
Sound therapy itself isn’t expensive however, your audiologist also may recommend hearing aids.

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More: Tinnitus habituation: How to tune out the ringing in your ears Hearing aids and other tools for sound therapy Lobarinas recommends playing the sound for at least four hours a day, as well as while you’re sleeping. The goal is to retrain the brain so you need to hear the tinnitus along with the sound that you’re playing in order to help the brain make that connection,” she said.Ĭonsistency and frequency are two other keys for success. “The key is to not set volume levels so high that it drowns out the tinnitus sound.
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Lobarinas recommends downloading a free tinnitus app. “The brain says ‘it’s constant, it’s meaningless, it’s not something I need to pay attention to.’ It’s essentially a passive form of extinguishing a response to a stimulus by moving it from a conscious to a subconscious level.” How do I start tinnitus sound therapy? “After a time, the tinnitus becomes associated with this sound,” she said. ( Color noises like white noise and pink noise are not recommended.) One common way to initially try sound therapy is by selecting a relaxing, neutral sound-like ocean waves crashing, rain falling, white noise or instrumental music-and playing it as background noise throughout the day. There are different methods and types of sounds that can help, and an audiologist trained in tinnitus therapy can explore several options. “After awhile, you tend not to think about the feeling.”

“It’s very similar to when you put on your glasses and your nose start sending signals to the brain that there’s something on your nose,” Dr. That might sound tricky, but your brain already does it all the time. Sound therapy helps a person "forget" about the sound. “When the sound is constant and your brain is confused as to where it’s coming from, that’s when the tinnitus sound becomes bothersome.” “You can hear a sound that sounds just like your tinnitus-like crickets-but when you go camping in the wilderness and hear the crickets, it has a different meaning,” Christina Lobarinas, Au.D., tinnitus coordinator for the UT Southwestern Tinnitus and Hyperacusis Program, explained. Essentially, the brain learns to reclassify the unwanted sound as something neutral or unimportant. Tinnitus sound therapy uses a process known as habituation to retrain the way the brain interprets tinnitus.

One of the most well-established methods is known as tinnitus sound therapy. Frustratingly, there is no known cure, and often it will take more than one treatment option to get suitable relief. According to the American Tinnitus Association, close to 20 million Americans have chronic tinnitus, with two million experiencing extreme and debilitating cases. Tinnitus-often referred to as "ringing in the ears"-is incredibly common.
