You first hear the sound when you’re lying in bed trying to sleep: Your ear has a whooshing or pulsating 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. You have a big day tomorrow and you really need your sleep so this is no good. Not only are you not feeling tired, you feel anxious.
Does this sound familiar? Anxiety, tinnitus, and sleep, as it so happens, are closely related. And you can see how tinnitus and anxiety could easily conspire to produce a vicious cycle, one that deprives you of your sleep, your rest, and can impact your health.
Can tinnitus be caused by anxiety?
Tinnitus is typically referred to as a ringing in the ears. But it’s not that simple. Firstly, many different noises can occur from a ringing, buzzing, or humming to a beating or whooshing. Basically, 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 suggests) anxiety are difficult to control and severe enough to interfere with your daily life. This can manifest in many ways physically, that includes as tinnitus. So can anxiety cause tinnitus? Certainly!
What’s bad about this combination of anxiety and tinnitus?
This combo of anxiety and tinnitus is bad news for a couple of the following reasons:
- Most individuals tend to notice tinnitus more often at night. Can anxiety cause ringing in the ear? Yes, but the ringing may have also been there during the day but your daily activities simply covered up the symptoms. This can make getting to sleep a little tricky. And more anxiety can come from not sleeping.
- Tinnitus can frequently be the first sign of a more serious anxiety attack (or similar occurrence). Once you’ve recognized the connection between anxiety and tinnitus, any time you detect tinnitus symptoms your anxiety could rise.
There are situations where tinnitus can start in one ear and at some point move to both. Sometimes, it can hang around 24/7–all day every day. In other situations, it might pulsate for a few minutes and then disappear. Whether continuous or sporadic, this combo of anxiety and tinnitus can have health consequences.
How is your sleep affected by tinnitus and anxiety?
So, yes, anxiety-driven tinnitus could easily be causing your sleep problems. Here are several examples of how:
- The level of your stress will keep rising the longer you go without sleep. The more stressed you are, the worse your tinnitus will be.
- Most individuals like it to be quiet when they sleep. It’s night, so you turn off everything. But when everything else is silent, your tinnitus can be much more obvious.
- It can be challenging to disregard your tinnitus and that can be extremely stressful. In the silence of the night, your tinnitus can be so persistent 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 ignore.
When your tinnitus is due to anxiety, you may fear an anxiety attack is coming as soon as you hear that whooshing sound. This can, obviously, make it very hard to sleep. But lack of sleep results in all kinds of problems.
How lack of sleep affects your health
The impact insomnia has on your health will continue to become more profound as this vicious cycle carries on. And your overall wellness can be negatively impacted by this. Here are a few of the most common impacts:
- Reduced reaction times: Your reaction times will be reduced when you’re exhausted. Driving and other daily activities will then be more hazardous. And if, for example, you run heavy machinery, it can be particularly dangerous.
- Increased stress and worry: When you don’t sleep, it makes those anxiety symptoms you already have even worse. This can result in a vicious cycle of mental health-related issues.
- Increased risk of cardiovascular disease: Over time, lack of sleep can begin to affect your long-term health and wellness. You could find yourself at a higher risk of heart disease or stroke.
- Poor work performance: It should come as no surprise that if you can’t sleep, your job performance will become affected. You won’t be as enthusiastic or be able to think on your feet as quickly.
Other causes of anxiety
Tinnitus, of course, is not the only cause of anxiety. It’s important to recognize what these causes are so you can avoid stress triggers and maybe decrease your tinnitus at the same time. Some of the most common causes of anxiety include the following:
- Stress response: When something causes us great stress, our bodies will naturally go into an anxious mode. If you’re being chased by a wild animal, that’s great. But when you’re dealing with a project at work, that’s not so great. Sometimes, the association between the two is not very clear. 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 a year ago, for example.
- Medical conditions: You might, in some cases, have an increased anxiety response because of a medical condition.
- Hyperstimulation: An anxiety attack can take place when somebody gets overstimulated with too much of any one thing. For instance, being around crowds can sometimes trigger an anxiety response for some people.
Other factors: Less frequently, anxiety disorders could be caused by some of the following factors:
- Exhaustion and sleep deprivation (see the vicious cycle once again)
- Some recreational drugs
- Use of stimulants (including caffeine)
- Poor nutrition
This list is not complete. And you should seek advice from your provider if you believe you have an anxiety disorder.
Dealing with anxiety-induced tinnitus
You have two basic choices to treat anxiety-related tinnitus. The anxiety can be addressed or the tinnitus can be dealt with. Here’s how that might work in either case:
Treating anxiety
In general, anxiety disorders are managed in one of two ways:
- Medication: Medications might be used, in other circumstances, to make anxiety symptoms less prominent.
- Cognitive-behavioral Therapy (CBT): Certain thought patterns can inadvertently exacerbate your anxiety symptoms and this strategy will help you recognize those thought patterns. Patients are able to better avoid anxiety attacks by disrupting 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, use a white noise machine. Your tinnitus symptoms might be able to be masked by this strategy.
- Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT): When you suffer from tinnitus, CBT strategies can help you generate new thought patterns that accept, acknowledge, and decrease 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.
Addressing your tinnitus could help you sleep better
As long as that humming or whooshing is keeping you up at night, you’ll be at risk of falling into one of these vicious cycles, fueled by anxiety and tinnitus. One solution is to focus on fixing your tinnitus first. To do that, you should contact us.
