Does anyone else find absolute silence difficult to deal with? In particular difficult to sleep in complete silence?
I think it started from a young age, being obsessed with music. Falling asleep with music.
As an adult, I still struggle with this and need some form of audio to drift off, be it music or something else.
More recently, I find stand-up comedy works best - it’s light-hearted and doesn’t require too much thought.
I have tinnitus, so absolute silence is never enjoyable for me. Music works extremely well; I fall asleep with the tv on.
When I read the title of the post, I immediately wondered if anybody else with tinnitus had commented yet.
“Silence” sounds amazing, would love to try it some time 😅
Me too. I don’t even remember what silence doesn’t sound like. XD
Put your hands over your ears and drum your fingers on the back of your head for 20-30 seconds.
It doesn’t last for long but (if it works for you), blissful silence.
I Think I might too. Need to get checked. Always a low humming. Sometimes high pitch ringing. But I meant more of not being able to settle my mind.
Well, I have ADHD so I can identify with that also. lol
I’ve been using a fan. It almost entirely hides the ringing
Try a fan. And this one’s weird, but I have an analog clock in my room and the rhythmic ticking helps me sleep.
I know were you are coming from and I know a few people who have a clock in the room and sleep… but I just can’t… the rhythmic ticking drives me crazy haha
podcast or audio books are my go to - sometimes I’m stuck on the same chapter for weeks
I can’t handle the constant having to rewind and going wait did I already listen to this last night? that happens if I listen to podcasts or audiobooks to sleep.
Maybe I should just find a podcast I don’t care about actually hearing everything in that I could use for sleep.
I know what you mean, so here are my solutions. My podcast are either about F1 or gaming - so very generic and I have different ones. The topics are very similar, but with different persons and opinions, it’s never the same - so ideal for drifting off.
For audiobooks, I mostly listen to books, I’ve already read or listend to previously. So you know the rough story, but some small details are always missed. My prime example are the harry potter books by stephen fry… I fall asleep within minutes haha
I usually put on some PBS Space Time, not quite podcast, but I often don’t look at the visuals when trying to sleep. The videos are short (about 15min) , but provided it’s between 23:30 and 00:30, it usually takes only about 5 minutes before I fall asleep.
Used to do audiobooks, but that would fail if I was too invested in the book…
I feel like the thoughts in my head would drown it out.
I have an air purifier in my room that is always running so filling the room with humming and providing clean air.
A plus one for the white noise machine. Game changer.
I have tinnitus. Had it my whole life. I live with a fan running in every room except the kitchen and bathroom. They are on 24/7 365. The silence literally makes my head feel like it’s about to pop
Luckily, I have children to do this for me haha
Tinnitus fucking sucks. I hate silence
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee
I think I have a strange version of tinnitus where instead of ringing I’ll feel pulses as vibrations in my ear, it syncs with my heartbeat.
I think that’s a known glitch where the heart beat doesn’t go away after you get critically injured, it should be patched in the next update.
It’s called pulsatile tinnitus.
I fixed that problem…I never hear silence!
All I hear is eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…
I’ve had ear ringing properly once for like 3 weeks. Never had such a hard time sleeping because the quietness just makes it all the more louder. Really drove me insane and was glad when it started to slowly recede. Good chance I would just eff myself if it were permanent.
I wish three was a cure for tinitus
MAWP!
Others have made great points; I’d like to add my favourite: you can play rain sounds from Spotify (and iOS devices can do this without any subscriptions from the Hearing CC toggle)!
It helps me during nights I have a lot on my mind :)
More the opposite. I can’t stand all the noise. Especially during spring & summer when you have to open your window during the night.
Growing up, my bedroom faced a main road (even though it was a decent way aways), always want the bedroom window open. Doesn’t bother me in the slightest.
Same problem. I just use a box fan though for white noise.
Yes, but more so because of my tinitus. It fucking sucks, I can’t really focus on reading books because the silence is deafening.
As a teen, I needed complete silence/darkness to sleep well. Then I met my now-wife, who needed a TV on to sleep well.
It took a while, but we eventually compromised on a fan for background noise.I prefer seperate rooms haha
I usually fall asleep to a podcast. One that is interesting, but not so interesting that it’ll keep me up. A history podcast or something like that.
I do this too. Unmade Podcast is my sleeping podcast. 2 dudes talking podcast. It’s a little hard without it.
I quite like We Have Ways podcast, although they never balance their mics so one of them ends up blasting my ears waking me up while you can’t hear the other one at low volume 😂
I need constant noise from something like a fan to sleep.
Yep. I also have a bit of tinnitus so I prefer a bit of sound. Usually I play an episode of Frasier, Mom or Modern Family. Usually before the end of the episode I’m sleeping.
Do…do you live in my house? I will say that I tend to wake up to hear tossed salads and scrambled eggs though and shut off the TV when I can just roll back over and be asleep though.
Put your TV on a 15/30min sleep timer?
Yeah, my wife usually sets an hour timer. Her sleep patterns are odd for falling asleep. She is out in 5 minutes some nights, other nights she can’t sleep for hours.
Yeh. Exactly me.
I must have earplugs and an eyemask to sleep. Always wanted pitch black and complete silence since I was a child.
My wife is the same.
