TACKLING TINNITUS WITH HABITUATION

Tinnitus Habituation is often also called Tinnitus Retraining Therapy. It usually takes about 12 months to complete and results in a success rate of about 80%. Tinnitus patients must first of all understand that Tinnitus Habituation or retraining therapy will not eliminate or quieten the Tinnitus. It will only help the patient better live with their condition. In other words, patients will still hear their Tinnitus but will not be bothered by it.

A simple and oversimplified example to illustrate how habitation works is something you can do by looking at your own nose, with a mirror. You can actually see your nose in front of your face, all the time. But, because your brain doesn’t need this information on a constant basis, it just learns to ignore it. Habituation or retraining therapy looks to achieve exactly this result.

Habituation or retraining therapy is a multi-modal coping technique where a patient will be subject to treatments from many disciplines. Some of those are meditation, counseling, yoga, breathing techniques and talk therapy. Every patient undergoes Tinnitus habituation very differently. Some can habituate in just a few weeks while some take years. 12 months is about average. There are many who are never able to habituate also.

Despite being a very subjective treatment, habituation is the most feasible treatment or methodology available to Tinnitus patients as the condition has no definite cure, at least as of now.