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I have tinnitus. I don't recommend it

(blog.greg.technology)
185 points gregsadetsky | 1 comments | 21 May 25 22:50 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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plaidfuji ◴[22 May 25 02:55 UTC] No.44058336[source]▶
I “got over” mine after many months of “tinnitus meditation” (there’s a short book on this written by a guy who has some crazy disease that causes extra-bad tinnitus). Basically, you meditate by purposefully focusing on your tinnitus. It starts to flip your brain’s response from one of fear to one of relaxation. Even within the first session, you’ll find that when you try to focus on the noise for as long as you can (use a timer and start with 5 mins), you eventually get distracted and think about something else, even if just for a moment. Then you realize that your brain isn’t “forced” to notice it - and the more you practice this, the better you’ll get at noticing it and gently pivoting your attention back to.. the rest of the world. The noise never goes away, your ability to ignore it just improves over time.

The book is a quick read and helpful: https://a.co/d/ckOzbSq

I no longer meditate as often, but when I do, it’s actually still quite effective. I now see it more as a “retreat” of sorts - I can just kind of dissociate and let the ringing take over. Reading this article brought it back, incidentally.. but I’m ok with it. Once you fully surrender to the noise, you can start to let go of it. It’s the mental resistance that makes it hard to deal with.

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sepositus ◴[22 May 25 03:09 UTC] No.44058395[source]▶
I've recently developed tinnitus within the last few months, so I'm still early in my researching. However, I've found a lot of people that discount this approach and swear it only makes things worse. That's why I've been hesitant to try it.

Do you think a lot of it has to do with having the right mindset?

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1. thrway482119 ◴[22 May 25 12:40 UTC] No.44061477[source]▶
I haven't used this technique myself but I can ignore it most of the time, and I think that's an important place to get to. For me, I feel that a big part of it is simply acceptance. If I'd get worked up over it every time I'm noticing it, I think it would be a lot harder to ignore over time. It sucks but this way it sucks a lot less.

It's a funny thing - like a bear in the woods type thing. Sometimes, when its existence gets called to my attention, like when I started reading this story and the comments just now, I suddenly realize how loud it is - but also how I've gone about my whole day without any problems, despite it having been there all the time. Not sure if that makes sense, but that's my experience and it's - fine, really.

Not saying that you shouldn't try other things, and I also don't really know how to get there beyond going easy on yourself. I'm just saying that to me being able to ignore it makes a huge difference in my life quality and so I think it's very worth pursuing. Good luck!