Exercise is a great antidepressant, a natural health remedy and a habit you need to take advantage of. Being physically active can improve your mood, help you relax, boost your self-esteem, improve sleep quality, give you more energy, reduce stress, negate depression, stave off heart problems, reduce the risk of diabetes and some forms of cancer.Exercising is important for good mental and physical health.
This article is not a general recommendation to exercise for good health. Exercising creates physiological changes in the body helping you better manage tinnitus caused by stress and stress caused by tinnitus. Different types of exercise can have a positive impact on tinnitus symptoms.
Tinnitus Psychology
If we have a difficulty in life we might focus on the difficulty to find a resolution. Our cognitive function might go into overdrive as we try to find a solution to our difficulty. In this case tinnitus. One type of defence we might utilise to help with tinnitus is going into our heads especially if our body's no longer feel like a safe place to be. This strategy does not help with tinnitus.
Finding a way to be in your body through exercise and sport signals that your body is a safe place to be. This enables your nervous system to calm down which helps with tinnitus symptoms. It also helps to calm down the mental chatter.
As exercise has such a positive impact on our mental health it can also help with tinnitus associated psychological difficulties. Difficulties might include depression, stress and anxiety.
What types of exercise are helpful for tinnitus?
Any exercise which signals the parasympathetic arm of the nervous system to activate is great for tinnitus and the nervous system. Examples of this type exercise include.
- Yoga
- Tai Chi
- Relaxed Swimming
The other type fo exercise which you might want to consider when managing tinnitus symptoms is cardiovascular exercise. This type of exercise gets the heart pumping and increases the stress hormones in the body. Stress hormones are released to enable us to carry out the exercise. Although this type of exercise can make tinnitus temporally worse when cortisol and adrenaline levels return to a base level lower than before you started the exercise if you are suffering from problematic tinnitus.
Cardiovascular exercise, meditation, acupuncture, massage therapy and sex can all induce the release of endorphins. Endorphins help you with stress and pain and make you feel good. When endorphins are synthesised you will feel decreased feelings of pain and feelings of euphoria. Endorphins are also responsible for the release of the sex hormone, appetite regulation and enhancement of your immune response. They also stop us feeling the negative affects of stress.
Positive effects of cardiovascular exercise that will help with problematic tinnitus symptoms
- Less mind chatter
- Improves your mood
- Helps you relax
- Acts as an antidepressant
- Improves sleep quality
- Improves self esteem
- Reduces heart problems
- Reduces risk of diabetes
- Reduces the risk of some cancers
- Makes you feel good
- Boosts your immune system
- Reduces stress
- Regulates your appetite
- Gives you more energy
- Resets your thinking patterns
A word of warning. If you are suffering with problematic tinnitus you might find that cardiovascular exercise wipes you out. This is because you may be releasing large amounts of stress hormones already which puts stress on the adrenal glands. Cardio can amplify this stress depleting the adrenal glands further leading to adrenal exhaustion. It is best to start with parasympathetic exercises to help calm and relax you and give your adrenals a chance to recover before moving onto more demanding cardio vascular type exercises.