Contributed by Glenn Schweitzer December 2, 20192019-12-02T00:00:00-06002019-12-02T00:00:00-0600

Of all the hardships we face in life, there are few things worse than watching a loved one suffer from a debilitating health condition.

The feeling of powerlessnessof wanting to help so desperately when there is nothing you can doits devastating, especially when there isnt a cure or simple answer.

At its worst, tinnitusthe medical term for ringing in the earscan become like torture, completely destroying a sufferers quality of life. Anxiety and stress levels go through the roof, sleep becomes more and more difficult, and the noise is inescapable. The sound never stops and so far too often, hope is not a part of the equation.

Its excruciatingly difficult to watch someone you care about suffer so severely.

Most people in this situation ask, How can I help? or What can I do?

But with a complicated health problem like tinnitus, the answers arent obvious, and your loved one may not know either.

The good news is that you do have the power to help, both directly and indirectly, in ways that actually make a difference.

(If you are suffering from tinnitus yourself, share this with your friends and family!)

The first thing you need to understand about severe tinnitus is that when you dont look sick, everybody automatically thinks youre healthy. But youre not, youre suffering greatly, and nobody really understands what youre going through, assuming they even believe you in the first place.

This is a major challenge for invisible illness patients across the board. But in the case of tinnitus, its even worse, because most people have experienced temporary ringing in their ears after a loud event in a way that was not problematic at all. As a result, they will think you are overreacting. They experienced it themselves and it wasnt an issue, so it couldnt possibly be as bad as you describe.

They are wrong.

You know that terrible feeling you get when you hear nails on a chalkboard? How it grates on your nerves in the most uncomfortable way imaginable? When its bad, tinnitus is exactly that, only exponentially worse, because it never ends.

You know that terrible feeling you get when you hear nails on a chalkboard? How it grates on your nerves in the most uncomfortable way imaginable? When its bad, tinnitus is exactly that, only exponentially worse, because it never ends.

Anxiety and stress levels rise to uncontrollable levels, as panic takes hold. The noise makes it hard (if not impossible) to sleep, and the chronic sleep deprivation only increases the suffering.

Work is a challenge too, if you still are able to work at all. It is incredibly hard to focus with the sound of tinnitus constantly blaring in your ears, 24-hours a day, 7-days a week.

Doctors dont always help the problem, either. So many tinnitus sufferers are told that there is nothing they can do, that they just have to live with it. This is simply not truelasting relief is entirely possiblebut most people wont question their doctor. And so they only end up feeling more hopeless and afraid.

Your loved one is suffering terribly and most of the people around them will never even try to understand.

But you can be the person who believes their pain is real. You cant take away their suffering, but you can validate their experience, and that makes all the difference in the world.

You can be the one who understands.

Educating yourself is a good place to start. Take time to learn more about tinnitus and the specific nature of your loved ones suffering.

You will never have the power to take away your loved ones pain but its important to spend time really trying to understand their situation because it opens the door to empathy.

Here are some of the basics to get you started: Tinnitus is the experience of hearing sounds when no external sounds are present. It is not a condition in itself, but a symptom of many different conditions, like hearing loss, head and neck injury, temporomandibularjoint disorder (TMJ), vestibular disorders like Menieres disease,and acoustic neuromas, just to name a few.

Its much more prevalent than most people realize, affecting 10-15% of the general population by most estimates. Thats over 50 million people in the US alone, with hundreds of millions of sufferers worldwide. And as of right now, there is no cure.

Fortunately, treatment is entirely possible. Many coping tools can help tinnitus patients find temporary relief in the middle of a difficult moment, and lasting relief is also possible through a mental process called habituation. Sufferers can get to a place where the sound no longer bothers them, where their brain just starts to tune out the sound from their conscious awareness more and more of the time.

But it takes time, regardless of the strategy employed, and its not an easy journey.

Talk to your loved one. Ask them about their experience, and when you dont understand something, ask them to explain.

They wont have all the answers, and thats OK. Just trying to understand what theyre going through is a comfort and puts you miles ahead of everyone else who doesnt care.

So try to put yourself in their shoes. The better you understand their situation, the more authentic your support will be in their eyes.

On a daily basis, tinnitus patients are confronted with massive amounts of stress and anxiety. They are essentially stuck in an extreme state of fight or flight, and its a vicious cycle. The stress and anxiety further exacerbate the tinnitus, causing only more anxiety, and so on.

When actively suffering, there may be a number of things that your loved one can do to feel better, but its very difficult to think or act rationally in the middle of such an intensely negative emotional experience. Its incredibly hard to have the presence of mind necessary to get up and do something about it when doing something about it requires effort.

Fortunately, relaxation techniques can be an effective way to cope with tinnitus. And you can make a real impact on your loved one's emotional state by helping them to relax, both mentally and physically, in the middle of a moment of suffering.

You can help them to relax mentally by encouraging them toward a relaxing hobby, physical exercise,breathing techniques, aromatherapy, meditation, gratitude practice, sex,music,brainwave entrainment, or really any other activity that your loved one enjoys.

Addressing physiological stress is important too, because when the body is deeply relaxed, the mind generally follows. The mind-body connection is realits just not always obvious. But its why you feel so calm after a great massage.

You have a lot of options here. You can give your loved one a massage, or suggest self-massage with a lacrosse ballor foam roller (also known as myofascial release). You can encourage them to take a hot bath or shower, or take them to a sauna, steam room or hot tub. Really anything that helps your loved one to relax physically will help them to relax mentally and emotionally.

The morerelaxation techniques you can help your loved one put to use, the better theyll be able to cope.

Sound masking is one of the simplest coping strategies available to tinnitus sufferers. When the sound is bothersome, temporary relief can be found by drowning some of it out with background noise.

Its not a perfect solutionif your loved one has hearing loss, or if their tinnitus is too loud, masking may not work very well, if at all.

But as a coping tool, when it works, it can be extremely effective. And its something you can do for your loved one to help them directly.

All you have to do is put on some background noise. Music, nature sounds, broadband noise (white, pink, or brown noise) and podcasts or radio shows can all work well. Really any soundthat your loved one finds relaxing or entertaining can do the job, so its a good idea to explore different masking options ahead of time, when they arent suffering as much.

Just make sure to keep the volume of the background noise below the volume of their tinnitus whenever possible. Otherwise, their tinnitus volume might spike a bit when the masking is turned off.

As obvious as all this advice may seem, Ive found that many tinnitus sufferers resist sound masking when they are struggling. In my 1-on-1 tinnitus coaching practice, a lot of my clients express that turning on sound masking feels like giving up, like theyve lost the battle in some way, so they often avoid it altogether.

I understand the sentimentIve even experienced it myself in my own journey with tinnitusbut its unhelpful. If putting on background noise is all it takes to feel a better in the middle of a difficult moment, they shouldnt hesitate.

But if they do, you can be the one to help.

All of us are fully capable of tuning out background noise from our conscious awareness with a mental process called habituation. We do it automatically, all the time. Its how were able to carry on conversations in loud restaurants and stay focused on our work in noisy office environments.

But when it comes to tinnitus, there is a big problem: We evolved to use sound as a way to monitor our environment for threats, and its simply impossible to ignore a sound that the brain interprets as danger.

When we hear the sound of something dangerous, we have a fight-or-flight stress response. The issue here is that the brain isnt very good at telling the difference between real danger and imagined threats like tinnitus. So we react to the sound as if the danger is real, only the fight-or-flight response never really ends, because tinnitus doesnt just magically go away.

But most sufferers are able to ignore the sound of their tinnitus at least some of the time. The challenge is that it usually only happens when they are completely engaged with some activity they really enjoy.

This kind of distraction offers temporary relief, and its also a small taste of what it feels like to habituate (the difference is that when you fully habituate, it feels like this most or all of the time, not just when you are very distracted).

The next time your loved one is having a hard time you can help them cope more effectively by distracting them from the sound.

Encourage them to participate in any activity they enjoy that helps them to ignore their tinnitus. Better yet, be a part of the distraction yourself!

More often than not, this can be enough to help your loved one get through a moment of crisis.

The hardest part of seeing a loved one struggle with a chronic condition like tinnitus isnt the tinnitus itself. Its the never ending, repetitive nature that makes it so difficult. They suffer, then they suffer again and again.

As you try to support them, you will often feel frustrated, but its important to try to remain calm. When your loved one is suffering, they are at the mercy of forces outside of their control. They dont want to feel what they are feeling, and so they might get angry, emotionally needy, distantor sad.

In any case, its safe to say your interactions will not always be as rational as you would expect under normal circumstances. And its easy to lose your cool when your good intentions are met with hostility, or a reaction you didnt expect. Pain brings out the worst in a person.

But if you can remain calm, and keep a cool head, the difficult moment will pass. And you will be supporting your loved one in a way that actually makes an impact.

Its challenging, but its worth the effort in the end. Because you can make a real difference in your loved ones quality of life.

See the article here:

How to support someone with tinnitus - Healthy Hearing