Tinnitus: Sometimes We Have To Go Back To Go Forward

by Dr. Jennifer J. Gans

MindfulTinnitusRelief.com

 

In a world of cutting-edge neuroscience, brain imaging, and endless new “treatments,” it can feel as though the solution to tinnitus must lie somewhere in the future. A new device. A new drug. A new piece of technology that will finally silence the sound. But sometimes, the most important insights come not from what is new—but from what we have already known for a very long time.

To move forward in tinnitus care, we may need to go back. All the way back to 1953.

The Study That Changed Everything (and Is Often Forgotten)
In 1953, two researchers, Heller and Bergman, conducted what has become one of the most quietly revolutionary studies in tinnitus history. They placed 100 adults with normal hearing into a soundproof room. These were not tinnitus patients. They were not seeking treatment. They were simply ordinary people sitting in silence. After just five minutes, the majority of participants reported hearing sounds. Ringing. Buzzing. Hissing. Tones. In other words: tinnitus-like perceptions.

This finding was astonishing, and remains so today. It revealed a simple but profound truth:

When external sound is removed, the brain generates its own. Tinnitus, in this light, is not a rare disorder. It is a universal human capacity.

 

The Brain Is Never Silent

The Heller and Bergman study reminds us of something we often forget: the auditory system is always active. Even in silence, the brain is listening. It is scanning. It is predicting. It is generating internal signals. Most of the time, these internal signals are drowned out by real-world sound and filtered out by the brain as unimportant. But when input is reduced—through hearing loss, quiet environments, stress, trauma, or hypervigilance—the brain turns up its internal volume. Tinnitus is not something “added” to the system. It is something revealed. It is what the brain does when it is deprived of what it expects.

Nothing Is Broken—The System Is Working

This is the part that feels counterintuitive, and deeply reassuring. Tinnitus is not evidence that the brain is malfunctioning. It is evidence that the brain is doing exactly what it evolved to do: maintain sensory continuity. When the brain loses reliable auditory input, it fills in the gap. Just as it does with phantom limb sensations, visual snow, or vestibular vertigo. The problem is not the sound. The problem is how the brain interprets the sound.

The Real Shift: From Pathology to Perception

The modern tinnitus world is obsessed with fixing, eliminating, suppressing, and erasing the sound. But Heller and Bergman quietly showed us something else:

• The sound is not the disease.
• The sound is a normal perceptual phenomenon.

What turns tinnitus into suffering is fear, meaning, and nervous system activation.

When the brain labels the sound as dangerous or threatening, it moves into high alert. The amygdala activates. Stress hormones rise. Attention locks in. And the sound becomes louder, sharper, and more intrusive. Not because the signal changed—but because the brain did.

Why This Matters for Healing

This is why so many people experience dramatic tinnitus spikes during periods of stress, anxiety, trauma, or exhaustion. Nothing new has “happened” to their ears. What has changed is their nervous system. The system has become vigilant, and tinnitus has been promoted to the top of the brain’s priority list.

Understanding this changes everything. It shifts the question from:

“How do I get rid of the sound?”
to:
“How do I teach my brain that it is safe?”

Going Back to Go Forward

The Heller and Bergman study is nearly 75 years old. Yet it contains one of the most liberating truths in tinnitus care: Tinnitus is not rare. It is not abnormal. And it is not a sign of damage. It is a universal feature of the human brain, revealed under certain conditions. When we truly absorb this, something profound happens. The sound loses its mystery. It loses its threat. It loses its power. And once the brain stops treating tinnitus as a danger signal, the nervous system settles. Attention softens. The sound fades into the background of awareness—where it was always meant to be.

The Future of Tinnitus Is Not in the Future

The future of tinnitus care may not come from new technology at all. It may come from finally integrating what we already know:

• The brain generates sound in silence.
• Tinnitus is a perceptual phenomenon, not a disease.
• Suffering comes from fear, not frequency.
• Safety, not silence, is the true goal.
• Sometimes progress does not mean discovering something new.
• Sometimes it means remembering something old—and finally taking it seriously.

To go forward, we may need to go back.

Back to 1953. Back to the basics. Back to the understanding that the brain is not broken—it is simply doing what it has always done.

And once we see that, tinnitus stops being a problem to solve… rather becomes a relationship to transform.