Tinnitus: Quieting The Unwanted Orchestra In Your Ears

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Tinnitus—When a “minor” symptom becomes disruptive

Tinnitus (typically: ringing in the ears) is often thought of less as a condition in and of itself, and more a symptom related to other hearing-related conditions. Paradoxically, it can be associated with hearing loss as well as with hyperacusis (hearing supersensitivity, which sounds like a superpower, but can be quite a problem too).

More than just ringing

Tinnitus can manifest not just as ringing, but also as whistling, hissing, pulsing, buzzing, hooting, and more.

For those who don’t suffer from this, it can seem very trivial; for those who do… Sometimes it can seem trivial too!

But sometimes it’s hard to carry on a conversation when at random moments it suddenly sounds like someone is playing a slide-whistle directly into your earhole, or like maybe a fly got stuck in there.

It’s distracting, to say the least.

What causes it?

First let’s note, tinnitus can be acute or chronic. So, some of these things may just cause tinnitus for a while, whereas some may give you tinnitus for life. In some cases, it depends on how long the thing in question persisted for.

A lot of things can cause it, but common causes include:

  • Noise exposure (e.g. concerts, some kinds of industrial work, war)
  • High blood pressure
  • Head/neck injuries
  • Ear infection
  • Autoimmune diseases (e.g. Type 1 Diabetes, Lupus, Multiple Sclerosis)

So what can be done about it?

Different remedies will work (or not) for different people, depending on the cause and type of tinnitus.

Be warned also: some things that will work for one person’s tinnitus will make another person’s worse, so you might need to try a degree of experimentation and some of it might not be fun!

That in mind, here are some things you might want to try if you haven’t already:

  • Earplugs or noise-canceling headphones—while tinnitus is an internal sound, not external, it often has to do with some part(s) of your ears being unduly sensitive, so giving them less stimulus may ease the tinnitus that occurs in reaction to external noise.
  • White noise—if you also have hyperacusis, a lower frequency range will probably not hurt the way a higher range might. If you don’t also have hyperacusis, you have more options here and this is a popular remedy. Either way, white noise outperforms “relaxing” soundscapes.
  • Hearing aids—counterintuitively, for some people whose tinnitus has developed in response to hearing loss, hearing aids can help bring things “back to normal” and eliminate tinnitus in the process.
  • Customized sound machines—if you have the resources to get fancy, science currently finds this to be best of all. They work like white noise, but are tailored to your specific tinnitus.

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  • 4 things ancient Greeks and Romans got right about mental health

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    According to the World Health Organization, about 280 million people worldwide have depression and about one billion have a mental health problem of any kind.

    People living in the ancient world also had mental health problems. So, how did they deal with them?

    As we’ll see, some of their insights about mental health are still relevant today, even though we might question some of their methods.

    Jr Morty/Shutterstock

    1. Our mental state is important

    Mental health problems such as depression were familiar to people in the ancient world. Homer, the poet famous for the Iliad and Odyssey who lived around the eighth century BC, apparently died after wasting away from depression.

    Already in the late fifth century BC, ancient Greek doctors recognised that our health partly depends on the state of our thoughts.

    In the Epidemics, a medical text written in around 400BC, an anonymous doctor wrote that our habits about our thinking (as well as our lifestyle, clothing and housing, physical activity and sex) are the main determinants of our health.

    Bronze statue of Homer on Greek island of IOS
    Homer, the ancient Greek poet, had depression. Thirasia/Shutterstock

    2. Mental health problems can make us ill

    Also writing in the Epidemics, an anonymous doctor described one of his patients, Parmeniscus, whose mental state became so bad he grew delirious, and eventually could not speak. He stayed in bed for 14 days before he was cured. We’re not told how.

    Later, the famous doctor Galen of Pergamum (129-216AD) observed that people often become sick because of a bad mental state:

    It may be that under certain circumstances ‘thinking’ is one of the causes that bring about health or disease because people who get angry about everything and become confused, distressed and frightened for the slightest reason often fall ill for this reason and have a hard time getting over these illnesses.

    Galen also described some of his patients who suffered with their mental health, including some who became seriously ill and died. One man had lost money:

    He developed a fever that stayed with him for a long time. In his sleep he scolded himself for his loss, regretted it and was agitated until he woke up. While he was awake he continued to waste away from grief. He then became delirious and developed brain fever. He finally fell into a delirium that was obvious from what he said, and he remained in this state until he died.

    3. Mental illness can be prevented and treated

    In the ancient world, people had many different ways to prevent or treat mental illness.

    The philosopher Aristippus, who lived in the fifth century BC, used to advise people to focus on the present to avoid mental disturbance:

    concentrate one’s mind on the day, and indeed on that part of the day in which one is acting or thinking. Only the present belongs to us, not the past nor what is anticipated. The former has ceased to exist, and it is uncertain if the latter will exist.

    The philosopher Clinias, who lived in the fourth century BC, said that whenever he realised he was becoming angry, he would go and play music on his lyre to calm himself.

    Doctors had their own approaches to dealing with mental health problems. Many recommended patients change their lifestyles to adjust their mental states. They advised people to take up a new regime of exercise, adopt a different diet, go travelling by sea, listen to the lectures of philosophers, play games (such as draughts/checkers), and do mental exercises equivalent to the modern crossword or sudoku.

    Galen, the physician
    Galen, a famous doctor, believed mental problems were caused by some idea that had taken hold of the mind. Pierre Roche Vigneron/Wikimedia

    For instance, the physician Caelius Aurelianus (fifth century AD) thought patients suffering from insanity could benefit from a varied diet including fruit and mild wine.

    Doctors also advised people to take plant-based medications. For example, the herb hellebore was given to people suffering from paranoia. However, ancient doctors recognised that hellebore could be dangerous as it sometimes induced toxic spasms, killing patients.

    Other doctors, such as Galen, had a slightly different view. He believed mental problems were caused by some idea that had taken hold of the mind. He believed mental problems could be cured if this idea was removed from the mind and wrote:

    a person whose illness is caused by thinking is only cured by taking care of the false idea that has taken over his mind, not by foods, drinks, [clothing, housing], baths, walking and other such (measures).

    Galen thought it was best to deflect his patients’ thoughts away from these false ideas by putting new ideas and emotions in their minds:

    I put fear of losing money, political intrigue, drinking poison or other such things in the hearts of others to deflect their thoughts to these things […] In others one should arouse indignation about an injustice, love of rivalry, and the desire to beat others depending on each person’s interest.

    4. Addressing mental health needs effort

    Generally speaking, the ancients believed keeping our mental state healthy required effort. If we were anxious or angry or despondent, then we needed to do something that brought us the opposite of those emotions.

    De Morbis acutis et Chronicis by Caelius Aurelianus
    Watch some comedy, said physician Caelius Aurelianus. VCU Tompkins-McCaw Library/Flickr, CC BY-NC-SA

    This can be achieved, they thought, by doing some activity that directly countered the emotions we are experiencing.

    For example, Caelius Aurelianus said people suffering from depression should do activities that caused them to laugh and be happy, such as going to see a comedy at the theatre.

    However, the ancients did not believe any single activity was enough to make our mental state become healthy. The important thing was to make a wholesale change to one’s way of living and thinking.

    When it comes to experiencing mental health problems, we clearly have a lot in common with our ancient ancestors. Much of what they said seems as relevant now as it did 2,000 years ago, even if we use different methods and medicines today.


    If this article has raised issues for you, or if you’re concerned about someone you know, call Lifeline on 13 11 14.

    Konstantine Panegyres, McKenzie Postdoctoral Fellow, researching Greco-Roman antiquity, The University of Melbourne

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • The Insomnia Breakthrough – by Katherine Coleman

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    The author, a massage therapist, knows plenty about relaxation. But how to put that to use when it comes to getting good quality sleep?

    She takes a holistic approach, and yes, does start by covering all the things you’d expect to find in any guide to better sleep (aim for regular schedule, have darkness when you sleep, cool room, clean sheets, no alcohol or caffeine before bed, etc).

    What she offers in particular beyond that, is the integration of calming routines, building in mindfulness for sleep (when very often people will go for the opposite!), and small cumulative lifestyle adjustments that are conducive to getting a better night’s rest every night.

    The style is very light pop-science (as one might expect from someone who is not, in fact, a scientist), and while we do get a bibliography at the back, it’s a meagre 4 pages. Nevertheless, there’s a lot of interdisciplinary knowledge here, explained well.

    Bottom line: if improving your sleep is something you’d like to do, this book can almost certainly get you on the right track.

    Click here to check out The Insomnia Breakthrough, and don’t stay up too late reading it!

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  • How Does Fat Actually Leave The Body? Where Does It Go?

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    Fat loss is often misunderstood, with many believing it simply “vanishes” through exercise, is simply excreted in solid form in the bathroom, or materially disappears when converted for energy. However, the principle of conservation of mass plays out here, in that the mass in fat doesn’t disappear—it changes its arrangement:

    In and out

    Fat is composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen atoms, with an example common form of fat in the body being C55H104O6. That’s a lot of Cs and Hs, and a few Os.

    When fat leaves the body, it has been primarily converted into carbon dioxide (CO2) and water (H2O).

    According to a 2014 study by the University of South Wales, 84% of the mass of fat exits the body as CO2 exhaled through breathing, while 16% leaves as water through sweat, urine, and other bodily fluids (all of which contain H2O).

    You’ll notice there are a lot more Os going out, proportionally, than we originally had in the C55H104O6. For this reason, the process requires oxygen intake; for every 10 kilograms of fat burned, by simple mathematics the body needs around 29 kilograms of oxygen.

    Physical activity plays a crucial role in fat loss. When the body exerts itself, it naturally switches to a higher oxygen metabolism necessary for fat breakdown. This effect is amplified during intermittent fasting, which boosts human growth hormone (HGH), a hormone that aids in fat metabolism.

    However, simply hyperventilating won’t work; exercise is essential to activate these processes—otherwise it’s just a case of oxygen in, oxygen out, without involving the body’s chemical energy reserves.

    Consequently, one of the best diet-and-exercise combinations for fat loss is intermittent fasting with high-intensity interval training.

    And, as for what to eat, this video says raw vegan, but honestly, that’s not scientific consensus. However, a diet rich in unprocessed (or minimally processed) fruits and vegetables definitely is where it’s at, with the plant-heavy Mediterranean diet generally scoring highest—which can be further improved by skipping the mammals to make it pesco-Mediterranean. Current scientific consensus does not give any extra benefits for also omitting moderate consumption of fish and fermented dairy products, so include those if you want, or skip those if you prefer.

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  • Aging Is Inevitable… Or is it?

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    Aging is inevitable… Or is it?

    We’ve talked before about how and why aging happens. We’ve also talked about the work to tackle aging as basically an engineering problem, with the premise that our bodies are biological machines, and machines can be repaired. We also recommended a great book about this, by the way. But that’s about interfering with the biological process of aging. What about if the damage is already done?

    “When the damage is done, it’s done”

    We can do a lot to try to protect ourselves from aging, and we might be able to slow down the clock, but we can’t stop it, and we certainly can’t reverse it… right?

    Wrong! Or at least, so we currently understand, in some respects. Supplementation with phosphatidylserine, for example, has shown promise for not just preventing, but treating, neurodegeneration (such as that caused by Alzheimer’s disease). It’s not a magic bullet and so far the science is at “probably” and “this shows great promise for…” and “this appears to…”

    Phosphatidylserene does help slow neurodegeneration

    …because of its role in allowing your cells to know whether they have permission to die.

    This may seem a flippant way of putting it, but it’s basically how cell death works. Cells do need to die (if they don’t, that’s called cancer) and be replaced with new copies, and those copies need to be made before too much damage is accumulated (otherwise the damage is compounded with each new iteration). So an early cell death-and-replacement is generally better for your overall health than a later one.

    However, neurons are tricky to replace, so phosphatidylserine effectively says “not you, hold on” to keep the rate of neuronal cell death nearer to the (slow) rate at which they can be replaced.

    One more myth to bust…

    For the longest time we thought that adults, especially older adults, couldn’t make new brain cells at all, that we grew a certain number, then had to hang onto them until we died… suffering diminished cognitive ability with age, on account of losing brain cells along the way.

    It’s partly true: it’s definitely easier to kill brain cells than to grow them… Mind you, that’s technically true of people, too, yet the population continues to boom!

    Anyway, new research showing that adults do, in fact, grow new braincells was briefly challenged by a 2018 study that declared: Human hippocampal neurogenesis drops sharply in children to undetectable levels in adults after all, never mind, go back to your business.

    So was adult neurogenesis just a myth to be busted after all? Nope.

    It turned out, the 2018 study had a methodological flaw!

    To put it in lay terms: they had accidentally melted the evidence.

    A 2019 study overcame this flaw by using a shorter fixation time for the cell samples they wanted to look at, and found that there were tens of thousands of “baby neurons” (again with the lay terms), newly-made brain cells, in samples from adults ranging from 43 to 87.

    Now, there was still a difference: the samples from the youngest adult had 30% more newly-made braincells than the 87-year-old, but given that previous science thought brain cell generation stopped in childhood, the fact that an 87-year-old was generating new brain cells 30% less quickly than a 43-year-old is hardly much of a criticism!

    As an aside: samples from patients with Alzheimer’s also had a 30% reduction in new braincell generation, compared to samples from patients of the same age without Alzheimer’s. But again… Even patients with Alzheimer’s were still growing some new brain cells.

    Read it for yourself: Adult hippocampal neurogenesis is abundant in neurologically healthy subjects and drops sharply in patients with Alzheimer’s disease

    In a nutshell…

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    • We can grow new brain cells
    • We can reduce our risk of Alzheimer’s, and at least somewhat mitigate it if it appears
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  • 3 Secrets Behind The Healing Power Of Plants

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    It’s well-established that whole food plant-based diets including fruits, vegetables, beans, whole grains, nuts, and seeds can reverse chronic diseases like type 2 diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, obesity, and more.

    Dr. Laurie Marbas explains how it works:

    Three ways plant-based diets heal

    There’s a lot to be said for plants, from their fiber to their beneficial phytochemicals. For example:

    Reversing insulin resistance: plant-based diets help reverse insulin resistance, a major factor in type 2 diabetes, heart disease, obesity, and many other maladies. Particularly high-fiber foods like beans and oats stabilize blood sugar by slowing sugar absorption and reducing insulin spikes. These diets are also naturally low in saturated fats, which are linked to insulin resistance, and include phytonutrients from colorful fruits and vegetables that improve insulin sensitivity. Studies demonstrate that plant-based diets lower HbA1C levels (glycated hemoglobin, a measure of how sugary your blood has been on average in the past 2−3 months) and can even reverse type 2 diabetes for most* people.

    *Scientists are very reluctant to claim absolutes such as “all”, “every”, etc, since it cannot be proven that it will work for all people (there are over 8 billion of us after all, and any one of us could get in theory get type 2 diabetes and then try reversing it, so it’s hard to speak for all 8 billion-odd of us) but it is well-established that it usually does indeed reverse it, and for what it’s worth, the confidence interval in such studies is always at least 95% sure, usually higher, which multiplied by countless studies can indeed give us quite some confidence.

    Reducing chronic inflammation: chronic inflammation, linked to diseases like arthritis, heart disease, and cancer, can also be reduced through a plant-based diet. Foods rich in antioxidants, such as berries, leafy greens, and nuts, neutralize inflammation-causing free radicals. Omega-3-rich plant foods like chia seeds, flax seeds, and walnuts further balance inflammation. Additionally, fiber fosters healthy gut bacteria, which produce vital compounds that reduce systemic inflammation (and do a lot more good things besides, but we’re limiting ourselves to talking about inflammation here). Research shows that plant-based diets can significantly lower inflammation markers within weeks (almost certainly you’ll notice the difference yourself, too).

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    Don’t Forget…

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  • How To Unchoke Yourself If You Are Dying Alone

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    The first things that most people think of, won’t work. This firefighter advises on how to actually do it:

    Steps to take

    Zero’th step: he doesn’t mention this, but try coughing first. You might think coughing will be a natural reaction anyway, but that tends only to happen automatically with small partial obstructions, not a complete blockage. Either way, try to cough forcefully to see if it dislodges whatever you’re choking on. If that doesn’t work…

    Firstly: don’t rely on calling for help if you’re alone and cannot speak; you’re unlikely to be able to communicate and you will just waste time (when you don’t have time to waste). Even if you call emergency services and they trace your location, chances are that, at most, a cop car will show up some hours later to see what it was about. They will not dispatch an ambulance on the strength of “someone called and said nothing”.

    Secondly, it is probable that will not be able to perform an abdominal thrust (also called Heimlich maneuvre in the US) on yourself the way you could on another person, and hitting your chest with your hand will produce insufficient force even if you’re quite strong. Nor are you likely to be able to slap yourself on the back to way you might another person.

    Instead, he advises:

    • Find a sturdy object: use a chair, table, countertop, or another firm surface that has an edge.
    • Use gravity to perform self-Heimlich: position yourself with the edge of the object just below your sternum (he says ribcage, but the visuals show he clearly means the bottom of the sternum, where the diaphragm is, not the lower ribs). Fall onto the object forcefully to create pressure and dislodge the obstruction. This will not be fun.
    • If it doesn’t work indoors: move to a visible outdoor location like your yard or a neighbor’s lawn. Falling visibly on the ground will likely alert someone to call for help.

    While doing the above, remain as calm as possible, as this will not only increase the length of time you have before passing out, but will also help avoid your throat muscles tightening even more, worsening the choking.

    After doing the above, seek medical attention now that you can communicate; you’ve probably broken some ribs and you might have organ damage.

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    Don’t Forget…

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