Stress and tinnitus in many cases go hand in hand.

An experiment by Heller and Bergman conducted back in the 1950’s found that 93% of participants reported hearing noises, even though they were in complete silence.

The truth of the matter is that our ears work all the time and will only relax once they have latched onto a harmless background noise. It’s part of our evolution, we feel safe, when our senses are familiar and relate with our environment.

So place an individual in complete silence, and their ears will try and listen harder and harder until they find something to pick up. Simply put, it’s their job go do so! They very same way that your eyes would react if placed into darkness. The would adjust, dilate, do everything within their ability to help you see. it’s automatic.

So if there is nothin present to hear, it’s completely silent, most people’s hearing will intensify until it becomes hyper sensitive, and starts detecting Internal nervous information.

In essence this what is “hypersensitivity“. So, if you are a tinnitus sufferer, the first rule is to try to avoid silent situations.

The whole process activates a stress response in your system, and increases your internal auditory hypersensitivity.

So, why are most of you with tinnitus listening constantly to our tinnitus? When most of the population is blissfully unaware of it?

And more importantly, why has your hearing become so sensitive and latched onto those internal sounds?

First off, here are five things most tinnitus suffers all have in common which you might not be aware of!

1. Stress
2. Anxiety
3. Depression
4. Difficulties with concentration
5. Allergies

But as we know, the show goes on like clockwork, and behind the scenes, your central nervous system is idling in a constant state of red-alert.

For some reason under the surface, your whole system has locked itself into a state of emergency, as if it senses that there is some threat or danger that is there all the time.

Now this is a very subtle and silent precess, you know mentally that things are OK, you’re not in any immediate danger. You’re not on a battlefield, or running away from a mad man, which would provoke certain protective hormones to be released that would inspire you to action. What we are talking about here can be summed up in one word, stress!

Stress releases hormones, most notably adrenaline (when I say adrenaline, I’m meaning a group of hormones released by the adrenal glands, cortisol, noradrenaline and adrenaline) it’s these chemicals, which keep your entire system locked into this stress state.

Ok, so let’s see how and why your body gets into this state in the first place. And perhaps how we can recognize the signals and patterns in ourselves.

For the vast majority of people suffering from tinnitus the key to understanding and getting to grips with it is in understanding your body’s relationship with adrenaline. 

When you have high levels of adrenaline, cortisol surging through your system, this signals to your body that it’s fight or flight time, an inner sense of emergency. Although, you might not be aware of it, (as I mentioned, it’s subtle and builds in increments over time) but your heart beats faster, your senses become heightened and specifically regarding tinnitus, your sense of hearing becomes acute.

With the increase of stress hormone levels you become much more reactive to the world around you and are constantly prepared for action.

This is simply an ancestral survival mechanism that has evolved into our nervous system, for our own protection.

So when danger appeared, we didn’t have to think, it was an automatic response, the “fight or flight” response as it is called.

During a more primitive time, to get out of danger we needed to see, smell, feel and hear the slightest thing at lighting speed because it can our lives. Although time has passed and we’ve built rockets, computers, cars and so forth, we still inhabit the same bodies, with the same nervous systems form a very, very long time ago.

Tinnitus is bound up with this response. This is why most people start complaining about noises in the head after periods of high levels of stress. 

Or like my self, after a buildup of stress over tears and years. Quite simply put, too much stress (cortisol, adrenaline) over a long period of time can give you tinnitus along with a myriad of other conditions.

We know now that excessive stress can cause physiological damage at a cellular level. And as we know autoimmune diseases of idiopathic origin are either causes or at least exasperated by stress.

So, what about if you’re hard of hearing, and you’ve developed tinnitus? Other things can magnify acoustic hypersensitivity too. If one is hearing impaired, partially deaf or deaf, every time you strain to hear you are increasing that hypersensitivity.

Your ar now not getting enough information from the external world, so your brain tries harder to increase its receptivity by increasing the inner volume. This is why the vast majority of people with hearing loss white ofter experience tinnitus.

Much like making a voice recording on an old fashioned tape recording machine. Not only do you record and hear the intended cove and message, you also pick up the buzzing, humming, clicking coming from the machine itself. So tinnitus scan be looked at like this, you are hearing the noises of your own nervous system, on top of the sounds coming from the world around you.

Now, for those who are hard of hearing or hearing impaired, stop straining to hear! As weird as it sounds you are only making yourself more prone to the tinnitus. You can learn the appropriate skills form the tinnitus retrain system os that your can override your hypersensitivity,relax, calm down, reset your system and bypass the stimuli.

Why understanding stress hormones so important to undoing tinnitus? 

Adrenaline, cortisol , norepinephrine .There is a place for them, we simply wouldn’t be here without them, and our ancestors probably would have been eaten without them! These hormones, which heighten our awareness also, save our lives. But understanding these hormones and your body’s reactions to them is a vital tools towards your own personal healthcare.

Stress plays an enormous role in the way you hear and the quality of our life. It’s fascinating how you can fall asleep in the middle of a noisy party, surrounded by people on night, and yet be woken up by a feint drip from a tap on another night.

It’s a proven fact and research has shown, that acute stress or shock, which produces larger amounts of adrenaline can literally divert blood flow from the cochlea and make you temporarily deaf!

Stress hormones causes you to become hyper aware and sensitive to nervous impulses that your normally would not pick up or respond to. This is a simple picture that everyone suffering from tinnitus must understand.

I personally have yet to meet someone with tinnitus who is not a highly sensitive individual. 

So what happens if your cortisol and adrenaline levels become balanced?

If your adrenaline and cortisol levels where to drop, you sensory perception will become less acute, and you’ll find your tinnitus beginning to ease. So, it’s one of the first issues we must look at and address.

I know there are those who are going to say, “but isn’t it the damage to the inner ear cells which causes tinnitus?” Yes, tinnitus can be down to age related wear and tear or sudden noise exposure or damage, medication, medial treatments, TMJ, stress, a myriad of thing. But, we are all subject to wear and tear and we are all subject to aging and we all will experience hearing damage and deterioration. But! Not all of us are troubled by tinnitus and if the statistics are to be believed, why is it the majority of people are blissfully unaware or untroubled by their tinnitus?

They are unaware not because of the volume, pitch tone or type of their tinnitus. They are unaware because their nervous system is not reacting in the same way to the stimuli a someone who is suffering from troubling tinnitus.

Finding out the reason why the majority of people who are afflicted with tinnitus but do not suffer from tinnitus is the ticket out of your tinnitus misery.

Website: Tinnitus Retrain System