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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 π
Me too. I donβt even remember what silence doesnβt 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
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 sleepβ¦ but I just canβtβ¦ the rhythmic ticking drives me crazy haha
podcast or audio books are my go to - sometimes Iβm stuck on the same chapter for weeks
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.
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
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 :)
Yes, but more so because of my tinitus. It fucking sucks, I can't really focus on reading books because the silence is deafening.
More the opposite. I can't stand all the noise. Especially during spring & summer when you have to open your window during the night.
Same problem. I just use a box fan though for white noise.
I have horrible tinnitus after years of searing guitars. I have to sleep with a white noise machine or I am completely tweaked
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.
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.
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 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.
I need constant noise from something like a fan to sleep.
I sleep with a fan. Luckily hotel A/C's have a constant fan function.
Yes, I can't sleep without white noise
If I'm not asleep by a certain time of night, "hour of the wolf", then I find it very hard to sleep without something in the background. Usually I use the sound of a babbling brook that I recorded while in Iceland.
Most people I know sleep with a fan on for this reason. Really common, yeah.
Buy yourself a white noise machine. Iβve been using one for almost 10 years, itβs helped my sleep routine immensely. I prefer it to something with talking because the fluctuations of something like comedy would disrupt me. Also, I think that concentrating on something like comedy makes me want to watch it and I would woke up.
The next thing is an eye mask. Even if your room is mostly dark, Iβve found it helps me to stay asleep.
I would love absolute silence. I got Tinnitus in my right ear 24/7/365.. It will probably never disappear.. And I also sleep with a CPAP which makes annoying sounds when sleeping. So I would absolute silence.
The noise in my head is plenty loud already.
I find it helpful to listen to .mp3s of people talking about something I'm interested in. I can focus on that and drift off to sleep and wake up not even realising I fell asleep. Also, I've found a hindu mantra that helps sometimes. It's so hypnotic, it just carries me into the navel of sleep.
If silence is the real culprit you should try out a white noise generator, generally speaking it should overload/excite you less then music or human voices and could help you sleep faster.
Where I live silence during the night is not really an option, and I had had problems only when on vacation "away from civilization", but small stuff like white noise, a fan or similar low but continuos sounds helped me out without asking for my attention (which happens with movies, music or similar).
There are even apps that simulate different kind of sound and let you mix them (like rain, birds, wind) but I didn't have enough patience to really dig on this solution.
I think itβs more getting out of my own thoughts. And I feel white noise etc wonβt shift my focus from that.
blameitonjorge, nexpo, night mind I've found work great as they talk in a very mellow manner. As long as you're ok falling asleep to the type of stuff they talk about lol
I need a fan or white noise. Silence is just "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee" until I fall asleep.
I also have a sometimes hard time falling asleep, I guess I think and overthink everything too muchβ¦
So my go-to are audio books and podcasts.
Try weed. Not right before sleep but a bit earlier, while watching those stand-ups for example.