How Do Hearing Aids Help with Tinnitus?

If you or a loved one is experiencing tinnitus, you may want to learn more about the symptoms to understand it better. Tinnitus can be a sign of another health issue, so understanding how it affects you or them is important for managing they symptoms effectively.

How Do Hearing Aids Help with Tinnitus?

Hearing aids are primarily used to improve your ability to hear external sounds clearly. By doing so, hearing aids can also help to mask the sounds you hear internally due to tinnitus.

Amplification of External Sounds

Hearing aids pick up and amplify sounds from the environment. This increase in external audio levels can make tinnitus less noticeable. It’s akin to turning up the volume on your stereo to drown out the background noise of a busy street. When the brain receives more external auditory stimuli, it focuses less on the internal sounds of tinnitus, leading to a reduction in perception and disturbance.

Built-In Tinnitus Masking Features

Many modern hearing aids come equipped with special tinnitus masking features. These features produce a low-level white noise or other soothing sounds designed specifically to counteract the tinnitus noise. For many wearers, these sounds provide a significant relief by blending with and thereby diminishing the prominence of the tinnitus.

Cognitive and Emotional Benefits

The benefits of hearing aids in managing tinnitus go beyond just the auditory improvements. They also play a crucial role in cognitive and emotional health.

Reduction in Cognitive Overload

Tinnitus can lead to a cognitive overload, where the brain becomes overwhelmed managing both tinnitus and everyday sounds. By improving overall hearing capability, hearing aids reduce this strain. Enhanced hearing allows the brain to process sounds more efficiently, which can lessen the attention paid to tinnitus and decrease the mental fatigue associated with trying to hear in challenging environments.

Improvement in Overall Well-being

The strain of listening hard all day can lead to increased stress and anxiety, which in turn can worsen tinnitus symptoms. By making it easier to engage in conversations and enjoy sounds that were previously difficult to hear, hearing aids can help reduce stress and anxiety levels, thereby indirectly mitigating tinnitus symptoms.

Tailored Sound Therapy

Audiologists can program hearing aids to match the specific tinnitus frequency experienced by a wearr, offering a highly personalized treatment. This customization means that the masking sounds can be finely tuned to provide the most effective relief possible.

Enhanced Brain Function

By providing a richer array of sounds and reducing the effort needed to hear, hearing aids can help keep the auditory areas of the brain well stimulated and functioning properly. This is important because auditory stimulation can help the brain relearn how to ignore tinnitus sounds, a process known as habituation.

When Should You Consider Hearing Aids for Tinnitus?

If you are experiencing ringing, buzzing, whooshing or other phantom sounds, and you are also finding that you cannot hear as well as you used to you should talk to an audiologist. They can help you find the right hearing aids for you to mask your symptoms of tinnitus.