{"id":1268,"date":"2023-06-01T11:08:19","date_gmt":"2023-06-01T15:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=1268"},"modified":"2023-06-01T11:08:19","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T15:08:19","slug":"dear-dr-k-14","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=1268","title":{"rendered":"<strong>Dear Dr. K;\u00a0<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>I recently heard about a mental technique to help me cope with tinnitus.&nbsp; But for the life of me I can\u2019t remember what it was, can you help?&nbsp;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I think so.&nbsp; I suspect you heard about a form of cognitive behavioral therapy called somatic tracking exercise.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; There are good academic studies instantiating its benefit.&nbsp; It has proven effective not only for tinnitus but for other unpleasant or painful sensory inputs.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Basically, you pretend you are a non-emotional observer of yourself.&nbsp;&nbsp; With respect to tinnitus, you describe to yourself the volume, frequency, pitch, and the variance in laterality (right versus left).&nbsp; You do this with no emotion attached and you tell your brain that this is of no threat.&nbsp; You do this briefly several times a day and over time you will find the sound decrease on its own.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This technique can also be used for anxiety, nausea, dizziness and pain.&nbsp; Remember that unpleasant sensory awareness is the brain\u2019s alarm system to try and protect us.&nbsp; By being an unemotional remote observer of your own unpleasant sensory input, you can teach the brain that this is nothing to fear.&nbsp; The<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>goal of the exercise is not to get rid of the pain\/sensation.&nbsp; In fact, the more you try to accomplish this the worse the symptom becomes.&nbsp; But the goal is to persuade your brain that its\u2019 safe and therefore no need to continue \u201csounding the alarm\u201d.&nbsp; Another way to approach it is to tell yourself that these are just unbridled neurons firing off and you\u2019re going to put a bridle on them.&nbsp; When you are doing this mental exercise, it is also helpful to use avoidance strategies that lessen or minimalize the pain\/sensory sensation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently heard about a mental technique to help me cope with tinnitus.&nbsp; But for the life of me I can\u2019t remember what it was, can you help?&nbsp; I think so.&nbsp; I suspect you heard about a form of cognitive behavioral therapy called somatic tracking exercise.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; There are good academic studies instantiating its benefit.&nbsp; It has proven effective not only for tinnitus but for other unpleasant or painful sensory inputs.&nbsp; Basically, you pretend you are a non-emotional observer of yourself.&nbsp;&nbsp;&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=1268\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[617,616],"class_list":["post-1268","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-somatic-tracking","tag-tinnitus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1268"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1269,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1268\/revisions\/1269"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1268"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1268"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}