In this week's episode I want to share with you about sound and tinnitus. I will explore how sound perception can differ and the role our brain has in interpreting the sensory input. Also exploring how sound is used, with tinnitus, focusing on helpful environmental sounds, and sound therapy for tinnitus, sound generators, apps, and other hearing solutions.
To discuss anything you have heard in today's episode you can find me on facebook at Tinnitus on Your Mind.
In this week's episode I want to share with you about sound and tinnitus. I will explore how sound perception can differ and the role our brain has in interpreting the sensory input. Also exploring how sound is used, with tinnitus, focusing on helpful environmental sounds, and sound therapy for tinnitus, sound generators, apps, and other hearing solutions.
To discuss anything you have heard in today's episode you can find me on facebook at Tinnitus on Your Mind.
Welcome to tinnitus on your mind. My name is Johanna Carter, I'm an audiologist, tinnitus advisor, NLP Master Practitioner, coach and mentor with a specialist interest and passion in helping people live well with tinnitus, as I have for many years. Each week you'll hear information recommendations and suggestions. I'm delighted to share today's episode with you. So let's get on with the show. In this episode, I look forward to exploring how sound perception can differ and the role our brain has in interpreting the sensory input. Also exploring how sound is used, with tinnitus, focusing on helpful environmental sounds, and sound therapy for tinnitus, sound generators, apps, and other hearing solutions. Sound is all around us. It can be natural, or made. Just slightly to remember the last TV programme or film that you watched. Let it play in your mind. Hear the dialogue and all the sounds, perhaps even the soundtrack if you remember it. Now I'd want you to imagine it without sound. Whether this is the voices, and speech, or the background music, it would be a completely different experience. Often, we won't even realise that there is music as our brain hears it, but doesn't always listen to it. Hearing is a passive, automatic process by our brain and listening is active. We have to choose to focus. So I invite you to listen. Really listen to the next few programmes or films II watch. Really listen to the soundtrack, the voices, the environmental sounds, what do they mean to you? And what are they trying to convey? What difference does it make to you when you choose to listen? So why am I discussing this when the podcast is about tinnitus, sound and our mind. It's important to understand how combining the physiology of sound, how our bodies receive sound with the psychology of sound, or how our brains interpret sound. And this is called psycho acoustics. I'd like you now to imagine that in listening to your favourite song, or music, perhaps one that you'd play on repeat. Perhaps it's something that you had a time in your life, like a wedding, or something like that. Really imagine it playing, hearing it clearly at a volume that's comfortable and pleasant to you. Make it as real as you can. This might mean making it louder or clearer. How is that making you feel? How is that sound that favourite song or music making you feel? What's the song or music called? When will interpret the sound from it differently. Some people will really like it like yourself if it's your favourite, and all this well. We will all have favourite pieces of music that will give us different emotional responses. And that's fine. We're all individual. My favourite go to happy to is feeling hot, hot, hot. And it makes me feel happy and also makes me want to dance. I feel my shoulders raise and I start doing a little bit of a shimmy. That's my favourite happy to. On the other hand, my favourite relaxation tune is actually a classical piece. It's Claire de Lune by Debussy. It brings me a sense of calm and well being two very different pieces of music, that both evoke very different emotions, and feelings. Psycho acoustics is basically the study of how we hear sounds and how everyone may hear them differently or have a different emotional response. To them, and this is true with people with tinnitus. So let's relate this more to tinnitus and sound. To do this, I'm going to focus on three questions that I often get asked around the subject of sound and tinnitus. Number one are struggling noise. Does it make my tinnitus worse? Should I wear earplugs to stop the sound? Or should I just avoid the sounds? Number two, I have hearing loss but only when my hearing aids when I need to. Should I wear the mall? A number three? What's a sound generator? I like the thought of sounds at night. It will help me with my tinnitus. But I think it will disturb my partner. What can I do? The first question that are struggling noise does it make my tinnitus worse? Should I wear earplugs to stop the sound? Or just avoid the sounds altogether? The answer to this is yes. And no. Let me unpick that as that's not a very helpful answer. As an audiologist, I see many individuals that have damaged to the structures of their ear due to noise exposure. If you know that this is a case for you, I would advocate taking extra care of your ears. As a general rule, if you're having to raise your voice to be heard, then it's probably loud enough to cause some damage. When I used to regularly go to gigs and nightclubs, I'd often come out with buzzing ears and lowered hearing. It would take a while to recover often at least 24 hours. I was causing damage at the time. And now I do look after my ears a lot better than than excessive noise exposure can cause permanent damage. So I would advise to avoid it or protect your ears. This might mean wearing earplugs. I'd advocate this to all not just individuals with tinnitus. As our hearing is precious. Individuals have tinnitus often avoid all the sounds, especially when new tinnitus when it first occurs, they often isolate themselves, although completely understandable in the reaction is a sort of defence mechanism, removing yourself from all the sounds. Unfortunately, it's not normally helpful. As we explored in the first episode, the brain needs sensory information to understand the world around us to function at its peak performance. When the brain has the sound removed from it, this becomes the normal soundscape, so it can make it harder to reenter the world of sound. There has been some research into this, and it is important to still immerse yourself as much as you can in all the sounds. We are rolling dividual and how the sound impacts us will be different. If you've met one person with tinnitus, you've met one person with tinnitus. In general, there are three types of sound that can be used to manage reactions to tinnitus. I'd often suggest keeping a sound diary or journal, and it may be helpful for you to consider the sound and the impact it has on you. The first type of sound can be classified as a soothing sound. This makes you feel better as soon as you hear it. It helps reduce stress or tension caused by tinnitus. Examples of this may be a soft breeze, running water like a Brook or stream, waves crashing against rocks or waves lapping a beach I have to be careful with water sounds. It's amazing the power of sound in our mind and especially my own are some water sounds make me want to go to the toilet more. The second type of sound is just background sounds. These often reduce the contrast between the tinnitus and a quiet environment. It makes it easier to ignore tinnitus. Examples of this may be a fan noise, traffic fridge or heating noise like radiators. I particularly like an open fire or log burner. I like to hear the crackling. Interesting sounds. These keep your ear Attention, it helps shift attention away from tinnitus. And examples of this may be a radio show. That is mainly speech based music, TV, or my favourite, a good audio book. I always think of a good audio book or something that's keeping your brain nice and active, both cognitively and with the sound. Some types of sound can be used in more than one way at the same time, and that's absolutely fine. We don't have to categorise them. If they help with your tinnitus, they help with the tinnitus. The purpose of sound therapies is to reduce the perception of tinnitus, loudness, and also the reaction to tinnitus whilst using sound. It may be something that you do without realising. Sound can include something as simple as turning on background music in a quiet room, turning on a fan, listening to TV, or taking a walk on a windy day by the sea. I'd invite you to explore sounds perhaps in a controlled manner if you're not too sure about it. And again, I often suggest having a sound journal or diary. Also remember that what may have been hard to listen to a few days, weeks or months ago, may be okay now, I'll state of mind and the way our brains perceives the sound makes a huge difference. There's no real right or wrong. It's what makes a difference to you on that day, and with your tinnitus. The second question about having a hearing loss, but only wearing hearing aids when you need to, should you wear them more. We discussed possible causes of tinnitus in the first episode. The most common cause of tinnitus is natural ageing of the structures of the ear. Around 90% of individuals with tinnitus have some hearing loss present. Sound a sensory input and information is extremely important to our function to make our brain work the best it can. Without it, the brain often has to distort and generalise and rely on all the senses to get the information for optimal performance. If a hearing loss is present, it makes sense to fill in the gaps of the sound that you're missing by using hearing aids. modern digital hearing aid will do this based on a prescription. This is because the additional sound can help move mental focus away from internal and created tinnitus sound. And that helps fill in those gaps. So what do individuals mean by when I need to wear them. I've heard it numerous times that individuals are only wearing it for tricky situations. And by tricky situations are generally mean is something like going out for a meal with loved ones or friends in a busy restaurant, or something along those lines, something that's going to be acoustically difficult. There might be lots of other sounds going on, and it's quite distracting. However, if you only wear your hearing aids in this situation, you've not allowed your brain to get used to it. Remember, that we hear mainly with our brain and perception of sound is there. Mainly not in the years. Most people who start wearing hearing aids have had a hearing loss for over 10 years, especially if it's a gradual loss, as the brain being that marvellous thing that it is, uses other information to fill in the gaps is important to retrain the brain to hear sounds that it hasn't for a long time. And I often discuss this with my hearing a patience. Imagine that your brain is a muscle. The hearing part used to run marathons when it was at its peak performance. The last few years. It's only walked or jogged around the block. You're not going to answer the marathon next week and expect to succeed you would need to train and depending on the muscle memory left that would make the amount of time needed vary. The same is true for hearing and any hearing devices normally hearing aids that people were some people have a greater muscle memory or hearing memory left, and some don't eat depends on lots and lots of different things. So the actual length of time that it will take to train to get optimal performance will differ for the individual. It's important to be realistic. And ask your audiologist about this as it's really important and can make a massive difference to the success of wearing hearing aids and the reduction of tinnitus if this is one of the main aims. Hearing aids, generally, modal sound makes your tinnitus stand out by us if a hearing loss is present, and sometimes hearing aids can also have what we'd call a combination device included. So this is where a sound generator is built in, that it makes specific tinnitus relief sounds. And if you were hearing aids, it's often worth asking your audiologist about this. The third question is what is a sound generator? And like the thought of sounds at night, I think they'll help me with my tinnitus. But I think it might disturb my partner, or other people around me. What can I do? So some generators can be for example, a standalone device for the bedside for your lounge for anywhere really. It could they can also be included in a phone app, or a specific tinnitus masker. Or, as mentioned before, they're sometimes in hearing aids as well. They often play various sounds to reduce tinnitus. Frequently, there are nature sounds, for example, sounds like a rocky beach, or it could be birds by the pond, or even something else, like summer rain. There are other sounds that sound generators and noise generators often make. It all depends on the type that you have. Some have white noise and other sounds as well. Standalone noise generators are fairly inexpensive. I just had a look before recording this podcast, and most are under about 30 pounds to buy. They often have a volume and a time a feature. Sometimes also these are issued for tinnitus management from the NHS, but can be bought privately. Also. The apps that include sound generators are readily available, and often free. I particularly like using the Zen tinnitus app by Widex. Or I also have a standalone sound generator with a timer when I need to use something to distract me. If you don't want to disturb anybody else, there are other solutions to such as a built in pillow speaker that often have the ability to stream from your phone in the case of an app or have a noise generator. So today's top tips and information are as follows. The purpose of sound therapies is to reduce the perception of tinnitus, loudness, and the reaction to tinnitus whilst using sound is probably something that you already do without realising. Sound can include anything as simple as turning on background music in a quiet room, turning on a fan, listening to TV, or taking a walk on a windy day by the sea. We are all individual and how the sound impacts us will be different. If you've met one person with tinnitus, you've met one person with tinnitus. I'd also say that day to day things differ for the individual. So it's important to be open to possibilities, and maybe try things that you might have tried in the past to. It's important to understand how combining the physiology of sound, how our bodies receive sound, with the psychology of sound, or how our brains interpret sound. In general, there are different types of sound that can be used to manage reactions to tinnitus. And if you're keeping a sound diary or journal, he may be helpful to you to consider the sound and the impact it has on you. On that particular day. We'll see if there's any patterns. If a hearing loss is present, it makes sense to fill in the gaps of the sound that you're missing by using hearing guides. This is because the additional sound can help move mental focus away from the internally created tinnitus sound and it fills in the gaps. As a health professional, I would advocate and encourage individuals to seek medical advice. If you are worried about any medical condition, tinnitus is rarely anything to worry about. As tinnitus is normally a symptom of change, so the hearing system, but I would always say, seek her advice and help if needed, especially if the tinnitus is troublesome on you. In the next episode, I'm looking forward to sharing this with you, as I'm going to be exploring further the mind body relationship with tinnitus, all about sleep, stress, and anger. I do hope that you can join me then. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I hope you got something out of it. Check out the show notes for more details on the things discussed today. I would love to hear your feedback on today's episode. And you can find me over on Facebook on my page of the same name as the podcast, tinnitus on your mind with Johanna Carta. I would love it also if you could leave a review and don't forget to press follow if you want my show to automatically download every week. I can't wait to speak to you in the next episode.