Can I use headphones if I have tinnitus?

As a customer service agent I speak with many customers daily, but I will never forget one particular caller. I first spoke with her last week and she sounded completely worn out. You know, the kind of exhaustion that comes from a week of absolutely no sleep; she was at her wit's end. She wasn't concerned about shipping speeds or return policies, but asked if she could actually use SleepPhones® headphones if she experienced a constant, high pitched ringing in her ears.

Honestly, this is a question I hear constantly. When people have tinnitus, their first instinct is to reach for earplugs to find total silence. But silence, actually, is the enemy in this case. When it's dead quiet, your brain will only focus on the ringing in your ears. I always tell the folks I speak with that the goal shouldn't be to "cancel" the noise, but to mask it by distracting your brain. It's about changing the landscape of what you're hearing.

How you approach this, though, is also important. Using earbuds can easily irritate your ear canal which can spike your anxiety and make the ringing feel even more intrusive. SleepPhones® headphones are designed differently, featuring thin, padded speakers nestled in a soft, breathable headband. You aren't jamming anything into your ear. Instead, you create a gentle layer of sound, such as white noise or ambient music, that sits underneath the tinnitus.

Will it make the ringing disappear? Unfortunately no. But it does give your brain something else to latch onto by giving the ringing a companion. It turns a piercing sound into something that feels like part of a larger, more peaceful environment. It's about finding a way to coexist with the noise so you can finally get some much needed rest. The customer I mentioned above actually called back yesterday to let me know she was finally able to get some restorative sleep thanks to her new SleepPhones® headphones.

Find more answers on our "Frequently Asked Questions" page.