Subject: Re: [AUDITORY] Responses to "listening to your tinnitus" From: Koichi MORI <kmori@xxxxxxxx> Date: Fri, 20 Aug 2021 23:34:48 +0900Hi Brian and Fatima, I concur with the Fatima's opinion that "listening to your tinnitus" cons= titutes a kind of mindfulness. There are many papers related to "tinnitus and mindfulness" (google schol= ar found 3,040 papers). Quoting from https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.00483 "Changes [due to learning mindfulness based stress reduction training] in= volved recognizing how their existing coping strategies (of resistance an= d attempts to control tinnitus) paradoxically exacerbated their difficult= ies, whilst experimentation with allowing, accepting and turning toward t= innitus reduced their suffering." Quoting from https://doi.org/10.1177/1073191107313003 "Previous research on assessment of mindfulness by self-report suggests t= hat it [mindfulness] may include five component skills: observing, descri= bing, acting with awareness, nonjudging of inner experience, and nonreact= ivity to inner experience." Observing tinnitus with curiosity (as Brian did) can be described as non-= judgmental observing and describing, which often suppress emotional react= ivity and distress, leading to clinical effeictiveness. "Judgment" in this context means emotional or value-related assessment, b= ut does not include rational analysis of the sound. Thus "listening to your tinnitus" and analyzing it can be described as in= the mindful state. From my clinical experience, however, few people can observe their tinni= tus non-judgmentally and get relief, as listening to tinnitus often immed= iately evoke distress via the mechanism of classical conditioning unless = its impact is reduced by partial masking. Exposure therapy can extinguish classical conditioning, or the associatio= n between distress and tinnitus in this case, but full exposure without m= asking noise can be delivered only in the final stage. Thus the effect of "listening to your tinnitus" cannot be fully attributa= ble to the exposure therapy. Though I do recommend mindfulness exercise to my tinnitus patients (I am = an otolaryngologist), the rationale is to teach them to learn that divers= ion of attention from tinnitus reduces or even eliminates distress. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/audiology/63/2/63_115/_article/-char= /en (main text is in Japanese.) Hope this gives some insight. Koichi Fatima Husain wrote on 2021/08/20 9:57: > Hi Brian >=20 > I will attempt to answer. What you are describing seems like the "sound= s and thoughts" meditation, which is one of the mindfulness-based cogniti= ve training (MBCT) exercises, where the individual meditates on their bod= y's sounds & external sounds, including their tinnitus=C2=A0(if they have= it). We conducted an MBCT intervention for adults with bothersome tinnit= us and found that a great majority were helped by an 8-week MBCT course. = When we were designing the experiment, we were worried if this=20 > particular=C2=A0exercise would exacerbate someone's tinnitus=C2=A0and w= e gave directions to the instructors accordingly. But, we found that no o= ne complained about listening to or being intensely aware of their=C2=A0t= innitus in this context. There have been several published reports of MBC= T being useful and if they all did the standard MBCT, then it would inclu= de this type of meditation. Other psychology-based treatments may also in= clude such meditation exercises. No published report, to my knowledge, ha= s=20 > weighed in on the relative merits of different aspects of MBCT or simil= ar plans. >=20 > Hope this helps, > Fatima >=20 > On Wed, Aug 18, 2021 at 11:57 PM Brian Gygi <bgygi@xxxxxxxx <mailto:bg= ygi@xxxxxxxx>> wrote: >=20 > __ > Hello, I received several responses to my post on "listening to you= r tinnitus" in which I described a method I had found that seemed to alle= viate my tinnitus.=C2=A0 Unfortunately, all of the posts described method= s in which an acoustic signal is present to the ear with frequencies that= match (or mask) the tinnitus, which is different from what I was talking= about. >=20 > The method I was describing involved actually focusing on the tinni= tus, not an auditory stimulus.=C2=A0 I can hear out some of the individua= l tones in my tinnitus, and I find when I do this the tinnitus seems to l= essen in severity. >=20 > So, does anyone know of any work that that been done in this area? >=20 > Thanks, > Brian Gygi >=20 >=20 >=20 >=20 --=20 MORI, Koichi, M.D., Ph.D. National Rehabilitation Center for Persons with Disabilities (NRCD) 4-1 Namiki, Tokorozawa, Saitama 359-8555, Japan mori-koichi@xxxxxxxx / mori-koichi@xxxxxxxx Tel:(+81)4-2995-3100, FAX:(+81)4-2995-3102