Anyone got good distraction techniques? Struggling with anxiety tinnitus/hyperacusis

[Anonybrit]

So about 6 weeks ago I suddenly noticed high pitch ringing during a very stressful period of my life. My first thought was typical of someone with HA: what if I have some terrible disease, what if his never goes away.

Turns out that was a self fulfilling prophecy. I had a full work up with an ENT and audiologist and my hearing and ears are normal, I have learnt that we all have tinnitus even without hearing loss etc but that anxiety can cause us to fixate on it. So my brain has been hearing this sound for years and filtering it out, and now it won’t because it thinks it’s a threat.

I then noticed that as I calmed down it was only present when exposed to certain high pitch sounds like driving or air con etc and eventually calmed down even more to the point it 90% disappeared entirely. I’m told this is basically a form of hyperacusis, also common in anxiety, and that it will settle in time if my anxiety does.

Then I spent the last 3 days frantically packing to move continent. I’ve been anxious, stressed and irritable, it’s been horrible and all my symptoms have come back with a vengeance.

Now I’m struggling to go back to relaxing and being positive about how quickly I was improving. I’m having those horrible HA intrusive thoughts about “what if I never get better” and monitoring the sounds constantly - all of which make the problem worse and stop me getting better like I had been.

Anyone got any good tips on how to stop these intrusive thoughts and distract yourself even when you’re on your own without much to do?

[jessygirl77]

Literally going through the exact same thing ! The other night I watched a movie , the character had Tinitus , which is one of my huge fears . So here I am !!!! Having all the same symptoms. The what if this never goes away is the tricky one!

[vicky23]

Hi Anon,
no wonder you're feeling stressed moving continent!
I actually find that coming on here is a good distraction to know that I'm very much not alone in these feelings. I find writing replies if I can also good even if you don't have any advice it's nice for people to get a reply saying 'I hear you'.
So it's a win, win :)
Some other ideas:
listening to music or an audio book
crosswords
playing or learning to play an instrument
exercise ( in the fresh air is an added bonus)
colouring books for adults
cooking, especially a new recipe

I hope you find relief and all the best in your move

[pulisa]

I think you need to trust your fellow medics and believe that all the tests you had were absolutely normal and showed nothing remarkable. Focussing in on tinnitus will always make it more intrusive. It's not hyperacusis, just hyper awareness and hyper vigilance of background noise which is magnified when you are stressed.

[jessygirl77]

Being that I'm going through the same stuff , I appreciate all the responses as well .

[budgie1979]

I am dealing with tinnitus at the moment, and this is my second bout. Last one was 10 years ago, and that lasted a few months before I was able to get over it. I also have TMJ, so that is known to cause/exacerbate tinnitus. I find the best thing to do is keep busy. I only really notice it if I think about it, or in those quiet moments when I wake up and am still laying in bed. I wear ear plugs at night if it's keeping me from getting to sleep. During the day, putting on some music or white noise gives me something else to focus my hearing on. For me, I think 90% of it is of the "normal background static that everyone has but doesn't really notice" (this is a constant high pitched whine) and 10% is probably actual tinnitus due to my TMJ (this is a different noise--sort of like an undulating fax machine tone--and tends to be worst when I wake up in the morning).

[Chick100]

No wonder you are stressed out to the max and noticing the tinnitus. My sister and lots of my friends have it too. Actually my friends cope so well with it I didn´t even know until, I mentioned the terrible effect it had on my sister, but apart from the odd spike, she copes with it too now.
You already know that anxiety makes it harder to ignore so you know once all this stress is a thing of the past you will be OK again. hang onto that thought if you can.
In the meantime I found some really good YouTube videos from a tinnitus sufferer, might be worth you having a look too.

I wish you all the best with your move, and hope you feel better and able to cope with the noises in your head very soon. :)

[Brunamateus]

Hey, being a tinnitus sufferer since I was 13 I do have some tips, I can tell you that now that I managed it I can spend days not listening to it and then if I remember it I start listening, but before, when I got really stressed it would be 100x worse, acupuncture was miraculous, but only temporary, because if I would let myself get stressed again the sound would be back, that's normal though...second thing, sports, sports are the best not only for the sound but for the stress, it worked wonders for me