Respect to Everyone: How I Cope with My Tinnitus

Firstly, respect everyone. The support I can see here is enormously helpful.

I have had tinnitus for 7 years. It was depression + flu + lack of sleep after the death of my mother.
It became much worse in the past month owing to lack of sleep. Relapse is like having it over again.
But I am getting on top of it a little now.

Tinnitus is the body making a predictive noise, like weeds trying to cover a bald spot on the earth.
I wonder has anyone had this experience before?
When I meditate or force myself to let go my body shudders.
This happened to me when I underwent hypnosis as well. the doctor told me it was my body relaxing.

These are only my opinions.
With such tension in the body, massage is very useful. Not to cure tinnitus, because I don't think it can.
But I read a medical study that showed massage helps people cope.
I will try to find the link.

When I sleep I envision myself in a forest and picture the noises in my head as birds and cicadas. I visualise a green forest, and a very comfortable setting. My loved ones are with me, I'm in a comfortable chair in a room surrounded by forest or jungle and the noise is part of that. I take Melatonin once in a while and on a bad night, Benzos. I try to do some weights before I go to bed to tire myself.

At times I use a masking track on YouTube when I sleep. But I try not to always because I think that part of tinnitus is the nerve getting overstimulated. When nerves are repeatedly 'pressed' they use up their energy or Potassium (I have read) and the nerve dies. This is why we as humans like irregularity in our environment, not things repeated again and again.

The Tinnitus Talk Podcast is very insightful. I can understand that tinnitus is a predictive noise. Our eyes do the same thing. Our brain fills in gaps of what we see, because to take in all the detail in front of us would be too much.

I had a pretty 'full' life, travel, going to bed late, doing exciting things, and it's my bodies yellow warning light. I take responsibility for this thing happening.

I don't believe in Chinese medicine to be honest, but I am open to hypnotherapy.

There is a study that shows people with severe burns go into a kind of shock where their body locks up for no apparent reason. One theory goes, this might relate to the tribal days, when someone very burnt would be a burden on the tribe so your brain tells you to sacrifice your wellbeing for the tribe.

There will be a temptation for some people, especially men, to feel the same. That to lock oneself away, ignore this condition and bear it, hide it, and isolate from family and friends, or worse.
I will paraphrase a psychologist here. Number 1, the people you leave behind are far worse off if you do that. Number 2, change could be just around the corner, hang in there. Number 3, your life is not your own. As humans we are going to deteriorate, and decline, but keep going with the things in our heart because these things were written there for a reason and it's so important to keep doing these things. The butterfly effect.

Many 'professionals' are very dismissive of this condition. "Just play music", "deal with it", " suck it up", I've had these comments from doctors and it made me furious at the time.
This is the new wave of health care, where we get support of a modern kind, peer to peer.
That is why Tinnitus Talk is very important, a part of your treatment and look forward to reading all your stories.

Very grateful for everyone's input. Sorry, what a ramble!