Tinnitus Reduced By Busyness

How do you combat the T with busyness, when activity itself increases the T? Any ideas, struggling with this. I don't know how some of you can work with this. Kudos to you!

 

Hi, @Blair14: So which activity do you do that you find increases your tinnitus volume?

I find that being involved with anything that I find interesting, enjoyable or important pretty much sends my T to the background. If they are things that involve very loud noise (like running a power tool when I am gardening) or very, very quiet environments (like reading in a very quiet room), I may compensate by wearing ear plugs or using masking noise. But those compensations do not prevent my tinnitus from fading into the background. Also, as I edge toward my second anniversary with tinnitus (in June), I find I need masking noise less and less.

Much of it is mindset. If you are absorbed in the activity, your brain will be occupied with what you are doing, not with your tinnitus. But you are the one in control of your thoughts.

 

@LadyDi I can be doing stretching exercises or even as little as going to get some sticks of wood for the fire will turn it up and my blood pressure is normal. let alone biking or walking.

 

Hi, @Blair14: Many people report that physical exercise can temporarily make their tinnitus louder. When I go for a walk/run, I listen to (soft) meditative music on my mp3 player through headphones. You have to be careful with biking, though, if you are biking on roads, as you can't hear cars with headphones on.

Good luck! The most important thing is you are getting exercise. I need to do that more.

 

@LadyDi No, I am not doing anything because of the increase in T, I walk to my mailbox across the road and my T goes up, another hurdle I guess. Thanks

 

I'm struggling big time. I had my T increase for a long time, seems like it plateaued about 2 months ago, now on a 7 or 8 day spike, at this point the number is irrelevant, and then I try to do any activity it goes to a new level. I got my anxiety and fear down, now I feel flutterings of anxiety again. I think I make some progress and another obstacle and have severe depression as a result of all this on top, plus H and perhaps M. I guess I am expected to have my T at a higher elevation all the time if I do any activity? I can't play sports as I have bad knees etc. Golf is my only sport and its kinda cold for that now. I manage better reading. This just sucks! I have occasions where I don't hear my T, but activity just puts me in a loop. Still beating around in a bag!

 

t sure is a funny beast. I havnt noticed activity affect my t at all, just noise. I find a good brisk walk does a lot of good, if that spiked my t I would be a bit mad at that, as exercise is the natural way of feeling better. I notice your t dates back 12 years, I hope this is not something in store for me, exercise always have this effect?

 

Hey Blair
Hope you are doing well. I know what you mean, my T goes up no matter what. In fact, mine started out really low today (barely audible) and now it's screaming (and I haven't had an ounce of stress or anxiety, quite the opposite).

Busyness only serves to keep my mind off it; never to make it less audible.

Mark

 

@Paul 201 I'm stuck and I'm angry, yes I need exercise, I lost a lot of weight with my severe depression (as a result of increase in T), started to eat again, want to keep the weight off need those endorphins. This all got worse in Aug, I have been in crisis mode up to just before Christmas. I'm trying to get help where I live, etcc.... long story. I try to dig myself out and here I go again!

 

@Mark McDill No unfortunately, not doing well. I'm fed up, out of energy, depressed.

 

It's not the physical aspect of keeping busy which alleviates your T it's the mental aspect. Lots of things vie for your attention every second of the day (some researchers speculate there are over 10,000 bits of information hitting your unconscious mind every second; everything from the levels of certain enzymes in your liver to massive error prediction circuits in your brain creating your reality).

You can only focus on one thing at a time, and your conscious mind is ranking all the stimuli hitting it every second of the day and prioritising what's important and whats not. Consciously keeping busy creates a new set of stimuli in your mind and elbows outs other thoughts (by creating a zone of inhibition around itself) and gives your task a high priority to the conscious mind. Multitasking is actually the rapid switching of your cognitive attention from one thing to another unless the task is an entirely learned unconscious process. That's why you can watch your hands tying your shoe laces and be thinking other thoughts.

But try thinking two thoughts at the same time...it's not going to happen.

Keeping busy puts something new at the top of the minds ranking system, which receives your conscious attention ahead of other stimulus' waiting for you to focus upon. However....the more importance you ascribe to your T then the higher up it is in your mental hierarchy and the less stimuli there are above it to keep it back in the queue.

There are two ways to reduce your awareness of T.

The first is to have something more important than your T to focus upon and let the zone of inhibition this activity creates blank it out. This can be other emotional signals from your unconscious (such as danger, relief, love, hate etc) or they can be cognitive activities which need your full attention, like something you're busy with.

An example: you're sat reading this, your mind is flicking from the words to your your T so fast that it seems seamless...but...suppose I walked in the room and threw a King Cobra on your keyboard which promptly bared it's fangs and prepared to bite you. How much attention do you think your T would be getting now? None at all!

Your T would be booted so far out of your awareness it would need to get the bus to get back into your conscious mind. Until you had resolved the immediate danger to yourself then your T would be zero out of ten. Not a practical solution I admit but you understand the concept.

The second way is to downgrade whereabouts T is in your mental hierarchy of things to pay attention to. The more you're anxious or worry about it then the higher up the ladder it is and thus the more you hear it.

The next time someone asks "hows your tinnitus?" don't wax lyrical about how it's making you depressed or how you can't sleep. Just reply "I'm laughing at it" It may not be true (at the moment) but if you keep saying it then eventually you will believe it, and when you do, strange things happen in your unconscious mind. Beliefs are guarded by emotions. Change the belief and you change the emotional relevance connected to it.

If there is no negative relevance attached to your T then it's just a shadow in the background of your conscious mind, there are dozens of more important things for your awareness to focus on. You can replace the King Cobra with a good book and have the same effect.

In the philosophical (paraphrased) words of Jay-Z.

"I got 99 problems and T ain't one..."

 

@Silvine Thanks for your time and you got me to laugh, hasn't happened much lately. Please get that Cobra, perhaps that's what I need in the house. I think its the contrast. When I stop an activity is the problem, so I can expect to have heightened T after activity, so I can expect it all the time, it will not go back to baseline, if I even have a baseline. This is my first shot at activity since this all came crashing down.

 

Blair
I'm sorry for your struggles, I know what it's like; I will keep you in my prayers. I know that may not sound like much right now, but we are thinking of you and 'pulling' for you. At one time I thought you were doing better (I may be mistaken); did your T change (go up)?

Until then...prayers and hugs!

Mark

 

@Mark McDill Thanks Mark. I seemed to get my legs under me, slow steps, now set backs, unexpected when I thought I was progressing, fed up trying to get support from providers wait, wait, wait, promises promises, promises. I guess I am on an extended spike or maybe this is permanent, who knows. I want to get active, didn't realize the price would be even more heightened T. TRT I hope is on the horizon, if I ever get to it.

 

Wow! Exercise made it go up? That sounds like a physical/somatic cause (sorry if I'm stating the obvious).

I know what you mean about the providers; I was terribly disappointed (except for my audiologist, he was great). When do you get seen next?

I had many setbacks my first year; oh how I hated them. Eventually I just got used to them (but I still don't like them). I've had one recently and kind of have one going now. Setbacks are especially difficult prior to habituation because you react to them so harshly (inevitable, don't blame yourself).

Mark

 

@Mark McDillI don't know I have so many irons in the fire and I am pushing them all and I am wore out. Why do I have to do EVERYTHING, even think for some of them. Just draining and not good for my already depleted mental state. I don't want to react, I want to know how to minimize this noise, but then I am reacting? I want to get out of this depression pit, and when I move, then what got me there wakes up louder than ever. Maybe I have to go to a pet store and get me a cobra.

 

A cobra (LOL); you haven't lost your sense of humor (awesome).

It's all about focus; the more you try, the more you focus (around and around it goes). So all your efforts only cause you to focus on it even more (especially when the efforts do not give you desired results). Getting to a point where you can exercise your focus according to your will (and not according to the T) is a big deal; not easy to do. The more you can learn to do what you want to do (in spite of the T) the more in control you are; and the less you 'fuel' your T. Focus equals fuel.

DO NOT get down on yourself if you are not there (yet); this takes a while, it's very hard to do (at least I know it's the hardest thing I've ever done by a long shot). At the same time, DO NOT give up hope, you will get there; we all go at our own pace. I remember days when I just put one foot in front of the other and barely functioned (if I functioned at all); terrible days, indeed! Eventually, I learned to do things I wanted to do in spite of the annoying sound in my head. Start really small (that's what I did). Pick out something you want to do and dare yourself to just do it (screaming T and all). No task is too small; just do something that you believe your T is stopping you from doing. Eventually you prove that T is not the boss; you are. It's a long process with many more failures than successes (at the beginning); just keep trying.

You're in my prayers!

Mark

 

@Silvine @Mark McDill Well Silvine came up with the idea of the throwing a cobra on my keyboard (above), thought it was amusing so I added the part of going to a pet store to get one. Another day of screaming, I note your words of encouragement and wisdom.