Anxiety Causing Ringing Ears

Anxiety and Ringing EarsA Dual Problem

Anxiety and ringing ears can often complement each other in damaging ways. Ringing of the ears, or tinnitus, has excess levels of stress as one of its causes. At the same time, the sensation of having your ears constantly ringing is enough to make anyone a little anxious, and if the sufferer begins to focus on the ringing too much, their levels of anxiety can increase. As you can see, this will cause a vicious circle, as anxiety and the volume of tinnitus both rise. If you’ve got tinnitus (see tinnitus help), it’s best to tackle the problems of anxiety, ringing ears and stress all at once.

Improving Anxiety and Ringing Ears

If you’re able to deal with the issues of anxiety, ringing ears will become less of a problem. This can be done in a number of ways. One of the easiest ways to reduce your stress levels is to improve your diet and exercise. If you’re not doing any regular exercise at the moment, it’s time to take these steps in your life. Just twenty minutes of exercise a day is quite easy to achieve, and can have a massive impact on your health and anxiety levels.

There are some easy diet choices (see glycemic diet index) that can be made, also. First off, remove as much salt as you can from your diet (see glycemic diet plan). Salt seriously affects the blood flow to the brain, and along with causing a host of heart problems. It also exacerbates anxiety, ringing ears and mental health. There is enough natural salt in the food you eat, so you shouldn’t ever have to have extra salt on your food. This can be done more effectively by gradually reducing how much you use over time, and not going ‘cold turkey’! Let your taste buds adjust slowly, your food won’t suddenly taste ‘blah’, and you can progressively cut your added salt intake to almost zero.



It’s also, obviously, a good idea to give up on junk food (e.g. how about checking out the glycemic index diet?). The highly processed nature of what you eat in such restaurants, along with the high fat, sugar and salt content of these items, mean that tinnitus and stress levels go through the roof.

Alcohol and cigarettes should also be reduced, if not given up entirely. Those who have suffered from tinnitus for a lengthy period may know the feeling of going out to a party, drinking and smoking a large amount, and coming home with ears that are ringing at seriously high levels. This is due to the shifts in the body that have been caused from the harmful substances that have been consumed (also see – ringing ears & blood pressure). Reducing the level of alcohol and nicotine in the body will help a great deal to improve levels of tinnitus.

Coping with Tinnitus

Your stress levels in relation to tinnitus are in some ways up to you. If you choose to focus on the discomfort caused by tinnitus, your stress levels will naturally rise. So it’s best to find techniques to distract yourself from the constant tinnitus noise (also see ear infection tinnitus). Don’t let yourself be in a completely silent room, even at night time, as this will mean there’s nothing to listen to but the sound of your ringing ears.

Combating the anxiety and ringing ears problem can be as easy as making a change in the way you choose to look at the issue. If you’re positive, hopeful and willing to make changes to your life, you’ll start to notice a real improvement in the severity of your symptoms.