The anatomy and physiology of the jaw and the nervous systems for tinnitus due to clenching and stress.

Applying a 15 minute daily exercise including vagal toning, tapping and massage followed by breath and meditation over the course of 4 weeks with 2 weekly check ins for adjustments.

The Cleveland Clinic states that Tinnitus can take 12-24 months to go away with treatments. There are no known cases for tinnitus recorded.

49 year old female healthy and active practices yoga daily
She is recently divorced and has 2 young children the tinnitus started around this time and gets worse with stress. She has TMJ and clenches during stress and at night when sleeping.

I was envisioning researching and learning new ways during working with this client. Tinnitus has not been proved curable so the causes can be a vast amount of things. Experimenting with many different yogic and holistic approach to the human body to try to lesson the ringing. Beginning with the jaw and moving to learning ways to calm the nervous system but also to find different pressure points in the body and where they connect to the ears and jaw.

Combinations of Raja, Bhakti and Juana were used daily for calming the mind during meditation. There was a repetitive mantra to not identify with the stress that is related to the tinnitus. Clearing the mind in this practice for balance, peace, wisdom and self love.
The goal was to support this client in centering practices while performing certain mantras and rubbing or tapping pressure points to release the rest and digest response to alleviate stress.

There is some clicking in this clients jaw showing it is off-line on the TMJ.
The TMJ is a ball and socket hinge located at the back of the jaw. A bony bump at the front of the socket called the articular eminence prevents the jaw from slipping out of place.
So we decided to also use a mouth piece during sleep to soften the clenching.

The tapping was the most successful tool we used. I found during meditation that the ringing would turn of or lessen in the volume. So this will conintue to be a daily practice.

A 10-year research program at Harvard Medical School using fMRI technology to study brain activity found that “stimulation of acupressure points rapidly reduces limbic system arousal.” In other words, tapping helps calm the activity of the amygdala, the part of our brain that manages our nervous system’s response to a threat (real, perceived, or anticipated) while we give voice to the challenging thoughts and emotions that arise.

Tapping rewires the brain’s response to the threat—and the thoughts and emotions associated with it—and we experience more calm in our body as the relaxed amygdala sends the signal to the endocrine system to stop producing stress hormones. As the nervous system shifts into the relaxation response, we may experience our breath becoming slower and deeper, our heart rate slowing down, and an easing of troubling thoughts and big emotions.

Yes, The intended plan was met and there was a great deal of progress in the stress management and tinnitus. This is an on going practice because the tinnitus is still there even though it managed in healthier ways.

We adapted weekly by adding mantras for what was going on that week, listening to where the stress is coming from and if there were changes in the tinnitus. Devotional meditations towards self love and peace were added and it was a powerful lesson.
Pressure points in the face and jaw and hands were used and it was very interesting and positive towards the experience.

I would definitely approach it the same way, with the short daily accessible practices. People tend to make excuses when faced with too much or too many tasks.
Moving forward more can be added on to the daily practice or even less time if time is an issue but making the commitment to see the results in the body and mind. Educating clients that deactivating the 'fight or flight' response using techniques that calm the brain's danger centers, resetting the nervous system by identifying & eliminating old pain patterns and forming new neural pathways by learning to send the brain signals of safety when practiced even 5 minutes a day balances the mind and body allowing peace to fill the space.
This can help with countless "dis-eases" not just stress and tinnitus.