Yesterday I went to my ENT, and he noticed I have an ear infection in the ear that has gone deaf. I have been having intratympanic steroid injections, so the pain I had I put down to just a side effect of the injections. However it seems I have an infection and I am on systemic steroid therapy, and have also been on a 10 day course of antibiotics. So I was prescribed some larger-dose antibiotics as a remedy. I took my first tablet at lunch time, and within the hour I had a train bell ringing very loudly at 180 bpm. Until this episode, I had been coping pretty well with the tinnitus, but all of a sudden my hyerpacusis red-lined and I found the rest of the afternoon more challenging than previous days. As bed time approached, my anxiety levels increased – I need to get my sleep. So I hatched up a process, and slept like a baby…
The following steps I took were about calming myself down, and letting go of anxiety. I wasnt due for bed for another hour. If I could get my nervous system to calm down and relax, that seemed like a great action-oriented approach to dealing with the problem rather than lathering myself up in my own thoughts and stabbing my limbic system with nothing but harmful swords.
Step 1 Take a Hot Shower
Hot showers are known to help improve sleep, as long as you do it well before bedtime. I use this as an evening ritual to prepare my mind for the pre-sleep wind-down phase. Sometimes I will do hot/cold showers to help with circulation, and I am going to experiment with that later. But last night I just had a hot-warm-hot-warm shower for about 15 minutes.
Step 2 Spend 5 Minutes Progressive Muscle Relaxation
I did this in a meditation posture, sat on a chair. The purpose of this was less about falling asleep, but releasing the tension that I know I had in my body from the heightened levels of T and H I had been experiencing. This is great way to do focus the mind away from anything else, and I find the muscle tensing helps distract away from the T and H.
Step 3 Spend 5-10 Minutes Doing Mindfulness/Acceptance Meditation
I realize there are some mindfulness practices shaped specifically for tinnitus, but I carved my own. I have done mindfulness meditation for years, so I decided lastnight that I would watch my breath for a short while, feeling a lot more relaxed, and then focus on my T and H as the object of mindfulness. I admit I had to do this in stages, mainly because the H was so strong. But as I did it, I started to genuinely allow myself to accept the experience. I didnt repeat some rote statement. I accepted it into my heart. In fact I thanked it. I am glad I am still alive. I am glad that I have been fortunate to find so many great new friends from this. I am glad, I am glad I am glad….
Step 4 Gratitude Exercise
Once the meditation was over, I decided to go sit with my wife while she watched TV, and I would spend some moments truly being grateful, with pen and paper, for what good things can come from this new life state. I only wrote 5 things down, and even though the T and H still endured, it all felt less bothersome. I managed to relax before bedtime, and then went to bed and dropped off within 5 minutes of hitting the sack – and in those 5 minutes I amped up the relax-dial with some autogenic relaxation.
Slept like a baby, and woke up once (consciously) but managed to drop off straight away.
Tinnitus 