Have you noticed a persistent ringing or buzzing in one ear or both ears, and are not sure why? If so, stress might be one possible cause.

During periods of ongoing tension, your body remains in a state of “high alert,” which can influence how your brain processes sound. This heightened physiological state often makes internal noises more noticeable and feel more intense than usual. This sensation is commonly known as tinnitus, and while it often affects both ears, it can certainly be localized to just one.

According to data from the Philippine National Ear Institute, tinnitus accounted for 9.3% of pretest diagnoses among individuals who underwent audiologic evaluation.

This suggests that tinnitus is a recognised and relatively common concern among patients seeking hearing assessment. Recognising potential triggers, including stress, may help you better manage daily pressures while supporting your hearing wellness.

What is Tinnitus?

Tinnitus is the perception of ringing, buzzing, humming, clicking, or similar sounds in the ears without an external source. Because these sounds are generated internally, they cannot be detected by others.

These sounds can range from soft and occasional to persistent and noticeable, sometimes affecting focus or sleep.

Common Causes of Tinnitus

Tinnitus can develop for a variety of reasons, often linked to changes or disruptions within the auditory system.

• Age-Related Hearing Changes: Natural shifts in hearing over time can alter sound signals sent to the brain, leading to perceived internal noise.
• Noise-Related Hearing Impact: Repeated or sudden exposure to loud sounds can damage your hearing and may increase the likelihood of developing tinnitus.
• Ear Injuries: Trauma affecting the ear or related nerves can result in tinnitus, sometimes in just one ear.
• Ear Blockages or Infections: Ear infections or earwax buildup that causes a blockage may lead to hearing loss.
• Medication Effects: Certain medications may increase the likelihood of experiencing ringing or buzzing sounds. However, not all medications will result in tinnitus.

Common Signs and Sensations of Tinnitus

While tinnitus is commonly associated with ringing in the ears, the sounds and patterns you notice may vary in tone, intensity, and frequency.

• Ringing, Buzzing or Humming: The most frequent reports involve steady, phantom tones in one or both ears.
• Roaring or Hissing: Others may notice a rushing, roaring, or hissing sensation that resembles wind or flowing air.
• Clicking Sounds: Intermittent clicking noises may occur, either softly or more distinctly.
• Pitch Variations: The sound may range from a low roar to a high-pitched squeal, and its intensity can shift over time.
• One or Both Ears: Tinnitus may be perceived in a single ear or in both ears, depending on the underlying factors.
• Constant or Intermittent Noise: For some, the sound is continuous, while for others it comes and goes.
• Rhythmic Pulsing: In rare instances, tinnitus may sound like a pulsing or whooshing noise in sync with the heartbeat.

How Can Tinnitus Be Caused by Stress and Anxiety?

Both short-term and long-term stress responses may contribute to the onset or worsening of tinnitus, especially when left unmanaged.

• The “Fight or Flight” Response: Sudden anxiety or stress can temporarily reduce blood flow to the inner ear, leading to muffled hearing or heightened sensitivity to sound. At the same time, muscle tension around the jaw and ears may make ringing or buzzing sensations more noticeable.
• Chronic Stress Impact: Ongoing high stress levels can contribute to broader health concerns that affect circulation. Because the inner ear relies on steady blood flow, these changes may increase the likelihood of persistent tinnitus over time.
• Heightened Sound Awareness: Stress activates the limbic system, particularly the amygdala, the brain’s fear centre, triggering the body’s fight-or-flight response. This response increases cortisol levels and heightens sensory alertness, which can amplify the brain’s perception of internal sounds, making existing tinnitus seem louder, more persistent, or harder to ignore.
• The Stress–Tinnitus Cycle: Tinnitus may increase frustration and sleep disruption, which, in turn, raise stress levels, creating a continuous feedback loop.

When Tinnitus Affects More Than Your Hearing?

Tinnitus not only influences how you perceive sound, but it can also interfere with concentration, sleep, and emotional stability.

• Poor Sleep: Ongoing internal noise can become more noticeable in quiet environments, especially at night. As a result, falling or staying asleep may feel more challenging, disrupting your natural rest cycle and reducing sleep quality.
• Fatigue: When sleep quality declines, daytime energy levels often follow. Constant awareness of tinnitus, such as ringing or buzzing, can also feel mentally draining, contributing to ongoing fatigue and reduced motivation.
• Emotional Imbalance: Persistent tinnitus can increase stress, anxiety, and irritability. Over time, these emotional shifts may affect your overall mood and make it harder to feel calm or centered.
• Difficulty Concentrating: Ringing or buzzing sounds may interfere with focus, making it harder to complete tasks, stay productive, or absorb new information.
• Memory Challenges: When concentration is affected, short-term memory may also feel less reliable, particularly during demanding tasks.
• Head Discomfort: Some individuals report tension-related head discomfort that may accompany heightened stress.
• Work and Relationship Strain: Ongoing distraction and fatigue can influence performance at work and interactions with family, potentially leading to frustration or withdrawal.

How to Manage Stress-Induced Tinnitus?

Managing stress can help reduce the intensity of tinnitus and support overall hearing wellness.

1. Lower Caffeine & Nicotine Intake

Although coffee and tea are daily staples for many people, excessive caffeine and nicotine may increase heart rate, affect blood flow and contribute to tinnitus. Reducing their consumption, especially later in the day, may also improve sleep quality, which plays a key role in managing stress levels and minimizing tinnitus awareness.

2. Reduce Stress

Incorporating relaxation techniques such as meditation, deep breathing, regular exercise, and spending time outdoors can help reduce stress and ease muscle tension. By de-escalating the body’s “fight or flight” response, you may notice a decrease in the intensity or intrusiveness of tinnitus.

3. Minimize Noise Exposure

Using earplugs in loud environments and keeping headphones at moderate levels while listening to music can reduce additional auditory strain. Limiting noise exposure helps the brain remain calmer, which is vital when managing tinnitus induced by stress.

4. Consult with Your Audiologist

Seeking guidance from an ENT doctor first for clearance and then to an audiologist that can provide personalized insights into your hearing profile. Professional support can help you understand your tinnitus and explore strategies to manage it.

Schedule Consultation with Hear Life Today

If you are seeking a qualified audiologist to consult about persistent ringing in your ear, consider booking a visit with Hear Life PH.

As a hearing aid clinic in the Philippines, we offer comprehensive hearing tests designed to assess your hearing profile and identify possible contributing factors to tinnitus. Beyond evaluation, we provide personalized hearing solutions tailored to your lifestyle and comfort preferences.

Book your free hearing consultation today and start your journey toward hearing wellness.

In today’s busy world, all of us are becoming increasingly aware of the effects stress can have on our minds and bodies. This is why finding new and innovative ways to overcome anxiety and to relax has never been more important.

Our advanced Widex Moment Sheer™ hearing aids can help you regain your inner peace with a great new world of relaxing sounds, called Widex SoundRelax. This unique feature is designed to help all hearing aid wearers – with or without tinnitus – deal with anxiety, soothe the mind and boost concentration.

Users rate Widex SoundRelax very highly

SoundRelax is the proven solution for hearing aid wearers who are looking for sounds that help relaxation, well-being, and concentration. In a recent study, 20 participants with and without tinnitus rated the new sounds. They listened to each sound over headphones for at least 10 minutes and then rated them for how well they liked them and to what extent they supported relaxation, concentration and general well-being.

The results, illustrated in this figure, are striking: While not every hearing aid wearer likes every sound, the mean ratings of listeners’ favorite sounds are around 9 out of 10, which is very high for something so personal as taste in tones and soundscapes. (The diamonds show the mean rating and the whiskers +/- 1 standard deviation.)

Calm your senses with the unique fractal tones of Widex SoundRelax

The term ‘fractal’ was first used by the mathematician Benoît Mandelbrot in 1975 and describes geometrical shapes that contain unfolding levels of detail as the viewer zooms in. Similar shapes can be found in nature including river forks, coastlines, mountain ridges, leaf veins, and clouds. SoundRelax and our Zen tinnitus treatment are based on fractal mathematics to generate changing, soothing tones and meditative chimes that become familiar but never repeat themselves and so relax the mind.

The use of meditative sounds and calm, relaxing music to relieve stress is well-known. It is believed to be effective at reducing stress because it stimulates many different parts of our brain. Music is commonly used at celebrations, sporting events, in shopping malls, movies and TV advertisements to evoke pleasant emotions. However, research has shown that recorded music can evoke memories and potentially unpleasant emotions. Fractal sounds prevent such unwanted distractions because they incorporate the properties of music that have been proven to be most relaxing without sudden changes in tonality or tempo. They repeat enough to sound familiar and follow appropriate musical rules but vary enough to not be predictable.

For more information about how Widex SoundRelax can help you relieve the stress of daily life contact your nearest hearing care professional using our quick and easy online Shop Finder. If you or a loved one might be living with untreated hearing loss, our free 5-minute online Hearing Test gives an initial indication.

DOES MY CHILD HAVE A HEARING LOSS?

Hearing loss in children is not uncommon. So, when you ask your child repeatedly to help you set the table and he doesn’t respond, it may not just be selective hearing, but the beginning of a hearing loss.

Do you suspect your child has a hearing loss? Learn what to look for in this article.

The signs of hearing loss in children

Your child’s response to sound becomes easier to detect as they get older. Before the age of four months, your baby may widen his eyes, wrinkle his eyebrows or shift his eyes towards the sound. After four months, it gets easier to detect a reaction to the sounds around your child. This is when he starts to move his head towards where the sound is coming from and appears to listen.

If he doesn’t appear to listen, that could be a sign of hearing loss. Other signs that your baby or toddler from four months of age may have a hearing loss is if he:

• Doesn’t react to your voice
• Often seems inattentive
• Shows signs of slow speech development
• By two years, can’t produce spontaneous words or combine 2 words (or more)
• By three years, you, as primary caregiver, don’t understand what he’s saying

Bear in mind, though, that there could be other reasons why he can’t hear well. A cold or an ear infection could cause temporary hearing loss, and the hearing is most often restored when the infection has left the body. In addition, your older child may have a hearing loss if he:

• Often asks “What?” to what you were saying
• Often responds inappropriately in a conversation
• Starts speaking more loudly
• Talks about his “good ear” and his “bad ear”
• Needs very loud TV volume
• Has a teacher who says he’s not paying attention

Hearing helps your child’s speech and language development, social skills and education. For infants, hearing the parents’ voices is also a way of bonding and building trust. So, it’s important to identify hearing problems as early as possible, in order to get the proper treatment.

Getting a professional hearing evaluation for your child

Your child may have gone through a hearing screening as a newborn, but sometimes hearing loss can develop later. If you see signs of hearing loss, you should consult your doctor and get a referral to a hearing care professional. A hearing care professional may carry out different tests, depending on age, to determine whether your child has a hearing loss, and what that potential hearing loss is like. The hearing care professional may perform these tests:

• Visual Audiometry teaches your baby or toddler to link a sound to a visual element. Once your child knows how they are linked, the volume and pitch will be varied to figure out the quietest sounds your baby can hear. This test is common for children from six months to two and half years.
• With headphones on, Play Audiometry teaches your child to carry out a certain task when he hears a specific sound. Once learned, as with the Visual Audiometry, the volume and pitch will be varied. This test is used for young children from one and half to five years.
• Pure Tone Audiometry is for older children, and it’s similar to an adult hearing test. With headphones on, your child will be asked to press a button or raise his hand when he hears a sound.
• The Bone Conduction Test uses a vibrating device put behind the ear to identify which part of the ear isn’t working.
• The Tympanometry Test examines the eardrum’s flexibility to determine if it’s causing a hearing loss.

Based on the test results, the hearing care professional can recommend the proper treatment for your child. Hearing losses associated with colds or middle ear fluid are treated in many ways; sometimes it is as simple as waiting for the child to grow older and the middle ear fluid to resolve naturally. In more severe cases, minor surgery is required to release the fluid. If your child has a hearing loss that is not associated with a cold or middle ear fluid, it may be recommended that he wears hearing aids.

Hearing aids are an important step to improve hearing, also at very young age – even small babies can get hearing aids.

The causes of hearing loss in children

There are a number of reasons for hearing problems among children, and some hearing issues may just be temporary after an ear infection or a cold. Other causes could be:

• A build-up of fluid in the middle ear, which is common in young children (also called glue ear)
• Infections that develop in the womb or at birth and cause progressive hearing loss
• Inherited conditions, such as otosclerosis, which prevent the ears or nerves from working properly
• Damage to the cochlear or auditory nerves – for instance from a serious head injury, exposure to loud noise or head surgery
• Too little oxygen at birth (birth asphyxia)
• Illnesses such as meningitis and encephalitis, both of which involve swelling in the brain