In this episode, I’m joined by Dr Gladys Sanda, a tinnitus specialist who has spent over a decade supporting people living with tinnitus - and who also lives with it herself.

We talk about the emotional and psychological impact tinnitus can have, including the fear, isolation, and heightened awareness that often accompany it. Gladys shares her personal experience of living with tinnitus, offering rare insight into what it’s like to both experience the condition and support others through it.

Together, we explore how understanding what’s happening in the nervous system, alongside self-compassion, can change the way tinnitus is experienced. This conversation is about shifting the relationship with tinnitus - and about the possibility of living well, even when the sound doesn’t disappear.

Key Takeaways

• Tinnitus affects far more than hearing, often impacting emotional safety, stress levels, and sense of connection
• Understanding how the brain and nervous system respond to tinnitus can reduce fear and reactivity
• Self-compassion plays a crucial role in learning to live well with tinnitus
• A holistic approach that considers both emotional and auditory factors can support long-term wellbeing

Links & Resources

📘 Beyond the Noise by Dr Gladys Sanda

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Beyond-Noise-Practical-Tinnitus-Relief/dp/1036964973/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0

🌐 Dr Gladys Sanda

https://drgladys.co.uk

https://www.instagram.com/tinnituswithgladys/

📸 The Lonely Chapter on Instagram

• https://www.instagram.com/lonelychapterpodcast/

Hello and welcome to the Lonely Chapter, a podcast for people who are doing okay on the surface, but quietly unsure how to live well.

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Today's episode is with Dr. Gladys Sander, a tinnitus specialist who has worked with people living with tinnitus for over a decade and who also lives with it herself.

She's the author of beyond the Noise.

And in this conversation, we talk about what it's like to feel trapped by an invisible condition, how fear and stress can keep the nervous system stuck, and why understanding what's happening in your body can change the way you live with difficult experiences.

This is a conversation about hope, self compassion, and learning how to live well even when life feels noisy.

Let's get into the conversation.

For people who have never dealt with tinnitus themselves, what would you say it actually feels like to live with?

Wow.

Okay, so if you've never had it, I think that there's two parts to this question.

When you first get it, it's terrifying because you might have just woken up one day and you randomly start hearing a sound in your head.

I say a sound.

It could be multiple sounds.

It could be buzzing, ringing, whooshing.

It can be music, and it's terrifying.

You might start to find that you're searching around your house thinking, where is this sound coming from?

You're asking people, can you hear it?

They're saying no.

And then you get that sudden realization that it's in your head.

Yeah, terrifying.

Then what can happen is you start the googling and trying to get an appointment with your doctors.

And you know what that's like.

That's tricky enough.

And then, yeah, the story starts to build up going forward, especially if you do get the right help or, you know, you get some sort of idea and a good idea of what's going on, that can start to ease and it can go from terrifying to annoying, maybe intrusive.

And then it gets to a point, hopefully for many people, where actually it's no longer terrifying.

It's more of a mild annoyance.

That's the goal.

So there's multiple different sounds that it can be.

So buzzing, ringing, even music as well.

Yeah.

Is there like, what's the strangest noise that you've had patients come to you.

And I don't know if there's the strangest noise because I, you know, people then think, oh, gosh, I've got the worst type.

And Actually, you know, your brain can just do what it wants to do.

And how I interpret buzzing to somebody else could be like the sound of crickets in their head, cicadas, the sound of electric buzzing in your head.

But yeah, yeah, it can range from one of those sounds to multiple of those sounds.

I never knew that.

That's quite interesting.

So what's the day to day reality like for someone living with that?

You said it starts maybe being quite scary that first time, first time you hear it.

What's it like to live with day to day?

It can be incredibly isolating, especially when you don't know anybody else that has it or you just hear of people it, but you don't really understand unless you have it yourself.

And even one person's experience to tinnitus is completely different to somebody else's.

So it can be incredibly isolating, frustrating for a lot of people.

There's these, you know, a lot, a lot of negative thoughts, a lot of intrusive thoughts and that can be quite scary as well.

It can affect your sleep, which as you can imagine is, yeah, can just be tragic because if you're not sleeping well, it's hard, harder to deal with the tinnitus during the day and that can spill over to affecting your concentration, your mood.

It can affect relationships.

So it can be quite, quite difficult to live with initially, especially without the right help.

But thankfully it doesn't have to stay that way.

There is hope.

There are things that can be done.

Okay, so we'll get onto those in a moment.

What are some of the misconceptions that people have maybe before they come to you?

So sadly there's a message that there's nothing that can be done.

You know, you might Google it, you might go to your doctors and we know that there is no universal cure for it.

There isn't something that you can take like a pill that just gets rid of the sound.

But when people hear that, what they find or what they feel is that, okay, well that means I just have to suffer for the rest of my life.

And then, you know, their future suddenly becomes a lot more bleak.

So one of the biggest misconceptions is that there's nothing that can be done.

Some people worry that it means that there's something wrong with them because naturally, you know, it might be.

Well, I didn't have this sound in my head yesterday.

I wasn't aware of it yesterday.

So what's happened now?

But the interpretation of that can vary.

So for some people, they think that there's something Very sinister going on and it's not always the case.

Yeah, but that fear can then lead to worsening symptoms.

Yeah.

That's quite interesting then.

So the way you think about what's going on can create it or can make it worse.

Is that the case, then?

Absolutely.

You know, I've met.

I've met.

I'm smiling because I always use this as an example.

Clients that have said that they thought that their tinnitus is suddenly the universe speaking to them and suddenly they've got this peace and they're like, why are you trying to get rid of this?

This is great.

You know, so definitely the meaning that you associate with it can affect how it affects you.

And you spoke about how it's difficult to speak to other people's experiences because there's so many vast experiences of tinnitus in terms of your own experience, because you've lived with tinnitus for five or so years.

Is that correct?

Correct.

Can you talk me through your own experience of it?

Yeah.

So interesting, because I was working with people before developing it myself, so for many years before, and I'd seen people and I say recover, they.

They'd really improved with their tinnitus.

So in my mind, I knew that there were things that can be done now with myself.

I was really unwell.

I had Covid at the time, but it was still very, very new and very, very stressed.

And at the time I thought, okay, once this is gone, I'd be fine.

You know, I was more worried about the numbers on the news and what was going on in the world.

And then I got furloughed and then I had a lot of time on my own.

And then suddenly it was like, wow, I've really got this suddenly.

Couldn't sleep suddenly, didn't want to be by myself, didn't want to talk about it with anyone because everyone was worried about everything else.

So initially I did think it would go and it didn't worry me.

And then all of a sudd, like overnight, it started bothering me.

Yeah, I suppose the time that it happened as well, during COVID probably amplified those feelings of, like, maybe loneliness that you mentioned before.

I guess, you know, I wasn't speaking to my colleagues about it.

I was really stressed with other things as well, so trying to sort that out.

So that wasn't.

Yeah, to be honest, I felt a bit like, come on, I should know how to deal with this.

Like, I've been Doing this for years and then the self critical thoughts, me blaming myself and me thinking, why can't I just snap out of this?

That amplified the issue.

It's so interesting that you were working in that area and then it happened to you and then it's like, you're like, yeah, I should know what to do here.

But because of what's just going on in your mind, naturally as humans we sort of run away with ideas and stuff.

So going back to when you started working in the area, then what was it that brought you specifically into that area of work?

So I got interested in audiology from sixth form.

So this was after leaving, you know, school and I always knew I wanted to be in healthcare, but I thought, you know, I don't want to do medicine, it's going to take me seven, eight years and I don't like blood.

It's like, I can deal with earwax but I'll stick to audiology.

So did that and well, I got interested in sign language and thought, okay, I really want to work with people that have hearing issues.

So then I got into the NHS and I remember meeting a hearing therapist or which is an audiologist that specializes in tinnitus and she was just incredible.

And we'd be in the staff room and people would say, oh gosh, Mr.

So and so with tinnitus is coming in.

I don't want to see him, I don't want to see him.

No, no, no, you see him.

I'll give you this if you see him.

And I just thought, what is going on?

This patient needs help and I've got that so of competitiveness to me, you know, I want to help the people that nobody wants to help.

You know, I want to be there for them.

So, yeah, that's kind of what got me into it.

And then I just carried on studying.

I ended up doing seven, eight years of studying anyway, but at least it was in a field that I really am passionate about.

Yeah.

Do you think that your study in the area and your work in the area has helped you?

Obviously we spoke about how initially maybe you were like, I should be able to deal with this.

But looking back now, has it helped you cope with it better?

Definitely, I would say more my, my experience with my patients more than my studying, if I'm honest with you, just understanding what patients go through on a day to day, being able to help them and then using what's like that experience to help myself.

Yeah, more than anything, yeah.

That's so interesting that seven, eight years of study versus practical, like experiences is like much more important.

And what are the sort of common things other than the physical symptoms that they're going through?

What are the common things that people find, like mentally, socially, that they struggle with?

So a lot of people initially start to isolate themselves.

One, because, you know, it's that, that, you know, they're trying to deal with this and already that's quite exhausting.

And trying to explain it to people that don't really understand it, that's exhausting.

So it's like, well, I might as well just deal with this on my own.

But aside from that, a lot of people start to develop the fear of noise.

So being out in bars or noisy places, noisy restaurants, socializing, especially this time of the year with Christmas parties and things like that, there is that fear of, I don't want to get worse.

Yeah.

So they start to isolate themselves, stop doing the things that they would have done, stop socializing as much.

They start to feel distant from people or they're in their head a bit more.

So it can affect people.

So on that noisy places, bars, concerts, gigs, what sort of things cause it in the first place?

Can you go through some of those common things that we see?

Well, one of the biggest causes is noise.

So and when I say noise, significant noise exposure, that doesn't just mean musicians are susceptible to it.

They are more susceptible, but not just.

It can sometimes be one loud bang, like a speaker going off, or it could be sustained exposure to noise.

So noise is one another thing is aging just as we get older.

However, I have to caveat that, that it doesn't mean that tinnitus gets worse as we get older.

It's just the process of getting older can make you more susceptible to developing it in the first place.

And that's just due to.

For many reasons, just as we get older, but also hearing loss as well.

So about 80 to 90% of people with hearing loss also have tinnitus.

Ear infections can cause it.

Having earwax in your ear, blocking your ears can cause tinnitus.

Certain medic can cause it.

Yeah, there's so many factors.

Yeah, it sounds like there's so many.

There's so many things to be looking out for.

What are the ways that we can protect ourselves if we've not suffered with it before, hearing some of these symptoms?

Obviously we want to stay away from it as much as possible.

What are the ways that we can do that?

I think for sure, when it comes to noise, noise is one of those things, or noise induced tinnitus is One of those things that are, you know, 100% preventable, but once you've got it, it's perfect, permanent.

So you want to try and protect your ears.

We're hearing protection.

Stay away from speakers.

Try and stay as far back as you can.

Some of the other things are, you know, some.

Nobody asks for tinnitus, you know, so, for example, I didn't ask to get Covid, you know, and if you get a really bad flu, that can sometimes trigger things like tinnitus.

I think trying to get early treatment and early intervention, you know, sometimes we don't really always look after ourselves.

There's always something else.

Work or the kids or the family, you know, and when we're ill, I think we need to try and address that.

That's our body telling us something.

Let's address it as soon as.

If we are really stressed, a lot of the times we just go, oh, everyone's stressed.

No, actually, let's deal with that, because it can be a compounding effect.

So talk to me a bit about how that stress can compound and make tinnitus worse.

So you've got this noise in your ear.

You start to stress out about it.

Maybe you're feeling more alone, isolated, not being able to tell people about it.

How does that then amplify what's already happening?

So with stress, what's happening is our emotional system in the brain, or what we sometimes call our limbic system.

We start to develop hormones called cortisol and adrenaline, which I'm sure a lot of people will be aware of.

But with an increase of cortisol and adrenaline, it actually increases our perception of the actual sound of the tinnitus.

And then it's a vicious cycle because the sound seems to get louder, Then we get more stress, and then it gets louder, and that's where that loop comes in.

Oh, this is a heightened awareness aspect of it.

Absolutely.

So, personal question for me, I suppose I've started going to a lot more gigs the last year.

I love live music, and I love that feeling you get when you're listening to your favorite band, earplugs at gigs.

Are they gonna be enough to save me?

So it really depends on how loud that environment is.

But I would say the.

One of the best things you can do is invest in some good earplugs.

Now, there's lots of different ones.

There's generic earplugs like the foam ones.

Some people think that stuffing tissue in their Ears are earplugs.

They're the problem with the foam ones for some people is that they just don't fit in the ears and they're kind of half out.

So we want to be careful of that.

It defeats the purpose completely.

Now another thing is if they do fit in your ears, they block off quite a lot of the sound.

So what some people end up doing is taking one out or if someone's speaking to you, they'll take one out.

Again, defeats the purpose there.

So I always talk about trying to get filtered earplugs.

They have little filter inside them and it's just so much better sound quality.

Um, and there's, there's a few out there.

There's, there's a pair from a company called His.

There's loops again, generic earplugs, they have little different sizes.

If they don't fit in your ears, then getting custom made earplugs are brilliant.

Now that's one side of the things.

The other thing is trying to stay as far back as you can.

And I say that it decibels decrease with distance.

The further back you are from the speaker, the safer you're going to be.

And also just being cautious of drinking if you're drinking.

Sometimes we get a little bit more.

What's the word?

Brave.

Yeah, maybe brave is the right word.

Not aware of how loud or that our heads in the speaker, you know, so just being cautious of your environment, looking after each other and the people that you're with as well.

Yeah.

And then giving yourself a break the next day.

So in terms of the people that do end up with tinnitus, is there a way to reduce it, minimize recover from it?

Yeah, it depends on what you mean by recover or reduce it.

So there isn't a direct pill that you can take or cure that you can take to just get rid of it.

It's not like if you have a headache, you take a paracetamol and it's gone.

There's nothing to get rid of the signal in that way.

But for sure, when we talked about that stress loop fight or flight, that height and awareness, by trying to minimize that, you can minimize the way your brain is paying attention to the tinnitus.

And we talk about a process called habituation.

So that's like for example, if you're living by a train station or an airport and your brain just suddenly stops hearing the trains after a couple of weeks.

It's not that the sound's gone away, but your brain just doesn't pay attention to It.

Yeah, the same can happen with tinnitus.

Oh, that's so interesting, because I used to work right under just before they land at Heathrow, and whenever people would come over, they'd be like, it's so loud.

Those planes every 30 seconds.

How'd you deal with it?

I'm like, oh, yeah, forgot about them.

Exact same process for tinnitus.

We spoke about your experience when you first had tinnitus, but I had to ask, didn't follow up and ask what it's like now.

So how are you living with it now?

How's it for you?

Yeah, so, I mean, I still hear my tinnitus every day.

Not all day, all the time.

But I talk about tinnitus for at least eight hours a day.

It's pretty hard for my brain to not think it's important, but when I do hear it, I have no change.

I know my nervous system isn't reacting in a negative way, so it is just an unimportant sound to me.

So I'm able to kind of shift it into the background so it doesn't affect me.

There are times where I'll say to my husband, like, are you sure you can't hear this sound?

Like, there is still that disbelief that this is something that I'm living with, but I know that I live really well with it, thankfully.

Good.

So I'm gonna have to read this one.

Because you created the auditory limbic neuroregulation model.

What is special about that model, and how does it differ to what was already out there in the tinnitus space?

Yeah.

So I think initially and historically, we've focused a lot on sound therapy and masking and, you know, putting white noise, pink noise, brown noise, all of these different noises, but they never really touch on the emotional side of tinnitus.

And that's a huge aspect of it.

Now, we do have a lot of literature to show that cognitive behavioral therapy, which I'm sure a lot of people might be aware of, it's a psychological intervention that really focuses on dealing with your thoughts and your feelings.

We know that that can help with tinnitus.

Now, what happens is people will see that, and that's recommended by the NICE guidelines.

They'll go to their GP.

It can take 12 months to see a psychologist.

When you get through, to see somebody for cbt, it's not specific to tinnitus.

So it's almost like, well, okay, I know about thoughts, I know about things, but the tinnitus is the thing that's bothering me here.

And we're not talking about it.

And it's because they don't really have that expertise on the auditory system.

So with the auditory limbic neuroregulation model, it's all about tying together our auditory system, our emotional system, and our attentional system and trying to regulate our nervous system.

Okay, so just explain those three systems to me and also why it's so important for you to hit all three of those.

Absolutely.

So with the auditory system, we're looking at the ear and the brain and what's going on there.

Is there any dysfunction there?

Is there anything we can repair?

So if it's wax, can we get rid of the wax?

If it's an infection, can we treat that?

If it's hearing loss, are we looking at hearing aids?

So it's really important to treat that because if we're not hearing as well as we should be, our brain is kind of deprived from the sound that it's expecting, and it starts to generate this signal, tinnitus.

But then we've got the emotional system, which we talked about.

So if we are very stressed, if we're telling the brain that it's a threat and we're going into that fight or flight reaction, you know, that again, just kind of perpetuates the issue.

So we want to try and deal with our thoughts, our feelings about felt tinnitus, and learn how to regulate the nervous system through that.

But the attentional system, again, maybe is one that does get ignored a little bit.

We pay attention to the things that we fear.

So, for example, if there was a lion by the door right now, we would.

You'd struggle to hear what I'm saying.

You'd be looking every minute to see if it's there.

Is it getting worse?

Is it getting closer?

And that's exactly what our brain is doing with tinniton, if it's deemed a threat.

So we need to try and teach the brain that actually the tinnitus isn't a threat.

You don't have to pay so much attention to this anymore.

I find it really fascinating about how much of an impact the brain plays in this and the story that we're telling ourselves about what's going on in our ears.

Why is it so important for you to tie in that emotional element to it?

Like, personally?

What is it about that?

Yeah, I think we can't really treat tinnitus or manage tinnitus unless we understand that emotional aspect.

A lot of people worry about the fact that they can't get away from the sound.

I have no control over it.

And in theory, yes, like, our brain will do what it does.

Tinnitus, I should say, is a brain signal, so a lot of people think it's their ears, but it's actually coming from the brain.

So.

So the brain will do what it does.

It responds to any sort of stimuli around us, any messages.

We're telling ourselves within us as well now, where we get the control is the messages we're feeding it.

So that's where the emotional system really comes into it.

If we're telling ourselves that our life is ruined, our nervous system, our brain is going to react in that way and it's going to keep deeming it a threat.

So that's why it's so important.

Yeah.

Due to the.

I think most people's fear of it and negative thoughts around it come from not actually understanding it.

We spoke before about these words and these.

These things that people know what tinnitus is, but they don't really know what it is.

So that.

That understanding, once they start to understand, is that when we see improvement.

Absolutely, absolutely.

And with the auditory limbic neuroregulation model, I have sort of three pillars that I focus on.

The first part is education.

We understand what is happening within us, otherwise that's where the fear stems from.

Then we want to then talk about how do we regulate it, and then we want to talk about neuroplasticity and that's our brain's ability to rewire itself.

Yeah.

Tell me a bit about the, like, the GP side of this.

Is there still a lot more education needed there?

Because I know sometimes with these sort of things, people go to their GP and they don't quite get the help they need early enough.

Is that something that we see in this space as well?

Absolutely.

Naturally, when something happens like this, the first port of call usually is our gp.

And sadly, you know, they just.

They can't be experts in everything.

Rightly so.

They.

There's a real lack of knowledge about what tinnitus is, even within medicine.

I mean, I've spoken to many doctors.

I've been told anecdotally that they get about seven minutes in seven years is about tinnitus.

Wow.

You know, so when that's your first experience and you're looking for knowledge from somebody that says back to you, there's nothing that can be done, it can be catastrophic for the individual.

So.

Yeah.

Is that something you'd like to see changed or.

Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, there are charities, like I say, charities.

There's only one major national charity in the UK working specifically on tinnitus, which is called Tinnitus uk.

And I know they've done a lot of campaigning and terms of trying to educate gps, I'd love to see that changed.

I'm hoping, you know, one day I'll be able to get a book out at every GP across the country, just so they can at least point patients in the right direction of where to get information if they don't have it themselves.

It would be incredible if that could change.

Yeah.

And in terms of.

You mentioned books, so let's turn the conversation to your, your recent book.

So it's called beyond the Noise.

Tell me a bit about why now is the right time for you to write that.

Yeah, it took two years.

Why?

I found that there were a lot of people who needed the information that couldn't always get access to it.

And I just thought with a book it's the easiest way really to try and put a lot of my knowledge.

Of course I can't personalize it to the patient, which I find is incredibly useful when you get that opportunity to do that.

But there's a lot of knowledge in there that I can just disseminate to a lot of people out there.

And yeah, it's that timelessness of a book as well, isn't it?

You can, you can put it in the GP practice and people can pick it up and read and go.

Actually, I, I resonate with that and I totally see, oh, I know someone who resonates with it through the process.

Those two years of writing that book.

Then how did it, well, did it change your perception of synthesis at all?

Did you learn anything new through doing that?

I guess one thing that I really focused on in the book that I learned that was super.

I mean, I knew it already, of course, because a lot of the things that are in the book, I practice with my patients and I practice with myself, but a huge part of it was self compassion and how much, you know, those self critical thoughts can really impact how well you cope with tinnitus.

And it's something that gets dismissed a lot.

You know, we don't get taught or many of us don't get taught, you know, to be compassionate to ourselves.

We're so compassionate towards others, but people don't realize how much that can dysregulate your nervous system when you are beating yourself up about this.

So I guess through the book that was a huge component that I wanted to get in.

I was worried about getting in because I thought people would think, oh, this, oh Here we go.

You know, this is fluff, but I knew how important it was.

I even put a bit in there that says, don't skip this part, because naturally, before developing it, I probably would have myself.

Yeah, that's so interesting because, like, speaking to you today, I can tell how important that aspect of it is, and I'm sure it comes across in the book as well.

Do you ever get, like, raised eyebrows from people you see, when you try and put that much emphasis on that area of it, of that self compassion?

Absolutely.

I'd like to think that generally when people come to see me, they already know that I'm about that, you know, nervous system regulation.

But I get a lot of people that don't believe it, that think this is just nonsense, there's something going on with me, there's something wrong, and I just want to pill.

Yeah, they're still in that part of the grieving stage where there's a lot of denial and anger.

And when we talk about tinnitus, we need to get to a place of acceptance.

That doesn't mean you have to like it or you have to approve it, but until we get there, it's hard to move forward.

So generally, people at the earliest stages or the people that are still sort of fighting this experience, major, major raised.

Eyebrows, else just delve into that acceptance aspect of it.

Then how are you encouraging patients to do that?

Is there a process you have?

Yeah, million dollar question.

Because I think a lot of patients will say, I hear about acceptance, I hear about acceptance, I know that I'll move forward.

If I accept it, I accept it, what next?

But they don't.

So it is a process.

It does take time.

It's not something that you can force.

But when we start to live by our values, if we've got things that are important to us, like you mentioned going to gigs, if all of a sudden, you know, in touch with this doesn't happen to you, you know that you develop tinnitus and you thought, I can't go to gigs anymore.

That would be really hard to accept tinnitus, because you think this has robbed me from something that is bringing me so much joy.

So what we want to do is start to think, right, how can I take committed action to go getting back into my life doing the things that I love, Love with tinnitus, that's how acceptance starts to grow.

And how would you start to get back to?

So if something obvious like gigs or nightclubs or whatever it is has caused tinnitus and we can sort of through deduction, work out what that is.

How can we start to get back to that?

Yeah, I think working with somebody that has certain strategies or experience or has worked with many people previously to be able to help you and guide you through that process is really useful.

But one of the strategies that we use, it's based on a psychological intervention called acceptance and commitment therapy.

And again, like I say, it's well one, we want to really use self compassion, forgive ourselves for the things that we didn't really know.

You know, whether that was I didn't protect my ears when I was younger.

You know, you were doing the best with the information you had at the time.

How do we move forward from that now?

You know, we want to start to get rid of the self blame.

We want to think, okay, what can I do moving forward?

How can I stop the catastrophic thoughts of okay, well this, what if it gets worse?

What if I don't ever?

You know, all of that helps us move forward in a way where our nervous system is calmer.

The tinnitus may or may not still be there, but we're still taking that leap of faith into to our valued actions.

Awesome.

It's.

It's the thing that's so interesting to me is the, the mental aspect of it and how that's what before today I saw as like a physical thing is actually amplified massively and almost it seems like majority of potentially by what we're doing up here and what we're thinking about it.

Definitely in terms of your book for the people that read that maybe split it into the people who do have tinnitus who are reading it and maybe people that don't, but they still want to learn about it.

What are the things you want them to take away?

Maybe one key thing from that's good question.

Hope.

Definitely hope.

And in terms of the reviews coming through at the moment, it's definitely that feeling of wow, I feel like I'm being guided through this process.

I don't feel, feel so alone.

I resonate with a lot that's in there and now I believe that I can overcome this.

Just that in itself is enough.

Okay.

And we've spoken a lot about the person who is living with tinnitus.

But for someone like myself, like anyone who's living with someone who is living with tinnitus, so that person is indirectly affected by it maybe how can we support them?

Better.

Communication, I think is a big part.

Sometimes we feel like we have to fix it for them and if we can't fix it for them it's like, well, then I don't know what to say.

You know, sometimes frustration can build up and actually it might just be that it's nothing to do with the tinnitus.

It's not, oh, there must be a doctor that can fix this.

Should we go and see somebody else?

Sometimes they just need a hug.

Sometimes they just needed to get it out.

They needed that space.

So not always necessarily giving advice, but just creating that safe space for them to just let out how they're feeling.

Yeah, that's such, such good advice.

I mean, just to tangent off that and sort of echo it.

I worked, sort of volunteered for a year as a Samaritan's listener.

So picking up the phone to people in crisis.

The thing that really amazed me about that training was the fact that you're not allowed to give advice.

It's all about listening.

Because if you listen and you give that person the space to speak and you let them explore their own thoughts and you throw back some questions based on what they've said, they can actually make their way to that answer.

And we're so.

And it's not a bad thing that we want to help people, right?

So.

So when someone comes to you with a problem, if we love that person, we want to help them.

Even if we don't love that person, we still might want to help them.

So just coming straight out with a solution doesn't give that person any power.

So by.

By helping them explore their own answers and get to that solution themselves, that gives so much more power.

Definitely, yeah.

With the patients that you've treated over the years and the people you've worked with, what has it taught you about resilience and human adaptability?

We are incredibly resilient, aren't we?

We are.

I think we don't always know how resilient we are when we are in that state of crisis.

And exactly what you've just said there, by listening and helping the patients realize that they have.

Have been resilient before and they, they can pull on those skills and the things that they've used before, those strengths that they have, it's incredible.

And then not just us as, you know, as beings, but our brains are incredibly resilient.

Neuroplasticity, the ability to learn new things.

A lot of people say, well, I can't change.

I've always been hard on myself.

You know, it's just who I am.

Or I'm type A personality, I can't change.

We can all change.

We can all change.

Sometimes we don't Know how to.

Sometimes we just need to be guided to.

But it's incredible when people overcome it and realize that they've, you know, that they are resilient.

Yeah.

That point of.

Like you say, when people come through it, they still can't recognize that they were resilient, but by the definition of the fact that they went through something tough and they came out the other side, that is resilience in itself.

So.

Absolutely.

But again, that's the mind telling us we're always negative to ourselves, aren't we?

Absolutely.

This is so true.

And a lot of people, when they've had tinnitus coaching, they will.

You know, I don't think I've ever had somebody that hasn't said it's had an impact on ev.

Sorry.

On other areas of their lives.

So.

So we spoke about your book that you've released.

You've also just started your own podcast as well.

I have.

Talk about that quickly.

Tell me about what.

What you hope to share through that podcast.

Yeah.

This came from getting a message on Instagram, just being told that if I kept talking about tinnitus being something you could live with, there wouldn't be enough research and funding going into it, which is not true.

Firstly, there's a lot of research behind the scenes, a lot going on.

We need more.

More for sure.

But there is, you know, we're not sitting around doing nothing, let's put it that way.

However, I don't believe we have to be super negative about it to achieve that.

I think people need to see that there are positive stories out there, that there is.

We.

We need to be able to deliver hope, and there's not enough of that.

So I'm specifically looking at people that have overcome it, because what happens, especially with my clients, they get over it and they're like, okay, okay, sayonara, Bye.

Bye.

I don't want to talk about this ever again.

And even the person that they were, you know, a few months earlier or a year before, you know, they were searching for those positive stories.

So now there's a lot of people that do want to give back.

And I just want that podcast to be somewhere that if somebody needed a success story, they could go into that.

Yeah.

Something to sort of resonate with and.

Absolutely.

And just on those people that you said, they.

They come to you, they learn how to live with it, maybe it improves slightly.

Do they ever then fall back into it where it gets worse again and they sort of forget what they learned from you?

Yeah.

So we do experience fluctuations, spikes, including Myself, you know, through difficult circumstances in life, sometimes you think, whoa, what has happened here?

And you forget everything, however, but it's really.

Well, it's impossible to go back to rock bottom because you realize, even if it is, I need to contact Gladys.

Just knowing that there's somewhere that you can go that helped before, or I need to go back to my therapist or my doctor that helped me, and then it might be okay getting that reminder of those tools and it all starts coming back.

And what happens is that spike might pass quicker, it might not, but you might cope better during it compared to what it was like before.

Before, yeah.

I suppose that first step is the hardest one.

Once you've done it, once you've got that contact, you know who you can go back to, who helped you before.

And knowing that you've improved as well before just having that.

Absolutely.

It's like building evidence, a little pile of evidence you can look back on and go, actually, I did do that.

I did that hard thing then.

So anyone listening right now who is maybe living with tinnitus and thinks it's ruined their life, it's changed, it's robbed experiences from them, as you said earlier, what would you say to them right now?

I recognize how hard this is.

It is hard.

It is difficult.

Something difficult to live with.

But there is hope.

There is hope.

There are things that can be done.

Despite whatever you read on the Internet, there are many, many people living well with tinnitus, and there's no reason why you can't.

If something doesn't work for you, keep fighting to find something else that works for you.

You know, there will be something, but just don't give up that hope.

Yeah, hope's the key.

Absolutely the key part of that.

Right?

Awesome.

So the way I like to finish my episodes, Gladys, is to ask my guest to leave a question for the listener.

So I like to listen to podcasts and go away and have conversations about what I've listened to.

So in order to help the listener of this podcast to do that, if you could leave a question for them that they could go and speak to a family friend, stranger, to start a conversation, what would that question be?

I like this one.

I like this one.

Maybe something we haven't really discussed, but you can imagine it's part of a huge.

Part of what I do is gratitude.

So I would leave, I'd ask you to ask somebody, what was your diamond of the day?

And by that I mean, what was the best thing that happened to you today?

Because what happens with that is you have to scan through your day, think of all the good things that happened and it might be a cup of coffee, it might be that you didn't miss your train, it might be, you know, that someone said you were wearing a nice dress or something.

And then you have to pick the single best thing that happened that day.

And when we express gratitude, it releases endorphins, all the feel good hormones within us and helps it ease anxiety.

It gets you thinking about the positive aspects of your day, right?

Absolutely.

Gladys, I've enjoyed this conversation.

I've learned so much.

So I really appreciate you coming on.

Thank you.

If people want to find you online, keep up to date, find the book.

Where can they do that?

So Instagram's probably where I am mainly, so that's at Tinnitus with Gladys.

The book is on Amazon.

If you search beyond the noise or search Gladys Sander, it will be there.

Awesome.

I'll link it all below so anyone listening can just scroll down and click on it.

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Other than that, thank you for listening, stay curious and I will see you in the next one.