Meditation and Biofeedback

I have been having severe tinnitus & hyperacusis for 9 months. My quality of life has been significantly affected. Doctors told me that there is no cure and you have to live with it. Most of the doctors have no idea about how much the patient suffer. One doctor even made a joke about how my tinnitus sounded when I described my symptoms to him.

I understand that I cannot fight and win the war against my tinnitus because the tinnitus is actually a part of me. It's in my brain. I also learned that you suffer even more when you judge and measure your tinnitus obsessively. Instead of thinking about how to stop the ringing, I started thinking about how to lower my response to the tinnitus. I have been practicing meditation and biofeedback daily. For meditation, I could only do few minutes of meditation at the beginning because of my loud tinnitus. Now, I can do 30 minutes with ease.

The main effect of meditation is to calm your nervous system. You will be less annoyed by the external world. So that you can focus more on the real important stuff like family, friends and work than your own noise. About a month ago, I started a biofeedback session because it's covered by my insurance. Basically, biofeedback is all about learning how to breath in a right rhythm, so that you can relax your body.

About 9 months ago, I thought it was impossible to relax anymore with this condition. I proved myself wrong. You can relax yourself if you are willing to learn how.

So nowadays, I meditated 30 minutes every morning and do one or two 10 minute biofeedback therapies in a day. It's not a success story. I just learned how to reduce my suffering. My life is not the same as before but I accept my current reality and continue to look for other improvement. Every day, my tinnitus wakes me up as an alarm clock but I look forward to the day because there are stuff that I can do for the society.

For biofeedback, there is an iPhone app called MyCalmBeat and it's totally free. For meditation, there are many videos that you can find on YouTube.

 

I think this is a success story..

Thankyou for sharing .. and congrats

 

How do you meditate?
I mean concentrate on breathing or soft music?

 

A great post @G61 Well written and a pleasure to read and will be an inspiration to many.
Take care
Michael

 

There are many types of meditations that you can try. The breath focus one is the simplest one. Basically, you sit straight, inhale and exhale slowly and naturally. Try to focus on your breath. Your thoughts will come up. Don't judge your thoughts. Just let it pass and bring yourself back to the present. You might feel bored at the beginning. It's totally normal. Do it everyday like doing push-ups. Eventually, you can do 100 "push-ups".