A New Approach to Tinnitus
Mindfulness-meditation
Dr Veronica Kennedy
Irish Tinnitus Association
27-11-08

Acknowledgments
• Dr Laurence McKenna/Richard Irwin for the idea and a significant portion of this presentation
• Mike Sadlier who introduced me to mindfulness meditation

• Not a cure
• Not a treatment specifically for tinnitus
But
• A way to improve our ability to cope with tinnitus

Initial clinical use of mindfulnessmeditation:-
• 1979: Jon Kabat-Zinn, a biologist at the
University of Massachusetts, had an idea to train his medical patients in this Buddhist meditative practice.
• This is a 2500 year old process of purposefully paying attention to what is happening in the present moment without being distracted by the associations attached to those thoughts or sensations.

• This ability to "stay in the moment" is not inherent. It takes a lot of practice to get the benefits.
• It involves quietening distracting thoughts
• To achieve this, we need to train our mind to go where we want it to go, instead of letting it wander into worry or be taken over by the intrusiveness of tinnitus.

• Thoughts, sensations or feelings which come to mind are not ignored or suppressed.
• They are not analyzed or judged
• They are observed intentionally , nonjudgmentally, moment by moment, as events in the field of awareness.

• It is a skill that can be learned and, when practiced in a disciplined manner, can reduce suffering associated with physical, somatic and psychiatric disorders.
We learn
• to be aware of how we move, how we feel
(physically and emotionally)
• how we respond or react to each moment of life.

• Does Mindfulness really help?
Yes
• Mindfulness has been successfully used in clinical studies for a variety of conditions

• Chronic pain
• Depression
• Generalized anxiety
• Post traumatic stress disorder
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Substance abuse.......

An example of one study - Kabat-Zinn,
Lipworth, & Burney (1985)
• 90 patients with chronic pain were trained in mindfulness mediation
• 10 week stress reduction and relaxation program.
• Significant reductions in present moment pain, negative body image, inhibition of activity by pain, mood disturbance, anxiety & depression.
• Significant improvements in activity levels and feelings of self-esteem.
• Maintained at 15 months post training for all except present moment pain.
• High compliance rates reported.

• No single cause of tinnitus
• No single medical/surgical treatment effective for tinnitus.
• Large range of psychological effects.
• Life-style and general health affected.
• Similarities between tinnitus and chronic pain sufferers.

Similar features
• Problems with aspects of focus/attention.
• Perceived lack of control over symptoms.
• Catastrophic thinking.
• Maladaptive coping strategies.
• Similar treatment methods: CBT, relaxation methods, cognitive coping strategies.

• One study looked at the similarities between severe tinnitus and chronic pain
• Individuals with tinnitus were taught to see the intrusiveness of tinnitus as
– a passing event in the mind
– neither necessarily a valid reflection of reality nor a central aspect of the self.
Moller AR. Similarities between severe tinnitus and chronic pain. J Am Acad Audiol 2000;11(3):115-24

– Usually resolves/eases through a process of habituation
– Negative reinforcement
• enhances perception of tinnitus
• increases time it is perceived
• Increases the intrusiveness of tinnitus
• Increases the distress associated with tinnitus

• Arises in the same way as distress about anything else - through the perception of threat.
• Threat can be perceived in terms of the possibility that something bad will happen, that if the bad thing happens it will be awful, that the person will be unable to cope with this, or that there will be no one to help if the bad thing happens.
• Core concept in this approach to tinnitus distress is the idea that the perception of threat originates in the person’s thinking.

• Most often distressing thoughts involve cognitive distortions,
– i.e. the perceived threat is overstated – as a result of processing by a system that generates false positives for survival purposes.

Common distressing thoughts about tinnitus
• Can include despair, persecution, hopelessness, loss of enjoyment, a desire for peace and quiet, and beliefs that others do not understand (Wilson
& Henry, 1998).
• Other common thoughts include resentment about persistence of tinnitus, a wish to escape it,
& worries about health and sanity (Hallam et al,
1988; Kuk et al, 1990; Wilson et al, 1990).

• Reacting to tinnitus in the first place is normal.
• In the long run, the problem is not tinnitus, or the initial reaction to it, but how we continue to react to it.
• Our reactions to problems can transform what might otherwise be a brief alarm into persistent distress.

• Distress will usually give rise to some action designed to reduce that distress.
• If the distress arises because of a distortion in how we regard the tinnitus, then the behaviour designed to reduce the distress may result in the person not finding out that the thought is overly negative.
• Keeping safe means you don’t find out about the reality of the threat.
• Safety can be sought in behaviour promoting or avoiding an activity or situation.

Much of the time many of us operate in an automatic way, adjusting and changing what we do in order to try to avoid discomfort.
These automatic behaviours include:
• Avoidance of the situation, e.g., avoidance of noise, use of ear defenders, use of sound.
• Escape from the situation (e.g. increase in tinnitus intrusiveness) when the anxiety occurs, e.g. through the use of sound.
• Stay there but neutralise the anxiety through thoughts, e.g. think of something else, or get reassurance.
A problem arises when we become dependant on these behaviours to make us feel safe.

• Seeking reassurance is a common safety behaviour in people with troublesome tinnitus.
• It can temporarily reduce anxiety about tinnitus
But
• In the long term, at the cost of increasing preoccupation with tinnitus and therefore anxiety - it has a similar effect to checking tinnitus.

• Trying to not worry can increase worry,
• Distraction - when activity is not for its own sake.
Inevitably leads to checking.
• There may be direct physical effects, e.g., excessive use of medicines, avoidance of noise, use of sound (– e.g. excessive use of sound may make tinnitus more intrusive when the sound is turned off).

• e.g., you need to lose weight. So you think
- ‘don’t think about food’.....

Example of tinnitus-related safety behaviours
• Mrs ‘A’ was very anxious that she would be unable to cope with her tinnitus;
• She believed that if she was exposed to it she would become so anxious she would go mad.
• She used her sound generator constantly. She added background sound from the TV or radio where ever she went. When she could not do so she hummed to herself.
• By using sound enrichment in this way she could not find out what would happen if she was exposed to her tinnitus.

• If what we do to solve problems – including tinnitus, does not work or is counterproductive.
- a different way is needed.

.

• Let’s ‘discover’ an old technique.......

• Mindfulness meditation is a technique that can be used successfully in combination with cognitive therapy for tinnitus
• With mindfulness, we can develop an accurate and pragmatic moment-to-moment awareness of what our experience actually is
• Once we cease to be locked into reactive habits, the habituation process can proceed.

• For those things we cannot change, we can at least develop an awareness of how we react or respond to everything that happens to us and develop strategies to change our relationship with our circumstances.
• This applies to everything that we experience, from minor discomforts or stresses to serious illness or pain.
• With mindfulness we can learn to transform any moment when we might feel a victim of circumstance into a moment of initiative and confidence.

• Relaxing control.
• Tolerating discomfort.
• Acknowledging negative emotions.
• Attention in the present – here and now.
• Allow feelings to be as they are.
• Observe experiences with openness. This makes them less threatening and reduces the impact on your life.

• 2 studies where mindfulness meditation used successfully in managing tinnitus
• (1) Sweden: Internet-based cognitive behavior therapy for distress associated with tinnitus
• (2) Wales:

Sadlier, Stephens & Kennedy (2008)
• Treatment of individuals with intrusive tinnitus using a combination of cognitive behavioural therapy & mindfulness meditation.
• 25 individuals with chronic tinnitus
• Split into groups:
(1) four 1 hour sessions of CBT/meditation
(2) waited 3 months, then treated
• Significant reductions in tinnitus post-treatment.

%
4-6 month follow-up :
Sadlier, Stephens & Kennedy (2008)
Much better/better

• Aim is not to change or judge the body, which we're apt to do, but just to experience it and see what's there.
• Mindfulness involves continually bringing your awareness back to what is going on right now whenever it strays off into the past, the future or into fantasy.
• It sounds easy but it takes more practice than you might think.

• Consider a raisin........
(rediscovering a commonplace item)
• Consider your breathing.......
(exploring how we can shift our focus)

Different strategies
• Start the practice of mindfulness with developing self-awareness of the breath
• Body Scan - gentle purposeful mental tour of the body becoming aware of each part of our body sequentially finally focussing awareness on one part eg left foot.
• If mind drifts, bring it back to the area of focus, to the present moment

• Help people with tinnitus to recognise the role of thoughts in provoking distress.
• Help patients to recognise thoughts as thoughts – and so become less distressed by them.
• Encourage patients to stop fighting tinnitus.
• Encourage patients to meditate on tinnitus.
• Manage the tinnitus and its effects rather than avoid it and be managed by it.

• By breaking the link between a negative experience and the negative thinking it would normally have triggered, mindfulness meditation allows the individual to develop the capacity to allow distressing mood, thoughts and sensations to come and go, without having to battle with them.

• The use of mindfulness meditation is a strategy that once learned, can be applied to stressful or anxiety-related situations, which can also be a source of tinnitus upset.
• It can reduce the experience of suffering and can be employed at times associated with heightened tinnitus awareness.
• As the reaction to tinnitus is an individual one, this approach can be successfully tailored to the individual in order to address the particular needs and problems of the individual with tinnitus.

Blue Sky
Dublin Buddhist Centre