You first notice the sound when you’re lying in bed trying to sleep: Your ear has a whooshing or throbbing in it. The sound is pulsing in rhythm with your heartbeat. And no matter how hard you try, you can’t tune it out. It keeps you awake, which is not good because you need your sleep and you have a big day tomorrow. Not only are you not feeling tired, you feel anxious.
Does this scenario sound familiar? Anxiety, tinnitus, and sleep, as it turns out, are closely linked. A vicious cycle that deprives you of your sleep and impacts your health can be the result.
Can anxiety trigger tinnitus?
In general, ringing in the ears is the definition of tinnitus. But it’s not that simple. First of all, the actual sound you hear can take a large number of shapes, from pulsation to throbbing to buzzing and so on. Essentially, you’re hearing a sound that isn’t really there. For many people, tinnitus can occur when you’re feeling stressed out, which means that stress-related tinnitus is definitely a thing.
An anxiety disorder is a condition in which feelings of dread, worry, or (as the name implies) anxiety are hard to control and intense enough to interfere with your daily life. Tinnitus is only one of several ways this can physically manifest. So can tinnitus be caused by anxiety? Certainly!
What’s bad about this combo of anxiety and tinnitus?
This combination of anxiety and tinnitus is bad news for a couple of the following reasons:
- Tinnitus can often be the first indication of a more serious anxiety attack (or similar episode). Once you’ve acknowledged the connection between anxiety and tinnitus, any time you detect tinnitus symptoms your anxiety could rise.
- Usually, nighttime is when most people really notice their tinnitus symptoms. Can ringing in the ears be triggered by anxiety? Yes, but the ringing might have also been there during the day but your day-to-day activities simply masked the symptoms. This can make falling asleep a bit tricky. And that insomnia can itself lead to more anxiety.
Often, tinnitus can begin in one ear and then move to the other. There are some instances where tinnitus is continuous day and night. In other cases, it may pulsate for a few minutes and then go away. Either way, this anxiety-tinnitus-combo can have negative health consequences.
How does tinnitus-anxiety affect your sleep?
Your sleep loss could certainly be the result of anxiety and tinnitus. Some examples of how are as follows:
- Most individuals sleep in locations that are intentionally quiet. You turn everything off because it’s time for bed. But your tinnitus can be much more obvious when everything is quiet.
- It can be hard to ignore your tinnitus and that can be very stressful. In the quiet of the night, your tinnitus can be so unrelenting that you lie awake until morning. As your anxiety about not sleeping grows, the sound of the tinnitus symptoms can get louder and even more difficult to tune out.
- Your stress level will continue to rise the longer you go without sleep. The more stressed you are, the worse your tinnitus will tend to become.
When your anxiety is triggering your tinnitus, you may hear that whooshing sound and fear that an anxiety attack is near. This can, obviously, make it very hard to sleep. The issue is that lack of sleep, well, kind of makes everything worse.
How lack of sleep affects your health
The effect insomnia has on your health will continue to become more significant as this vicious cycle carries on. And this can really have a detrimental affect on your wellness. Some of the most common impacts include the following:
- Reduced reaction times: When you aren’t getting adequate sleep, your reaction times are more sluggish. Driving and other daily tasks will then be more hazardous. And it’s particularly hazardous if you operate heavy equipment, for instance.
- Increased risk of cardiovascular disease: Over time, lack of sleep can begin to impact your long-term health and wellness. Increased risk of a stroke or heart disease can be the consequence.
- Increased stress and worry: The anxiety symptoms you already have will get worse if you’re not sleeping. This can lead to a vicious cycle of mental health-related symptoms.
- Poor work results: It should come as no surprise that if you can’t get to sleep, your job efficiency will suffer. Your thinking will be sluggish and your mood will be less positive.
Other causes of anxiety
Tinnitus, of course, is not the only cause of anxiety. It’s important to know what these causes are so you can avoid stress triggers and possibly decrease your tinnitus while you’re at it. Some of the most common causes of anxiety include the following:
- Hyperstimulation: For some individuals, getting too much of any one thing, even a good thing, can cause an anxiety attack. For instance, being around crowds can sometimes cause an anxiety response for some people.
- Stress response: Our bodies will have a normal anxiety response when something stresses us. That’s great if you’re being chased by a tiger. But when you’re dealing with a project at work, that’s not so good. Sometimes, the relationship between the two isn’t obvious. Something that caused a stress response a week ago could cause an anxiety attack today. You may even have an anxiety attack in response to a stressor from last year, for instance.
- Medical conditions: In some instances, you might simply have a medical condition that makes you more prone to an elevated anxiety response.
Other factors: Some of the following, less common factors could also trigger anxiety:
- Stimulant usage (that includes caffeine)
- Lack of nutrition
- Exhaustion and sleep deprivation (see the vicious cycle once again)
- Some recreational drugs
This list is not exhaustive. And you should seek advice from your provider if you think you have an anxiety disorder.
Treating anxiety-related tinnitus
In terms of anxiety-related tinnitus, there are two general choices at hand. You can either try to treat the anxiety or treat the tinnitus. Here’s how that may work in either circumstance:
Treating anxiety
There are a couple of options for treating anxiety:
- Medication: In some instances, medication could help you cope with your symptoms or make your symptoms less noticeable.
- Cognitive-behavioral Therapy (CBT): Certain thought patterns can inadvertently exacerbate your anxiety symptoms and this strategy will help you identify those thought patterns. Patients are able to better avoid anxiety attacks by interrupting those thought patterns.
Treating tinnitus
There are a variety of ways to treat tinnitus and this is especially true if symptoms manifest primarily at night. Here are some common treatments:
- 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.
- White noise machine: Utilize a white noise machine when you’re trying to sleep. This could help mask your tinnitus symptoms.
- Masking device: This is basically a white noise machine that you wear near your ear. This might help your tinnitus to be less obvious.
Dealing with your tinnitus may help you sleep better
As long as that thrumming or whooshing is keeping you up at night, you’ll be in danger of falling into one of these vicious cycles, fueled by anxiety and tinnitus. One solution is to focus on fixing your tinnitus first. Contact us so we can help.