You first hear the sound when you’re in bed attempting to sleep: Your ear has a whooshing or throbbing in it. The sound is rhythmic and tuned in to your heartbeat. And regardless of how hard you try, you can’t tune it out. It keeps you up, which is not good because you need your sleep and you’ve got a big day tomorrow. And suddenly you feel very anxious, not very sleepy.
Does this situation sound familiar? Turns out, tinnitus, anxiety, and sleep are closely related. And you can understand how tinnitus and anxiety might easily conspire to generate a vicious cycle, one that robs you of your sleep, your rest, and can affect your health.
Can tinnitus be triggered by anxiety?
Tinnitus is typically referred to as a ringing in the ears. But it’s a bit more complicated than that. First of all, the actual noise you hear can take a large number of shapes, from pulsation to throbbing to ringing and so on. But the noise you’re hearing isn’t an actual external sound. When people get stressed out, for many, tinnitus can manifest.
For individuals who experience feelings of fear or worry and anxiety, these feelings frequently interfere with their life because they have trouble controlling them. Tinnitus is just one of several ways this can physically materialize. So can anxiety cause tinnitus? Absolutely!
Why is this tinnitus-anxiety combo bad?
There are a couple of reasons why this particular combination of tinnitus and anxiety can lead to bad news:
- Usually, nighttime is when most people really notice their tinnitus symptoms. Can ringing in the ears be caused by anxiety? Yes, but the ringing may have also been there during the day but your everyday activities simply masked the symptoms. This can make it more difficult to get to sleep. And more anxiety can come from not sleeping.
- You may be having a more serious anxiety attack if you begin to spike tinnitus symptoms. Once you’ve acknowledged the connection between anxiety and tinnitus, any time you detect tinnitus symptoms your anxiety could increase.
Often, tinnitus can start in one ear and then change to the other. There are some cases where tinnitus is constant day and night. There are other circumstances where it comes and goes. Either way, this anxiety-tinnitus-combo can present some negative impacts on your health.
How does tinnitus-anxiety affect your sleep?
Your sleep loss could certainly be caused by anxiety and tinnitus. Here are a few examples of how:
- Most individuals sleep in locations that are intentionally quiet. You turn everything off because it’s time for bed. But when everything else is quiet, your tinnitus can be much more obvious.
- The level of your stress will keep rising the longer you go without sleep. The higher your stress level, the worse your tinnitus will tend to become.
- The sound of your tinnitus can stress you out and difficult to dismiss. If you’re laying there just trying to fall asleep, your tinnitus can become the metaphorical dripping faucet, keeping you awake all night. Your tinnitus can become even louder and more difficult to tune out as your anxiety about not sleeping grows.
When your anxiety is triggering your tinnitus, you might hear that whooshing sound and fear that an anxiety attack is coming. It’s not surprising that you’re losing sleep. The problem is that lack of sleep, well, sort of makes everything worse.
Health affects of lack of sleep
The impact insomnia has on your health will continue to become more severe as this vicious cycle carries on. And your general wellness can be negatively affected by this. Here are a few of the most common effects:
- Poor work performance: It should come as no surprise that if you can’t sleep, your job performance will suffer. Your thinking will be sluggish and your mood will be less positive.
- Increased stress and worry: The anxiety symptoms you already have will get worse if you’re not sleeping. This can result in a vicious cycle of mental health-related problems.
- Reduced reaction times: Your reaction times will be slower when you’re exhausted. This can make daily tasks such as driving a little more dangerous. And if, for example, you run heavy machinery, it can be particularly dangerous.
- Increased risk of cardiovascular disease: Your long term health and wellness will be affected over time by lack of sleep. You could find yourself at a higher risk of heart disease or stroke.
Other causes of anxiety
Of course, there are other causes of anxiety besides tinnitus. And knowing these causes is important (mostly because they will help you avoid anxiety triggers, which as an added bonus will help you avoid your tinnitus symptoms). Some of the most common causes of anxiety include the following:
- Medical conditions: You might, in some situations, have a heightened anxiety response due to a medical condition.
- Stress response: Our bodies will have a natural anxiety response when something causes us stress. If you’re being chased by a wild animal, that’s great. But it’s less good when you’re working on a project for work. Sometimes, the association between the two isn’t obvious. You could have an anxiety attack today from something that caused a stress reaction last week. You may even have an anxiety attack in reaction to a stressor from last year, for example.
- Hyperstimulation: For some people, getting too much of any one thing, even a good thing, can bring on an anxiety episode. Being in a crowded place, for instance, can cause some individuals to have an anxiety response.
Other causes: Less frequently, anxiety disorders may be caused by some of the following factors:
- Certain recreational drugs
- Poor nutrition
- Fatigue and sleep deprivation (see the vicious cycle once again)
- Stimulant usage (including caffeine)
This list is not exhaustive. And if you suspect you have an anxiety disorder, you should consult your provider about treatment possibilities.
How to fix your anxiety-caused tinnitus?
In terms of anxiety-induced tinnitus, there are two basic options available. The anxiety can be dealt with or the tinnitus can be dealt with. Here’s how that might work in either circumstance:
Treating anxiety
There are a couple of possibilities for managing anxiety:
- Medication: In some instances, medication could help you deal with your symptoms or make your symptoms less pronounced.
- Cognitive-behavioral Therapy (CBT): Certain thought patterns can inadvertently worsen your anxiety symptoms and this method will help you recognize those thought patterns. Patients are able to better prevent anxiety attacks by interrupting those thought patterns.
Treating tinnitus
Tinnitus can be treated in a variety of different ways, especially if it presents while you’re sleeping. Here are some common treatments:
- White noise machine: When you’re trying to sleep, utilize a white noise machine. This could help mask your tinnitus symptoms.
- Masking device: Think of this as a white noise machine you wear beside your ears. This can help reduce how much you notice your tinnitus.
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT): When you suffer from tinnitus, CBT techniques can help you create new thought patterns that accept, acknowledge, and decrease your tinnitus symptoms.
Addressing your tinnitus could help you sleep better
You’ll be at risk of falling into a vicious cycle of anxiety and tinnitus if the whooshing and ringing are keeping you up at night. Managing your tinnitus first is one possible option. To do that, you should contact us.
