WHY is TINNITUS bothersome? Dr. Jennifer Gans breaks it down in easy to understand language.

The Mind’s Lens
But inside of our brain, we have a camera lens.

And so, when something is either fearful, fascinating, or frustrating—the 3 Fs—the lens of the mind zooms in. And boy, can it see what it's looking at with amazing clarity.

Now, it can't see anything else, but it sure can see what it's looking at.

Now, if you open up the aperture of the mind, which the mind can certainly do, it's kind of broaden or open. Obviously, what we're looking at is still in the picture, but it's within the context of everything else around it.

And so, the error that's made on the first day, or the moment that the person is first aware of tinnitus, is the brain zooms in on it and says, “Oh my God, what is that?”

And then all of a sudden, the story gets wrapped around the lens.

“Oh my God, maybe I have a brain tumor.”

“Oh my God, does this mean I'm going to lose my hearing?”

“Oh no, how am I going to concentrate at work?”

“Oh, this is all my fault for all the music I listened to when I was a kid.”

And so, what ends up happening is we have this lens that has a story and a riddle—basically, a Gordian knot of mistruth around it.

And all of a sudden, the lens gets stuck, and the person now is sentencing themselves to a life of walking around with tinnitus being in their zoom lens.

Unraveling the Stories
Now, what happens when you unravel those stories?

Because, you know, it's not a brain tumor. It's—um, I know there are acoustic neuromas. They're very rare, and those are also benign, but, you know, that's sort of a different topic.

But everybody goes for an MRI. And an MRI for somebody with bothersome tinnitus is just atrocious. It's very—you know, being in that closed space, and they're loud and whatnot.

But, anyway, so this story of, “It's all your fault for all the music you listened to,” or, “I'm going to lose my hearing because of it,” or, “This is going to get worse”—all of those false stories are keeping the lens stuck.

So, if we can unravel those stories with accurate education, the brain can naturally open up.

And sure, tinnitus might be there, but it's within the context of everything else around it, and it's no longer a focal—of a focus.

So, this is an important thing for people to understand about tinnitus: by unraveling those stories—and that is usually done with accurate education—they can take a deep breath and start responding to tinnitus in a new way.