If Christmas is over, but you’re still hearing bells, you’re not crazy.  Ringing in your ears is a common problem that has nothing to do with people still celebrating the holidays.  The ringing is called tinnitus, a fairly uncomfortable, sometimes painfully distracting nuisance that millions of Americans suffer.  While tinnitus can range from soft to buzzing to a persistent, sharp pain, no one enjoys the extra soundtrack they are experiencing in one or both ears.  Tinnitus is very distracting because it keeps you from productive work, restful sleep, and peaceful relaxation.  Keep reading to see how you can treat tinnitus with sound therapy.

Sound Therapy for Tinnitus

You don’t have to to just grin and bear the effects of tinnitus.  If you find yourself frustrated by the ringing and would prefer not to lose sleep or productivity over it, then there is a solution: sound therapy.  Sound therapy is an easy to use, affordable solution for tinnitus that provides relief for any user.  The use of white noise covers the sound spectrum so that you can work or even sleep without the discomfort of tinnitus.  It’s as if the tinnitus has been muted because your brain literally can not process that sound in the midst of the white noise surrounding it.

A common question that frequently arises is how does trading one sound for another solve anything?  Good question.  It may seem counter-intuitive, but white noise covers the sound spectrum in a  peaceful way.  It is not sharp, painful, or even irritating.  It need not be excessively loud to be effective either.  Rather, the very nature of the sound itself provides relief. And if the idea of white noise doesn’t appeal to you, there are plenty of nature sound options available that are even more peaceful, such as a gentle stream, ocean waves, or even a waterfall.

The bottom line is that if tinnitus is affecting your life at all, sound therapy is the most readily available and usable resource you have.  Plus, it’s affordable and many models are portable, making them readily available to travel with you.

Try Using White Noise – It takes a great deal of energy and effort to concentrate in the midst of distractions and noise.  Most people lose up to two hours a day from interruptions and distractions at work. But a personal sound machine can help by covering unrelated conversations and surrounding office noise. Try establishing a distraction-free time of 30 to 60 minutes; turn off all your self-distractions, such as e-mail or phone calls, and turn on a white noise machine to block out office noise and conversations. This will allow you to work with focused energy.

Drink More Water.  If you wait until you feel thirsty, you are already dehydrated. Even slight dehydration can decrease your energy and productivity by more than 20%.  Although the necessary water varies by weight and activity level, a general rule of eight full glasses of water each day is a good place to start.

Upgrade to Ergonomic Tools.  Ergonomic products are designed to help you maintain a a neutral typing posture where your muscles are at their lowest strain and even relaxed. Good posture prevents you from wasting energy on strained muscles and a sore back. Start with a well-adjusted, ergonomic chair to encourage good posture for long periods of time. And make sure your back is well supported and add more lumbar support if your chair doesn’t provide enough. You should also try an ergonomic keyboard to help improve your hand and wrist posture; it will reduce the energy and muscle movement required for each key stroke.

Be Aware of Your Energy-Draining Tasks. Do you find that certain tasks or dealing with certain people drain you faster than your normal work? We all have things we don’t like to do and personalities that challenge us.  Think about what or who these are for you and be deliberate about how you deal with them. Find a good time of day for you, when you are not hungry or tired, and spend only 10 or 15 minutes on this work. If necessary, come back to finish the task a little later in the day. When you finished, work on something that energizes you.

We all encounter distractions and physical discomfort that drains us of our energy and concentration. Try using white noise to cover the constant office noise around you. And upgrade to a good ergonomic chair or an ergonomic keyboard to help relieve some of the physical pain. Changing a few habits can significantly impact your energy and help you regain your productivity.

• As always, talk about the trip with your children before it happens.  It might be weeks or just days, but mentally prepare them for what’s coming.  If there’s a time change or you expect your child to sleep on the plane for a nap or for night time, let them know so they expect it and aren’t surprised.  It is important to know that children never sleep as well on planes as they do in beds, so make sure your own expectations are in check.
• Call ahead for seating.  It may be that your airline will let you pre-select seats online.  If that’s the case, great!  Most of the time they won’t allow you to pre-book the bulkhead seats- those are the ones that don’t have seats in front of them and are therefore roomier.  Often times, these seats are equipped with a bassinet for infants under a year.  If you have a 12 month old or younger, you should be able to request these seats.   If you are unable to book these seats in advance, arrive early to request them, as they will probably be assigned first come, first serve.
• If you can’t get the bulkhead, have a back-up plan.  I really liked our seats- they were towards the back which kept us close to the bathroom, as well as the engine noise which served as a nice white noise for my sleeping children.  When I fly with my husband, too, we usually get our own row in that we have 4 seats.  This time I did not have him, so having a 3-seat row was ideal.  If you find yourself with less than 4 in your group, ask if there are 2-seat or 3-seat rows that will work.  This enables you to get out on either side without disturbing another passengers.  For me, it meant that when one child was sleeping, I didn’t have to wake him/her to get the other to the bathroom.

As usual, planning ahead makes for smoother travel, especially with children.  Be sure to call ahead for ideal seats that will keep you close to the bathroom and that will provide good white noise.

Babies Aren’t that Bad on a Plane..

I ran across an excerpt on one of my friend’s blogs that captured so many airplane-related travel issues so well…one of which is the unfair shake babies usually get on a plane.

As I approached my seat, which incidentally was supposed to be the window seat, I was greeted by two wide-eyed and frantic-looking parents trying to console their fussing 7 month-old. The mother was attempting to breastfeed her overtired baby while the father looked on in ineffective desperation. With a deer-in-the-headlights expression he said, “Do you mind if we stay where we are?” I told him it was fine and a few minutes later leaned over to reassure him that I had three small children and the crying didn’t bother me. He relaxed slightly explaining that this was their daughter’s first flight (I tried to suppress the look of “no kidding?” that fought to flicker over my face) and tried to encourage him that his baby would fall asleep as soon as we got up into the air, lulled to sleep by the noise of the engine. After all, I’ve been through it a couple of times. He nodded eagerly and said that they were hoping that would happen as this was when their daughter was usually asleep.

Sure enough. As soon as we disembarked and were airborne, the baby fell peacefully asleep and stayed that way the entire flight to Atlanta.

Adults Can Be Much More Obnoxious than Babies

Her sad conclusion was that even though the baby conked out with the white noise provided by the engine, the should-be happy ending was not to be.  The parents began to bicker as their frustration with each other and travel began to have an outlet.  Man, I’ve been there.  There is so much planning and packing and preparing you have to do to get ready for a trip, which is only multiplied with each child, especially babies.  While you don’t have to carry many snacks or activity books or games with you, you do have to think about how much their schedules are being disrupted and how you’re going to restore order to their little lives.  Sleep, in the form of good naps and night time sleep, can be hard to come by.

How to Avoid Travel Stress

I will say that, like my friend, my husband and I have traveled a lot with little kids of varying ages, including 7 or 8 transatlantic flights, as well as that many British and European flights.  And we are just as susceptible to bickering as the couple on the plane.  However, we have found that by dividing the prep between us alleviates the tension of feeling like you’re the one doing everything (or to blame for everything that goes wrong!).  In a nut shell, he finds the best deal, books the tickets, plans the trip.  I prepare the children, pack, and bring everything I think we might need.  Our top pack is a portable travel sound machine.  I’m not kidding.  Losing sleep (the baby, the toddler, the preschooler, or us) is never ideal on a trip.

Lack of sleep and stress can trigger marital discord when traveling.  Do what you can to prevent it by being prepared and providing the best sleep environment you can with a travel sound machine.

White noise.  People throw the term around all the time, but what exactly is it?  A good thing or a bad thing?  Why is it important, and why do people use it at work, at home, and for privacy?

Definition

Let’s begin with where white noise gets its name.  Think about white light- white light is the combination of all the colors of the spectrum.  (This is why we tell our kids “white” isn’t a color- it’s lots of colors.)  Along the same lines, white noise is produced by combining 20,000 different frequencies of sound together.  Stay tuned- this is important.

How it works

White noise is awesome for covering intrusive, distracting, or generally unwanted noises.  By using all the sounds in the spectrum, your brain can not focus on that one irritating sound- I’m sure you can imagine something {barking dog, crying baby, neighbor noises}.

White noise works like this: think of taking a childhood road trip and sitting in the back seat.  As a kid, you might remember being able to hear your parents talking in the front seat when the car is idling or going at a slow speed.  As the speed picks up (on the highway for example), you can tell they’re talking, but you can’t distinguish what they’re saying unless they turn around to face you and talk louder.  White noise does the same thing- assuming you don’t want to hear extra noises, it keeps your brain from focusing on it.

Applications

People use white noise in all sorts of ways:

• For relaxation at home
• For sleep
• For more productive work
• For travel
• For managing the discomfort of tinnitus
• For confidentiality and privacy

While some people use fans to simulate white noise, only white noise generators (i.e. sound machines) produce true white noise. The advantage of a sound machine is a smaller size, portability, and volume control.  Additionally, most sound machines offer extra features, such as sound therapy (tinnitus), a variety of sound options (nature sounds), and even alarms and timers.

White noise is an extremely valuable resource for businesses and use at home because it reduces distractions and lets you relax so you can sleep.

Are you haunted by birds outside your window?  Do they taunt you to the point you feel you may have to take drastic measures just to survive without going completely insane?

To the crows ka-ka-ing outside my bedroom window at 5:30am. Unless you take your morning meeting elsewhere, I may have a bb gun in my future. You’ve been warned.

This reminds me a little too much of Failure to Launch.  Not a great film, but worth a viewing just because of the sideshow bob characters, one of whom {Zooey Deschanel} is been driven mad by a chirping mocking bird.  The poor girl just can’t get any sleep as a result of this bird’s incessant talking.  Her plan of action was not any nobler than my friend’s up above.

White Noise Mimics Nature and Therefore Trumps It

When I hear of these complaints, I just can’t help but think, why?  There are many, many noises that you can’t do much about, such as the sound of your newborn crying inconsolably or a train passing you at 4am.  However, most of nature and its, um, noisiness, can be dealt with in much more humanitarian ways.  At the risk of sounding like a broken record, how about a little white noise?  Ironically, white noise usually mimics nature sounds, which may seem counter-intuitive when trying to cover nature sounds.  However, real nature is sporadic and unpredictable, and while breathtakingly peaceful outdoors on a hike, it is incredibly disturbing while trying to sleep.  In contrast, white noise simulates nature sounds- it’s less authentic, I suppose, but the benefit is a uniform, consistent sound.  This kind of uniformity enables you to sleep and stay asleep because your brain focuses on it instead of errant noises.  Plus, as long as you don’t choose chirping birds, there shouldn’t be any startling tweets that bring you out of slumber.

If nature outside your bedroom window is getting a little too realistic, try a sound machine so you can tune it out and get a good night’s sleep.

Prioritize your day every morning by listing out your most important tasks or projects. Start your day by working on a high priority task while you are fresh and motivated. Don’t allow lesser tasks like e-mail take up more time than they warrant. Accomplishing something at the very start of the day can help boost your confidence and improve your attitude about your work day.

Use white noise to block excess office noise, instead of wasting time and energy trying to block the extra conversations around us. If you have never used white noise, try out this free white noise generator to see you find it helpful at work.  With white noise, the interruptive sounds and distracting discussions fade into the background.

Eliminate self-inflicted distractions! A recent study found that people tend to distract themselves at work as often as others distract them. Try turning off your self-distractions, such as email or phones, and turn on a personal sound machine to block surround noise. Spend 30 to 60 minutes focusing solely on a high priority task. At the end of your time, take a short break to check email and then get back to your distraction-free work.

Stand up and walk around when you start to feel stiff or struggle with concentration. A little movement can relieve muscle strain and increase blood circulation to the brain. A study at USC recently found that standing can increase brain function by 5% to 20%. Dehydration can also decrease your productivity by more than 20 percent, so have a drink of water on your break.

You can learn to accomplish more during a work day by eliminating. Start by using a white noise machine to block removing the time-consuming distractions and office conversations. Try taking a break from email and phone calls for a while and turn on some white noise to help you concentrate.  At the end of the day you will feel less stressed, more productive and able to leave on time for a relaxing evening.



The other night, I contemplated not using my trusty sound machine.  We have quit using one in our daughter’s room because she is finally old enough and a sound enough sleeper that noise doesn’t bother her too much.  So, I thought maybe I would give it a go, too.  All went well the first night.  The second night, however, proved to be quite different.  As I was pulling the curtains closed and preparing to hop in bed, the loudest imaginable wind I have ever heard whipped through our not so well insulated house.  It shook the windows and made for a breezy good-night {and incidentally tore down huge trees and wreaked havoc throughout the city}.  I tried, I really did, to not turn on my sound machine, but when push came to shove, or in this case, when the wind practically whipped through my room, I just couldn’t resist.

The funny thing is that my sound machine comes equipped with nature sounds.  You would think that trading actual nature for simulated nature sounds would not be effective.  However, I will say that simulated nature sounds provide a great background for sleeping, whereas actual nature is preferable for an outdoor experience.  That’s because real nature varies and is inconsistent by nature {pun intended}; nature sounds , by design, are uniform and cover the sound spectrum for the purpose of covering or masking unwanted sounds.  That’s why white nose works- it actually allows the brain to tune out unpleasant or distracting noise{s} so you can work more efficiently, or in this case, sleep more soundly.

So, I have come to a place in my adult life in which I don’t need sound masking to sleep, but I really appreciate having a sound machine as an option for those times when external noises keep my brain going.  I often opt to use my sound machine for naps since they’re during the day and most of the world around me is still going.  Yet, at night,  I just use it when I can’t sleep because of street noise, a dog barking, or in this case, the howling wind.

If you struggle to fall asleep or sleep soundly through the night, you might also benefit from a sound machine.

What caught my attention today, though, is an article a friend sent me about the use of white noise in a Texas NICU {Newborn Intensive Care Unit} for the preemies.  The NICU staff have found that excessive noise bothers the tiny infants.

“Studies have shown over the last 20 years that exposure to high amounts of noise in premature babies is associated with poor neurodevelopmental outcomes,” explained Dr. Alex Kenton, medical director of the unit.

When our babies’ precious futures are at stake, there is little we are not willing to do.  Thus, the staff there has sensors for when noise exceeds 55 decibels, as well as posted signs to remind staff and visitors to be quiet.  In addition, they have installed rubber floors and and special ceiling tiles to help absorb inevitable noise.  Finally, the unit installed a sound masking unit which hums quietly but covers intrusive noise.

The whooshing, wind-like sound mutes conversations and acts as a sort of buffer.

“It goes unnoticed,” stated Rebecca Notgrass, the patient access director. “If you’re not listening for it and you don’t know what it is, you really don’t know that you’re listening to it.”

Once again, white noise to the rescue!  What a great idea- so many people think that babies can sleep through anything, and often they can.  But as the aforementioned study stated, too much noise {like that found in a bustling hospital} can stunt neurological growth.  Why not give our newborns, especially those who need intensive care, every shot we can?

Sound masking can be used for noisy offices and better sleep, but it can also be used in hospitals and NICUs for better neurological development.

It’s no surprise that people get distracted at work- we all do.  Sometimes we’re thinking about our children or mentally planning a vacation…or maybe we’re paying bill online or just day dreaming.  Those are our own distractions.  Interestingly, these internal distractions are not nearly as detrimental to our productivity as external distractions, such as co-worker gossip and other conversational distractions.  In fact, most workers lose more than 2 hours of productivity to distraction, namely conversational distraction.

Thus, it’s not a huge jump to say that distracted workers are not as productive as focused ones.  They are disengaged, thinking about other things, listening to water cooler gossip, taking part in discussions, bets, and stories being passed around.  Even when they want to be focused, they are held captive by other people’s noise, including all their gadgets and exotic ring tones….oh, well, yes, they’re held prey by their own gadgetry as well. Who doesn’t drop what they’re doing when a text beeps in or your cell phone rings?

Using Noise Against Noise

Pretty simple, yet a difficult problem.  You can’t exactly tell people, “Stop being distracted….And quit answering your phone.”  If only it were that easy.  However, there is an easy solution: sound machines.  By using a little white noise and even nature sounds you can tune out a lot of superfluous noise and distraction.  Basically white noise serves as a weapon against unwanted sound- it presents a consistent sound that covers the entire sound spectrum so that unwanted noises don’t penetrate.  You can use standard white noise that sounds like fan, or there are tons of nature sounds to choose from.  And, interestingly enough, the extra noise you’re adding with your little machine is just enough to help cover the unwanted sounds without proving to be a distraction itself.  The result is that you can actually focus on work and not on what the cubicle next to you is doing.

If office noise is keeping you from being productive, try this free online white noise generator or upgrade to your own sound machine so you can reclaim your lost time at work.