I am sitting in the silence right now, but at the same time there is no silence. There never is. When no sounds are to be heard, I still hear.
For as long as I can remember I have been an insomniac. I am sure that a large part of the reason for this is my nervous nature. Another part is my tendency to sleep in on days when I don't have to be up for something. A final part is probably genetics. After twenty-six years, though, I think I have figured out one of the biggest reasons.
Any time I am in a completely silent environment my ears ring. Usually it is minor enough that I am not even thinking about it. I just have a slight high-pitched noise that constantly goes through the back of my head. Sometimes I have a deeper ringing that throbs like a drumbeat to the cadence of my heart. The ringing tends to keep me alert so I don't doze off as easily. I can combat this with background noise, but I had never thought through this before.
I have always just figured that everyone has this. It is one of those things where I assume that since my body does this to me everyone's body does it to them. I am becoming less sure of this assumption as of late. I have noticed that in literature people only talk about ringing in the ears when there has been an explosion or something of that sort.
So my question for the weekend is this: When everything is silent so that you can hear your heart beat do your ears ring?
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3 comments:
I think it is called "tinnitis" or something like that. My Dad has it. I only have it after listening to loud music or an action movie in a theater, and then I only hear it when things are quiet. There are moments when I have it in bed, when everything else is silent. Then if I concentrate enough on it it seems to get WAY TOO loud and I don't like that. Insomnia I have had. but for me, laying awake in bed was always frightening. Sometimes the "hour of the wolf" seems to last all night, not just between 3am and 4am. The interesting thing to me about your question is that you never thought to ask it before. We are all put together pretty different I guess...
Wow, I had never heard (no pun intended) of tinnitus before. Thanks, Dar!
I just found the American Tinnitus Association website and the descriptions there are exactly what I experience.
As I said, until very recently I just figured this was something everyone had to deal with. From the description at the website, it looks like a vast minority of Americans do deal with it, so this may have influenced my thinking somehow. It only affects my lifestyle when I am trying to go to sleep, but I do hear the ringing more or less constantly. I don't think it is bad enough to seek medical help at this point. If it gets worse, I might.
Finally we have a possible cause of your insomnia! I think you should see a doctor about it.
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