Tinnitus and hyperacusis: Rewiring your mind for positive thinking

When you live with bothersome tinnitus, hyperacusis, or any other chronic condition that severely affects quality of life, the world can seem a lot more menacing.

As symptoms fluctuate or progress over time and normal life starts to feel more like a distant memory, it can become very difficult to feel positive about anything at all.

With tinnitus and other sound tolerance conditions, recovery is always possible through a process known as habituation, but there is no quick fix. Relief is always a long and winding road filled with challenging obstacles at every turn.

Progress is taking three steps forward and two steps back, over and over again, until success is achieved. Setbacks are an unavoidable part of the process, and every step backward can feel like you’re starting over again.

Even when positive change is happening all around you – even when improvement is undeniable – it can be hard to actually experience it in a consistent way. For many people, progress creates higher expectations, followed by disappointment when faced with the unavoidable reality of difficult moments.

Given these limitations, it’s not hard to understand why so many tinnitus and hyperacusis patients struggle with negative and catastrophic thinking, depression, and rumination.

But there are so many things you can do to feel more positive, more of the time. In fact, with a little bit of work, you can retrain your mind to think mostly positive thoughts as you work to find relief, improving your quality of life at every step of the journey.

In this column, you will learn many strategies and techniques to radically change your mindset, so you can experience more positive thoughts, feelings, and emotions, much more of the time.

Strengthening your mindset muscles

We all have the innate ability to think positive thoughts, but positive thinking is a skill, and like all skills, it can be improved with training and practice.

A helpful analogy here is to think of positive thinking (and all other mental abilities) as a kind of mental muscle we can train and strengthen through consistent exercise.

The problem is that most people don’t think of positive thinking this way. With other mental skills, it’s much easier to understand. For example, if you want to be a writer, words flow so much easier when you are writing every day. If you want to get better at poker or chess, regular practice and training will turn you into a stronger player.

There is a similar way to train all of the positive mindset muscles we will be exploring, such as positive thinking, gratitude, positive visualization, and confidence.

You can significantly strengthen every single one of these mindset muscles, and it can completely change your experience of reality, even in the face of severe tinnitus or hyperacusis.

But there is a catch – it requires consistency and daily practice. These mental muscles can become extremely strong, but they will also atrophy very quickly when not used regularly.

My recommendation is to turn this training into a daily positivity practice.

Recalibrating your thoughts and senses

As human beings, we only actually experience a small sliver of the world through our senses.

Take vision for example. As we move through any environment and focus on completing a task at hand, we only ever see a small portion of available visual information. This phenomenon is called inattentional blindness and it’s quite shocking to experience firsthand.

I recommend stopping for a moment to watch a quick example of this phenomenon.

In this famous video, viewers are instructed to count how many times the players wearing white pass a basketball back and forth. The players are all moving constantly, but it’s easy enough to count accurately.

What most viewers do not see, however, is the large man in a gorilla costume who walks through the center of the video and stares directly into the camera. It’s hard to imagine you could miss such a thing, but more than 50% of people do not see the gorilla at all.

Inattentional blindness can affect our thoughts as well. When you live with bothersome tinnitus or hyperacusis, we often miss the positive experiences and moments that would generate more positive thoughts. This is partially because we tend to only think about our symptoms when they are bothering us and have our attention, and so most of what we perceive and remember is negative.

We tend to only think about our symptoms when they are bothering us and have our attention, and so most of what we perceive and remember is negative.

But here is another interesting example. If you are getting ready to purchase a new Volkswagen, and you have been researching different models, colors, and features, you will start to notice every Volkswagen you pass. Your intention to buy a car directly translates to a different experience of reality.

We can apply the same principal to improving our thoughts.

Training your attention to notice positive experience

I used to think that positive affirmations were a silly kind of wishful thinking. But I’ve changed my mind completely.

I now think of positive affirmations as a powerful way to set a clear intention of what you want your mind to be like throughout the day. And just like with the Volkswagen example, it can directly change your experience of reality.

Through repetition of positive statements that express precisely what you want to experience, notice, and think as you go about your day, you can directly influence your mind to move in a more positive direction.

The trick is to come up with a list of entirely positive statements that very clearly establish what you want to focus on and be aware of throughout the day, and to repeat these to yourself throughout the day.

Here are few good tinnitus-related examples:

• “I am noticing small improvements every single day.”
• “My quality of life is getting better.”
• “I am distracted from my tinnitus constantly throughout the day.”

Note: Always make sure to avoid negative words in your positive affirmations. For example, “I am suffering less every day” is not as effective as “I am feeling better every day.” You don’t want to become more aware of suffering, even in the context of improvement.

Recommendation: Come up with a list of 5-10 positive affirmations and repeat them to yourself multiple times each day.

Positive visualization

Much like positive affirmations, positive visualization is another way to set a specific intention of what you want your mind and your thoughts to be like throughout the day.

When struggling with tinnitus or hyperacusis, we tend to think a lot about our symptoms, and how much they are affecting us. We ruminate on how good things were before, and how much our symptoms have taken away. This only ever leads to more negative thoughts.

More: Tinnitus coping strategies for negative thoughts and rumination

One solution to this kind of negative thinking is positive visualization, a technique that involves imagining, in as much detail as possible, the future you want to live.

On a recent episode of the Aubrey Marcus Podcast, cancer survivor and author Anita Moorjani explains:

“What it takes to really feel or know that you are going to be well, is to plan a future that you are excited about, and live as though it is happening, as if you know it's going to happen…. Whereas our current medical model keeps people's focus on the illness and the trajectory that this illness may possibly take. And that’s where your mind goes. What we need to do is we need to actually build a trajectory of wellness. Of what am I going to do when I get well. What do I want to do with the rest of my life."

This is one of my favorite quotes, and I think it perfectly illustrates the power of a practice like positive visualization. It can have a profound effect on your mental health, and it is an effective antidote to rumination.

Recommendation: Practice the following intensive positive visualization technique every morning.

Put on some soothing music or background noise, lay down, and spend time vividly visualizing (read: imagining) the future you want to live. Imagine yourself doing all the things you want to be doing with your life as clearly as you can, and let your mind fill in the details of the scenario.

Imagine yourself traveling, spending time with friends, laughing, feeling happy, fulfilled, and content. Visualize the future you want for yourself with as much clarity and emotional resonance as you can. Try to really immerse yourself in the exercise.

The science of gratitude

Gratitude is one of the most powerful mindset muscles you can train, one that can significantly enhance your quality of life as you work to habituate.

Practicing gratitude regularly has been shown to improve positive affect, increase optimism, lower stress, improve mood, and boost overall well-being. For people struggling with tinnitus or hyperacusis, it can help retrain your brain to find moments of positivity within all the difficult experiences faced day to day.

In my opinion, the most effective way to strengthen your gratitude muscle is to practice writing a daily creative gratitude list.

But here’s the catch – every day you need to write down 10 new things that you are grateful for without repeating anything you’ve written before.

This is very challenging and that is exactly the idea. Muscles get stronger when faced with resistance. This forces you find gratitude and positivity in the mundane or even in the negative experiences of your day. For example: “I’m grateful for being stuck in traffic because it gave me time to listen to another chapter of my audiobook.”

This exercise will train your brain to find things to appreciate as you go about your life. Over time, this practice can completely rewire your perception of the world and increase your awareness of positive experiences you would have otherwise missed.

Building confidence for more positivity

One of the biggest misconceptions I hear from my tinnitus and hyperacusis coaching clients is the belief that they need to wait until their symptoms improve before they can start living life again. But this isn’t true.

Habituation is not just about calming the nervous system – it’s also about rebuilding your confidence to face your life and the world at large.

One of the most effective ways to start feeling more positive is to start living more fully, even if it means modifying how you approach certain activities.

Confidence is a kind of mindset muscle, too. And like the others, it can become a lot more powerful. When you finally do something that you’ve been avoiding out of fear, overwhelm, or discomfort, it creates the kind of positive experience that leads to more positive thinking. Even when things go wrong, it’s still a win, because your symptoms didn’t prevent you from living life on your own terms.

If you want to feel normal again, you need to keep doing normal things, even if that means modifying your approach. Every small win – every dinner out with friends, every trip to the store, every conversation you initiate – is a step toward more confidence and positivity.

Final thoughts

Positive thinking isn’t about pretending everything is perfect or denying the real challenges of tinnitus or hyperacusis. It’s about choosing to direct your attention, intention, and energy toward the parts of life that bring meaning, joy, and growth.

With daily practice and consistency, you can radically rewire your mind to generate more positivity, strength, and hope, no matter where you are in your journey.

By strengthening your mindset muscles, visualizing a better future, setting a clear intention for your mind, and leaning into gratitude and confidence, you can start to feel better long before your symptoms fully improve.

You do not have to just wait for relief or positivity, you can actively create it every step of the way.