You first notice the sound when you’re in bed trying 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 awake, which is not good because you need your sleep and you have a big day tomorrow. And suddenly you feel very anxious, very not sleepy.
Does this sound familiar? Turns out, tinnitus, anxiety, and sleep are closely associated. A vicious cycle that deprives you of your sleep and affects your health can be the outcome.
Can anxiety cause tinnitus?
Tinnitus is typically defined as a ringing in the ears. But it’s not as simple as that. Firstly, lots of different noises can manifest from a ringing, buzzing, or humming to a pulsating or whooshing. Basically, you’re hearing a sound that doesn’t really exist. When people get stressed out, for many people, tinnitus can manifest.
For people who cope with feelings of fear or worry and anxiety, these feelings frequently interfere with their life because they have difficulty controlling them. Tinnitus is just one of several ways this can physically materialize. So can tinnitus be caused by anxiety? Absolutely!
Why is this tinnitus-anxiety combination bad?
There are a couple of reasons why this particular combo of tinnitus and anxiety can lead to bad news:
- Tinnitus can frequently be the first sign of a more severe anxiety attack (or similar occurrence). Once you’ve recognized the connection between anxiety and tinnitus, any time you experience tinnitus symptoms your anxiety could rise.
- Normally, nighttime is when most individuals 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 day-to-day activities simply masked the symptoms. This can make getting to sleep a little tricky. And that sleeplessness can itself result in more anxiety.
Often, tinnitus can begin in one ear and then change to the other. Sometimes, it can hang around 24/7–all day every day. In other cases, it may pulsate for a few minutes and then disappear. Whether constant or sporadic, this combo of anxiety and tinnitus can have health consequences.
How is your sleep impacted by tinnitus and anxiety?
So, yeah, anxiety-driven tinnitus could easily be causing your sleep issues. Here are several examples of how:
- Most individuals sleep in locations that are intentionally quiet. It’s nighttime, so you turn everything off. But when everything else is silent, your tinnitus can be much more noticeable.
- It can be difficult to disregard your tinnitus and that can be really stressful. If you’re laying there just trying to fall asleep, your tinnitus can become the metaphorical dripping faucet, keeping you up all night. As your anxiety about not sleeping grows, the sound of the tinnitus symptoms can get louder and even harder to ignore.
- The level of your stress will keep rising the longer you go without sleep. As your stress level rises your tinnitus will get worse.
When your tinnitus is a result of anxiety, you might worry that an anxiety attack is coming as soon as you hear that whooshing noise. This can, understandably, make it very hard to sleep. But lack of sleep results in all kinds of problems.
Health affects of lack of sleep
As this vicious cycle keeps going, the health affects of insomnia will become much more severe. And your overall wellness can be negatively impacted by this. Some of the most common impacts include the following:
- Greater risk of cardiovascular disease: Your long term health and wellness will be affected over time by lack of sleep. You could find yourself at an increased risk of heart disease or stroke.
- Reduced reaction times: When you aren’t getting adequate sleep, your reaction times are more lethargic. Driving and other daily tasks will then be more hazardous. And if, for example, you run heavy machinery, it can be particularly dangerous.
- Inferior work results: It should come as no shock that if you can’t get to sleep, your job performance will suffer. Your thinking will be slower and your mood will be less positive.
- Elevated stress and worry: The anxiety symptoms you already have will worsen if you’re not sleeping. A vicious cycle of mental health related symptoms can occur.
Other causes of anxiety
Of course, there are other causes of anxiety besides tinnitus. It’s important to recognize what these causes are so you can avoid stress triggers and possibly reduce your tinnitus while you’re at it. Some of the most common causes of anxiety include the following:
- Medical conditions: You might, in some situations, have a heightened anxiety response because of a medical condition.
- Hyperstimulation: An anxiety reaction can occur when somebody gets overstimulated with too much of any one thing. Being in a crowded place, for instance, can cause some individuals to have an anxiety response.
- Stress response: Our bodies will have a normal anxiety response when something stresses us. That’s great if you’re being chased by a lion. But when you’re dealing with a project at work, that’s not so great. oftentimes, the relationship between the two is not very clear. You could have an anxiety attack today from something that caused a stress reaction a week ago. You might even have an anxiety attack in reaction to a stressor from last year, for example.
Other factors: Less frequently, anxiety disorders could be caused by some of the following factors:
- Lack of nutrition
- Stimulant usage (that includes caffeine)
- Some recreational drugs
- Fatigue and sleep deprivation (see the vicious cycle once again)
This isn’t an all-inclusive list. And you should talk to your provider if you suspect you have an anxiety disorder.
Dealing with anxiety-related tinnitus
In terms of anxiety-induced tinnitus, there are two general options at hand. You can either try to address the anxiety or address the tinnitus. Here’s how that might work in either case:
Addressing anxiety
There are a couple of options for managing anxiety:
- Cognitive-behavioral Therapy (CBT): Certain thought patterns can inadvertently exacerbate your anxiety symptoms and this approach will help you recognize those thought patterns. Patients are able to better prevent anxiety attacks by disrupting those thought patterns.
- Medication: In some cases, medication may help you cope with your symptoms or make your symptoms less noticeable.
Treating tinnitus
There are a variety of ways to treat tinnitus and this is especially true if symptoms manifest primarily at night. Some of the most common treatments include:
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT): When you have tinnitus, CBT techniques can help you produce new thought patterns that accept, acknowledge, and minimize your tinnitus symptoms.
- Masking device: This is basically a white noise machine that you wear near your ear. This can help minimize how much you notice your tinnitus.
- White noise machine: Utilize a white noise machine when you’re trying to sleep. Your tinnitus symptoms might be able to be masked by this approach.
You could get better sleep by dealing with your tinnitus
As long as that humming or whooshing is keeping you awake at night, you’ll be at risk of falling into one of these vicious cycles, fueled by anxiety and tinnitus. Dealing with your tinnitus first is one possible solution. To do that, you should give us a call.
