Dear Limbikanimaria:

Maybe my study of this morning on tinnitus and related topics will be helpful, maybe not. Here it is, just in case:

Wikipedia on tinnitus: “Rather than a disease, tinnitus is a symptom that may result from various underlying causes. A common cause is noise-induced hearing loss. Other causes include ear infections, disease of the heart or blood vessels, Meniere disease, brain tumors, exposure to certain medications, a previous head injury, earwax and emotional stress. It is more common in those with depression”.

There is an academic study available online called: “Psychological aspects of tinnitus and the application of cognitive- behavioral therapy”, published by Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, 2001. It reads:

“Introduction -Tinnitus is an ‘auditory phantom perception’ defined as the experience of sound in the absence of any appropriate external stimulus.. the most common causes of tinnitus is hearing loss and, not surprisingly, a majority of people with tinnitus have impaired hearing.. more common in adults and in the elderly than in children… insomnia is a significant problem for many tinnitus patients… medical treatments seldom cure tinnitus… While preexisting psychological characteristics most likely affect the way a person reacts to tinnitus, there is little evidence that psychiatric disturbance is a direct cause of tinnitus… a vulnerable person might develop tinnitus distress following a comparatively low degree of tinnitus…

“CBT for tinnitus: .. the process of habituation characterizes the natural history of tinnitus… habituation is slowed by factors such as a high level of tonic arousal and by the stimulus acquiring an emotive significance… recent neurophysiological findings suggest that both attentional and emotional brain areas are associated with tinnitus activity…

CBT could be applied in the treatment of tinnitus and, in particular, to the distress that  it causes. Relaxation techniques could be used to reduce arousal, and cognitive restructuring to overcome maladaptive cognitions and fears related to tinnitus. In addition, gradual exposure to feared situations (e.g., silence when tinnitus is highly salient or when confronting certain sounds) could help to foster habituation…

“Final remarks- .There is now evidence that CBT can be effective for alleviating the distress caused by tinnitus.. In conclusion, it is clear that clinical psychology plays a role in the management of tinnitus and that continued efforts to establish multidisciplinary teams involving clinical psychologists is needed”.

* Habituation, Wiki (a separate entry): “a form of .. learning in which a .. response to a stimulus decreases after repeated or prolonged presentations of that stimulus.. For example, organisms may habituate to repeated sudden loud noises when they learn these have no consequences”.

My very non-professional understanding today: In some or many cases of tinnitus, the sufferer’s distress has a lot to do with part of the sufferer’s nervous system getting overly aroused by auditory-like stimuli and not getting habituated to those stimuli. The sufferer’s attention is directed at these auditory stimuli and remains there for long periods of time. He/ she reacts emotionally to these stimuli, feeling significantly distressed. There are people exposed to the same auditory-like stimuli who are less aroused and more habituated who don’t pay much attention to these stimuli and do not experience significant distress.

This is similar to the tendency of many people suffering from significant anxiety to experience neurological over-arousal as a result of a variety of stimuli: high temperature, humidity (sweating), bright light, neighbors’/ traffic noise, taste of food, intestinal sensations, itchiness and so on and on. The very anxious individual’s attention is on the stimuli, remains there for a long time, experiencing significant distress, and this happening often as the individual does not habituate, or is not getting used to the stimulus, even though the stimulus is not dangerous in itself and even though the individual has been exposed to that stimulus over a long period of time.

This is why CBT and relaxation techniques are often helpful for many individuals suffering from tinnitus (and over- arousal, persistent attention to and lack of habituation to other stimuli).

anita