About ten percent of people suffer from tinnitus – a constant ringing in the ears – and there’s a fair chance that you suffer from it too, since you’re reading this. Although it’s not easy, there are some ways to deal with it and make life a bit more bearable.

I definitely hope this is not necessary to say, but I’ll say it anyway: go to your doctor. It’s important to check out why you have this ringing in your ears, because it could also be caused by something different than hearing damage. For example, there’s a lot of medicine (like aspirin or ibuprofen, but also antidepressants and cancer medicine) that have the unpleasant side effect of tinnitus. There could also be other explanations, so please, go to your doctor.

You only live once

But if your tinnitus is the kind that does not go away, and you’ve already discussed your problem with your doctor at length, there are some other things you can try.

Probably the most important thing is to accept the problem that you have. ““You only live once, so why not make the best of it?” is what I say when I am laid low with the high-pitched ringing. Remaining calm and cheerful has become my mantra. It was an important moment when I realised that the ringing in my ears was going to stay with me till the end, whether I liked it or not . So why not accept it and make it my companion?,” tinnitus sufferer Rajen Nair said.

Besides accepting your fate, there are also some more practical tips. You can try to sleep with your head in an elevated position, so put your head on one or two extra pillows. This lessens the congestion in your head, which could make your tinnitus less noticeable. Another thing to make it less noticeable while trying to sleep is to have some music play softly in the background, to mask the ringing in your ears.

Let us know

Some people said that alternative medicines have helped for their tinnitus, although the scientific community begs to differ. There’s no harm in trying (unless you’re gonna spend thousands), so why not?

There are a lot of methods on which scientists do agree that it could help, like stress therapy, tinnitus restraining therapy and cognitive behaviour therapy. Read more at the health institute of Harvard here.

Another good tip is the use of an app that produces soothing sounds to block out that ringing in your ears. Just check out what the app store of your current phone has to offer. For example, we found this app for Android-phones which sounds promising!

If you’re a tinnitus sufferer and you have experience with these kind of therapies or other methods that have helped or tinnitus in general, we would definitely like to get in contact with you. You can leave a comment on Facebook with your experiences, so other people can read it too, but if you’re not comfortable with that, it’s always okay to just send us a message. We’d like to hear your story.