Can lifestyle change treat tinnitus?
Symptoms of tinnitus sometimes may improve through time but people must learn how to adjust their lifestyle based on their condition.
Self-discipline and self-improvement can reduce the severity of tinnitus. Though it is hard to change what you’re used to do that worsen your condition, you have to start a new lifestyle if you don’t want to lose your hearing in the end. Changing is not bad, if it will benefit you. It can be one of the best self-remedies for tinnitus.
Avoid possible irritants.
Tinnitus can be intensified by loud noises, caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, tonic water having quinine (which is used to treat malaria), and too much doses of aspirin.
Caffeine and nicotine can narrow blood vessels that results in increasing the force of blood through veins and arteries.
Alcohol can also upsurge the force of blood by increasing the speed of blood flow. Alcoholic drinks increase the force of your blood flow by opening up the blood vessels particularly within the inner ear area.
Avoid stress or anxiety.
Tinnitus can be increased by lack of sleep, anxiety or depression. The sound seems louder than they are when you are irritated or anxious. Performing relaxation methods and stress-relieving approaches will eventually ease tinnitus suffering by controlling particular automatic body movements. Several approaches may apply including exercise, biofeedback, acupuncture, stress control and even hypnosis. By doing some physical activities like shadow boxing, running, basketball, and even dancing, you will not only benefit a healthier life style but also improve blood circulation in your body and relax nerves in which lessen the tension and depression that leads to tinnitus.
Use sound or noise masking technique.
Recently in my research to ease my tinnitus, I found this interesting approach on how to lessen the irritating ringing sound inside my ear. It’s very simple and easy approach to do. Honestly I tried it myself to see if it really works.
Just put your index finger in your ears, not too gentle but not too hard. Then close your eyes and mouth, take a deep breath, and hum as loud and long as you can. Do it more often every time you experience that irritating ringing sound.
It is related to sound masking. Covering up noise in a quiet setting or environment with a fan, soft music or low-volume radio music can help mask the noise from tinnitus. In sound masking, you are able to listen to natural sounds that soothes your hearing such as ocean surf, rainfall or water drops, wind blow or synthetic sounds like white noise, brown noise and pink noise. These sounds help your auditory system to become less sensitive to tinnitus. It’s like covering sound by another sound that is bearable. Your doctor may recommend you different noise suppression devices and techniques depending on the condition of your tinnitus.
Tinnitus maskers have different variety of devices based on simple machines such as Mp3 player, CD player or cassette recorder which are used to play natural or artificial sound into a tinnitus sufferer’s situation in order to overpower or mask the ringing. White noise, pink noise and brown noise machines are known to give short-term relief. This kind of relief can be coming from the background noise, such as household machines like dishwasher machines, washing machines, etc. White noise is filtered to form different types or levesl of frequencies such as pink noise and brown noise. Pink noise is smoother and is more often preferred by many sufferers. There are portable maskers used as sound therapy by earphones or maskers that are extremely easy to use as treatment for tinnitus because it is portable you can bring it anywhere and can be listened to it at any time.
Listen to music or therapeutic sounds.
The recommendation for those tinnitus patients is to listen to the music or therapeutic sounds regularly for two hours or more every day. The results may take up to three months before any changes are manifested. Results may vary with each individual depending on the condition of tinnitus they have. If you want to download or listen to therapeutic sounds online for free, you can go to websites that give you free access to noise maskers to relieve tinnitus.