I was a tinnitus coach during the pandemic. Here’s what I learned. – Healthy Hearing
The COVID-19 pandemic has not been easy on anyone, but it was especially difficult for people living with challenging chronic health conditions like tinnitus.
Glenn Schweitzer
Over the last seven years, I’ve worked one-on-one with more than 900 tinnitus sufferers from all over the world as a tinnitus coach, many of whom I met during the pandemic.
When the lockdowns first began in Asia, Europe, and then the US, I was overwhelmed by the amount of suffering I witnesse…….
The COVID-19 pandemic has not been easy on anyone, but it was especially difficult for people living with challenging chronic health conditions like tinnitus.
Glenn Schweitzer
Over the last seven years, I’ve worked one-on-one with more than 900 tinnitus sufferers from all over the world as a tinnitus coach, many of whom I met during the pandemic.
When the lockdowns first began in Asia, Europe, and then the US, I was overwhelmed by the amount of suffering I witnessed in the tinnitus community. My email inbox became flooded with messages and questions from tinnitus patients in despair. And it didn’t let up for a long time.
You couldn’t have asked for a more perfect set of circumstances to make life miserable for tinnitus sufferers. The social isolation, uncertainty, the 24-hour anxiety-fueled news cycle, financial instability, disruption of normal routines, and the inability to easily see doctors and specialists caused untold suffering in the lives of tinnitus patients worldwide.
Of course, I realize that the pandemic is still ongoing. But as I reflect on the last few years, I realize that my work as a tinnitus coach gave me a unique vantage point. And it offered me a chance to learn lessons that have directly translated into better tools and strategies for tinnitus sufferers.
Understanding the impacts of stress
Stress is a symptom trigger for most chronic illnesses and tinnitus is no exception. Increases in stress can cause tinnitus to spike for most sufferers, with changes in sound, volume, or intrusiveness.
I’ve always taught a wide variety of tools and strategies for reducing stress and anxiety levels when working with tinnitus patients. But during the pandemic, I learned that you need to consider stress in all its forms when looking to mitigate its effect on tinnitus.
Here is a helpful way to conceptualize the problem. Imagine that your personal capacity to manage stress is a big metal tank located somewhere in your brain. The tank represents the amount of stress you can safely tolerate on any given day. If your stress level rises to the point where the tank overflows, you will experience anxiety or other negative health impacts.
Here’s the problem: For many sufferers, the stress of tinnitus alone can completely fill and overflow the tank. But even when your tinnitus-related stress is not overflowing the tank, it still may be taking up a large percentage of the space. And so other stressors that would normally not affect you at all become enough to tip the scales and put you over the top into a state of anxiety.
As people make progress with habituation and begin to find relief from their tinnitus, their capacity to handle …….
