I recently realized that I'm pretty sure I've had some form of tinnitus since I was a small child and never recognized it as such until recently. The sound inside of my ears is only there when I focus on it or if it's really quiet. The strange thing is because I always heard it when I was falling asleep as a child, it has always been associated with relaxation and rest, and so ends up lulling me to sleep rather than causing me distress like it does for so many other people.
Like many other conditions, severity matters. Mild tinnitus is very common and generally not an issue. Severe cases are a very different beast and can easily lead to suicide.
I think this also applies to many kinds of low-grade chronic suffering. Changing your response to the sensation might be easier than stopping the sensation.
It was 6 months of agony, then I started to ignore it. It wasn't a conscious decision, the ignoring happened automatically. I only have the high pitched ringing in my ears when it's quiet. It literally feels like a curse though, I can't hear silence.
5 years later, I found out something remarkable (and I hope there's a researcher willing to test this with me and other tinnitus people). It was an accident to figure this out.
When I do the Wim Hof Method, for just a brief moment it's silent. I can kind of have an idea why, since it's silent during an oxygen starvation moment (breathing all your oxygen out and then not breathing for another 2 to 3 minutes).
But for me it was a life saver. Why? Because if I really want to experience true quietness again, I can do the Wim Hof Method and experience about 10 to 20 seconds of quietness per 5 minutes.
My curse is lifted. It's not perfect, but good enough for me.
If you have tinnitus and want to learn the Wim Hof Method from me, feel free to reach out [1], my email is in my profile.
[1] My time is limited, I can teach up a total of 6 people for free who also have tinnitus. If you send an email, I'll put you in an online session with 1 to 2 other people (who also responded to this, so they're all from HN). After 6 people, I need to charge for my time. And please, leave the spots open for people who actually have tinnitus. Don't fake it, there are probably (hopefully) videos online on how to do the Wim Hof Method.
My expectation is that only 0 to 2 people will email me, but what do I know? Also my qualification is that Wim trained me personally for 4 days straight. And I have trained my friends.
Final note: learning the WHM to alleviate yourself from tinnitus is an experiment. It worked for me. It may not work for you. Also, learning the WHM you need someone to be physically there to be a 100% sure about your physical safety (normally that would be me). I am not planning to do anything extreme though.
Some people have also found temporary relief with the finger drumming method (sometimes called the "Reddit Method/Cure" because it gained popularity after he posted it on Reddit[1]):
> Place the palms of your hands over your ears with fingers resting gently on the back of your head. Your middle fingers should point toward one another just above the base of your skull. Place your index fingers on top of you middle fingers and snap them (the index fingers) onto the skull making a loud, drumming noise. Repeat 40-50 times. Some people experience immediate relief with this method. Repeat several times a day for as long as necessary to reduce tinnitus.Dr. Jan Strydom, of A2Z of Health, Beauty and Fintess.org.
There are therapies in the works that attempt at reversing this maladaptive plasticity (and reach the holy grail of silence). The most promising one (and unfortunately, the only one too) uses bi-modal stimulation (sound + electrical) with a very specific timing.
I was having tinnitus problems and for me what helped was just honestly the awareness that my brain was tricking me. If you put a sensitive mic up against your ear, it won't hear it. Somehow it became easier to ignore until it truly wasn't there anymore.
Smoking weed helps me, i zone out on other things and the tinnitus "disappears" for almost 2 hours. when it "comes back" i'm usually in the middle of something else and don't notice it until i get to a breakpoint (like a tricky algorithm, and i sit back to think.. then i'll notice that sound again)
Don't silence, adopt. Use your tinnitus as an object of meditation. You don't even have to literally meditate on it, if you don't want to. Just broaden your awareness to include the tinnitus along with the rest of your sensory experience. With practice, it stops bothering you. With true meditation, it turns blissful.
It is debatable whether the Buddhist Heroic March Sutra (Śūraṅgama Sūtra) is referring to this "sound of silence" as the king of all meditation objects but it is certainly a gateway to it.
