How to stop ringing in the ears at night
Tinnitus is an auditory disorder that manifests in intermittent or continuous sounds, like ringing in the ears. This condition can cause difficulty sleeping, as you may only have tinnitus at night or find that your ear ringing worsens at night.
As mentioned, tinnitus is an auditory disorder that can cause you to hear sounds like whistling, buzzing or ringing in the ears even when they are not there. Tinnitus usually occurs throughout the day, but you may experience ringing in one or both ears during the night and when trying to sleep. Although day and night symptoms are the same, it's common for it to feel louder at night than during the day, and why you may feel it is worse at night.
After a night out in a noisy space such as a concert, club or party, it's normal to go to bed and hear annoying sounds in your ear. This can sound like whistling and ringing in the ears and is especially common before falling asleep. All of these result from excessive and prolonged exposure to loud noise. These loud noises damage the hair cells of the cochlea, the innermost part of the ear.
Usually, these symptoms disappear within a day. If you hear these noises when you go to sleep, you may have nighttime tinnitus. The sounds you may hear range from a high-pitched ringing in one ear, or both. You may also hear single beeps or a monotonous, lower-pitched murmur.
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If you are experiencing tinnitus in the day and night, some common causes include:
If you are experiencing night tinnitus, common causes include prolonged exposure to loud noises, which can cause tinnitus once in bed. This happens because once you are in a quiet area, such as your bedroom, the ringing in your ears will become more apparent and audible. If this has happened to you for many nights, please consult a hearing specialist.
You are aware of your tinnitus due to the noise level in your environment. If the space is quieter, you may focus on your tinnitus. If the area is louder, your tinnitus may become less apparent. Each day, our ears pick up many sounds subconsciously due to distractions or because they are louder. For this reason, your tinnitus is less noticeable when surrounded by other sounds and noises. Conversely, when you go to bed at night to go to sleep, you usually find yourself in a much quieter environment, causing tinnitus to worsen, which can lead you to have difficulty falling asleep.
In addition to a reduction in environmental noise, the simple act of closing your eyes when going to bed determines a lack of visual stimulation that reduces our attention only to the auditory sense, with the consequent heightened awareness of all those sensations that come from this organ.
Some remedies that can help you reduce your tinnitus in general or help you cope with it. Here are a few specific remedies that can help with nighttime tinnitus:
Other solutions that can improve sleep quality and consequently help reduce nighttime tinnitus triggers are:
Earplugs can help keep your tinnitus from getting worse if you're exposed to loud noises, such as at concerts or parties. However, in the case of tinnitus at night, sleeping with earplugs does not help reduce tinnitus and can actually cause more harm because:
There is no scientific evidence that sleep apnea and tinnitus are directly linked, even if the link is the subject of studies such as "Higher prevalence and increased severity of sleep-disordered breathing in male patients with chronic tinnitus: Our experience with 173 cases" by Lai et al.
However, sleep apnea and tinnitus may be linked indirectly. Tinnitus at night can be one of the main causes of finding it hard to sleep and cause poor quality sleep in general. The annoying ringing in the ears common in tinnitus at night can also be a symptom of an undiagnosed sleep disorder, like sleep apnea.
Moreover, if you're not getting the sleep you need, your tinnitus is more annoying and difficult to tolerate. Being more annoyed by your tinnitus symptoms also makes it harder to fall and stay asleep.
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