Tinnitus keeping you up?

When ringing meets stress and poor sleep, the brain’s limbic system (our emotion + threat detector) turns the volume up. The more we worry about sleep, the louder tinnitus can feel at night.

Good news: once medical causes are ruled out, Sound Therapy can retrain the brain to pay less attention to tinnitus.

How to do it (simple plan):

Pick a sound you like: gentle nature sounds, white noise, or pink noise—whatever feels the most soothing and has a positive effect on reducing your perception of tinnitus.

Set the level at your “mixing point”: about the same loudness as your tinnitus so you can hear both at the same time (not total masking).

Schedule it daily: 1 hour in the morning + 1 hour in the evening. Consistency is everything.

Play the sound through a speaker or headphones—whichever you prefer. Just avoid adding other meaningful audio at the same time (e.g., TV, YouTube, podcasts), as it reduces the therapy’s effect. Quiet activities like reading or casually scrolling social media are fine.

What to expect: stay consistent for ~8 weeks (2 months) and many people report their tinnitus becomes less intrusive—roughly half notice meaningful improvement when they stick with the plan.

Red flags? If your tinnitus is one-sided, pulses with your heartbeat, or came with sudden hearing loss/vertigo/pain, see an ENT urgently.