good laugh?
16. Like playing video games - the ones where you get to kill lots of people and feel better?
17. Watch TV, like reality shows - you know the ones that are as far from reality as you can image?
18. Read newspapers - or worse still, watch the news?
19. Take medication for something - is there a natural remedy that can be a replacement?
20. When you try something new to reduce t - do you stick with it, a week, a month, 6 months, a year?

So, my point is this - yes we have tinnitus and/or hyperacusis, and yes it's debilitating, frustrating, and for some almost impossible to live with . . . SO WHAT CAN WE DO ABOUT IT?

All of the above has an effect upon t, tried them? All of them?
There are loads more too, perhaps you'd like to mention your positive experiences on this thread - things that you've tried that make you feel better, not just the t, but your well being in association to t . . . !

well-being
noun:
the state of being comfortable, healthy, or happy.

Thanks for reading!

 

Read it before it was finished huh . . . due to local line fault during typing!
Now it's done!

 

JimH and I having a laugh at a well incomplete post . . . !

 

They are just distractions which can occupy you for a short time until you realise you still have tinnitus for the rest of your life.

 

Good post. We have to do something about it .. taking charge is the way around this thing.

 

There is one thing and one thing only that actually lowers my T , I do this when trying to go to sleep.
Visualizing things , even parts of my day and I mean really really get into trying to actually see things in my mind.
Its kind of hard to do and does not always work ...well, it always works if I can manage to visualize properly.
This is a pretty strange phenomenon to me and I wonder why this works?
Not sure if it just forces me to think about something else or what ?

 

I have noticed this phenomenon as well. It's difficult to describe, but it's like placing myself into a past event, mentally reliving the conversations or actions. This also works if I imagine something that could happen and really immerse myself within it.

I think it's very similar to dreaming. I don't have tinnitus in my dreams, so there must be something about that state of mind that lowers it to barely above the threshold of consciousness. It also feels like the sound moves to the back of my head instead of being front and center, if that makes sense.

Unfortunately, as soon as I slip out of whatever I'm imagining, the tinnitus asserts itself again. Sometimes, though, I'm lucky and just fall asleep while creating a "movie in my mind." But before falling asleep, it's rather blissful to be somewhere between waking and sleeping and the tinnitus is quiescent.

 

@Cheza ...You and RaZaH are simply using a form of distraction. That is, you're shifting the focus of your attention from your T to the imagination, "mentally reliving the conversations or actions."

It makes perfect sense. Your statement, "Unfortunately, as soon as I slip out of whatever I'm imagining, the tinnitus asserts itself again." confirms it.

The only thing that matters is that it works for you both and you can use it to help you get to sleep whenever you want to. I have also had success with this method of distraction to help get myself to sleep.

 

Hi, I see in your mood that you selected "Angry".
All forms of stress, including internal dislike of/or anger with something/somebody, serve for many people, as a way to perpetuate a problem or distress. I'm not about to suggest you be happy, however in my own experience it has and is and always does help!

 

This is great, as you have discovered - for you - what works. This is the purpose of examining "What we can do to make ourselves more comfortable with t". Our entire mental/audio/visual experience is inherently linked, so it's not surprising that visualization may improve t. If we are shifting our attention towards something else in this sensory experience, we reduce our attention on t.
I might even suggest that a taste and/or aroma may reduce tinnitus - don't laugh until you've tried it!
Keep at it RaZaH!

 

Trust me, I've done all of those things, but alas none of the above have worked. Only drugs helped me. Seriously I wish it was different but tinnitus is hard to treat.

 

Hi Danny Boy, I think it's great that you have tried all of those things and what a shame too that nothing has worked for you other than drugs. You are so right about t being hard to treat.
I guess that there will be many who find the same.
My quest was to inform those who may not have considered or discovered, that sometimes personal endeavours reduce the effects of t.

 

This is not distraction. I can watch a movie on Netflix, I can read an engaging book, I can be in a lively conversation or be incredibly focused on work, but still in those situations the volume of tinnitus persists and is always hovering and I notice it, no matter how engaged I am in a particular activity.

When I have the ability (i.e., when the circumstances are right) to become immersed in a scene constructed from my imagination, that is something totally different. It's some form of hypnagogic state, because I almost always slip from my imagination's scenario into sleep, unless I begin to think about something in my everyday life that then captures and holds my attention. I cannot replicate the tinnitus lowering effect in my daily conscious state.

Something is apparently tamping down the hyperactive neurons when the imagination is fully accessed. Maybe it's a change in brain waves, or a release of chemicals that soothe the neurons.

 

@Cheza....yeah, it's probably, as you said, due to the change in brain waves that occurs when falling asleep.

http://psychology.about.com/od/statesofconsciousness/a/SleepStages.htm

 

@jimH ... That's an interesting article, thanks.

I experience the myoclonic jerk every once in a while before falling asleep, and usually it is accompanied by a "light dream" where I'm stepping off a curb or doing something where I make a misstep and try to catch myself, thus the jerk as I try to regain my balance, which results in waking up.

I also sleepwalk. Not as badly as I did when I was younger, but I'll still get up and swipe at spiders or bugs, or look for something that I'm supposed to be wearing on my left wrist but cannot find, or searching for some sort of electronic device that's fallen on the floor. It doesn't exist, but I'm searching for it.

I wonder if anyone has ever done a study that compares the incidence of brain disorders (sleepwalking, epilepsy, narcolepsy, stammering, stuttering, etc.) in the tinnitus population to the non-tinnitus population. It would be interesting to see if the first group is somehow physiologically more susceptible to tinnitus.