No cure or approved medicine switches ringing in the ears off, but background sound and calming the stress response help tonight, while treating removable causes, hearing aids for hearing loss, and CBT help longer term.
"Stopping" tinnitus means two different things. Tonight, it means making the sound less intrusive so you can sleep or think. Over months, it means finding out whether anything is driving it and shrinking how much of your life it takes up. The US National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) states the starting point plainly: there is currently no cure for tinnitus, but there are ways to reduce symptoms.
First, check for the urgent exceptions
Most tinnitus is not an emergency. A few patterns are, and a couple more deserve a prompt check:
- Hearing loss that came on suddenly, over three days or less, in the past 30 days. The UK's NICE tinnitus guideline asks for these people to be seen within 24 hours, and sudden hearing loss explains why the days matter.
- Sudden neurological symptoms such as facial weakness, severe uncontrolled vertigo, or a suspected stroke. NICE's instruction is immediate referral.
- Thoughts of suicide. NICE asks clinicians to refer anyone whose tinnitus comes with a high risk of suicide to a crisis mental health team immediately. If that is you tonight, contact emergency services or a crisis line now rather than waiting for an appointment.
- Tinnitus that pulses in time with your heartbeat, or is in one ear only. Neither is an emergency, but NICE recommends offering imaging for pulsatile tinnitus, and the US guideline from the American Academy of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS) asks for a prompt hearing assessment when tinnitus is one-sided.
The free when to see a doctor checklist walks through most of these patterns and several more, and is tinnitus a sign of something serious? covers tumours, stroke and MS.
What helps tonight
Put sound in the room. NIDCD describes tabletop sound generators, a radio or a household fan placed near the bed as aids to relaxation and sleep, and says that if tinnitus is mild this might be all you need to fall asleep. The 2024 VA/DoD guideline suggests the therapeutic use of sound for tinnitus self-care. Keep it comfortable rather than loud, because NICE lists exposure to loud noise among the things that can make tinnitus worse. The free sound library plays white, pink and brown noise in a browser, and sleeping with tinnitus covers how to set sound up for the night.
If it started after loud noise, give your ears a rest. NIDCD says loud noise sometimes causes a temporary hearing loss that disappears 16 to 48 hours later, though there may be lasting damage even when hearing seems to return, and that tinnitus from noise may subside over time but can sometimes continue for life. Avoiding more loud sound meanwhile follows from the NICE advice above. NICE's 24-hour rule covers anyone with tinnitus and hearing loss that developed over three days or less, with no exception for noise, so muffled hearing after loud noise is worth checking promptly rather than waiting out. Ringing after a concert covers what "temporary" does and does not mean.
NIDCD also lists a single intense impulse sound, such as a gunshot or an explosion, among the causes of noise-induced hearing loss. For hearing loss from acute acoustic trauma, a 2024 meta-analysis describes steroids as the mainstay of treatment. Pooling 662 steroid-treated ears, it found that 72% recovered some hearing and 28% recovered fully, rates its authors attach to steroids started within the first two weeks. There was no untreated comparison group, so those figures describe outcomes rather than prove what the steroids contributed. They are still a reason to be seen within 24 hours, under the NICE rule above. Hunters and shooters covers prevention.
Take the edge off the stress response. NICE names stress alongside loud noise as something that can make tinnitus worse, and lists relaxation strategies among the self-help it wants people to be told about. The SOS breathing tool is a three-minute guided exercise for exactly this moment. It will not change the sound; it can change how much the moment takes out of you.
When a sound switches it off for a moment. Some people notice their tinnitus vanish briefly once a sound stops, an effect called residual inhibition. A systematic review of 17 studies and 1,066 patients found complete residual inhibition in 34.5% of them, and concluded that adequate evidence for using it as a management option is still pending. Residual inhibition covers how long it lasts, and the tinnitus tapping trick looks at the viral quick fix.
Skip the pills. NIDCD says there are no medications specifically for treating tinnitus, none approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, and that none of the vitamins, herbal extracts and supplements advertised as cures has been proven effective. If you suspect a medicine you already take, raise it with the prescriber rather than stopping it on your own; the medication checker shows what the research says about a specific drug.
Will it go away on its own?
Sometimes. NICE wants people told at their first appointment that tinnitus is common and may resolve by itself. NIDCD says tinnitus may improve or even go away over time, but in some cases worsens, and counts it as chronic once it has lasted three months.
The numbers behind that reassurance are modest, and from small or selective groups:
- In a German study of 47 people seen within four weeks of their tinnitus starting, 5 (11%) had complete remission six months after onset. Three of those 5 had a treated cause: one a middle ear infection, given an antibiotic, and two sudden hearing loss, given steroids, after which their hearing recovered. Remission was more common when tinnitus began with a noticeable hearing loss.
- A 2018 meta-analysis of people assigned to no treatment in controlled trials found a small but significant fall over time in how much tinnitus affected them, with considerable individual variation and a clinical significance its authors call unknown.
- Among 388 patients with chronic tinnitus from a specialist clinic, only 3 (0.8%) reported at follow-up that it had gone. Distress fell on average, while the tinnitus characteristics they described, such as loudness, did not change. Only 32% of the patients contacted replied, and the authors note remission may be underestimated.
What happens early may matter. In a 2021 systematic review, four of the 16 longitudinal studies followed people from new tinnitus onward; in those, tinnitus distress, general psychological distress and tinnitus-related trouble falling asleep were among the predictors of chronic, disabling tinnitus. The reviewers call this research rare and methodologically weak. The German study's authors conclude that everyone with new tinnitus should be screened for depression and tinnitus-related distress. Does tinnitus go away? sets out the long-term studies in full, and what happens if you do nothing puts a number on the improvement from waiting alone.
What helps over the longer term
Rule out a cause that can be removed
When tinnitus has an underlying physical cause such as earwax or a jaw joint problem, NIDCD says addressing it can eliminate or greatly reduce the symptoms. Its advice is to start with a primary care doctor, who checks for earwax or fluid from an ear infection and asks about medicines and other conditions. The AAO-HNS guideline asks clinicians to take a targeted history and examination to find conditions that, managed promptly, may relieve tinnitus, and NICE says everyone with tinnitus should be offered a hearing assessment. Earwax and tinnitus and how tinnitus is diagnosed describe what those checks involve.
If you have hearing loss, treat the hearing loss
According to NIDCD, most people with tinnitus have some degree of hearing loss, and hearing aids are one of the main treatment options for them: they amplify outside sound while making the tinnitus less noticeable. The guidelines agree: AAO-HNS recommends a hearing aid evaluation for persistent, bothersome tinnitus with documented hearing loss, the VA/DoD guideline suggests hearing aids for adults with hearing loss, and NICE says to offer them where hearing loss affects communication, but not to people with tinnitus and no hearing loss.
The trial evidence is thinner than that agreement implies. A 2014 Cochrane review found only one randomised trial, with 91 participants; it compared hearing aids with sound generators and found no difference. It concluded there was no evidence to support or refute hearing aids as a more routine intervention for tinnitus. Hearing aids for tinnitus goes through the newer studies.
CBT for the distress
Cognitive behavioural therapy does not aim at the sound: NIDCD describes it as focused on reducing tinnitus's impact on your life, and that impact is what the trials measure. The 2020 Cochrane review included 28 randomised trials and 2,733 participants. Against a waiting list or no intervention, pooling 10 trials with 537 participants, CBT lowered Tinnitus Handicap Inventory scores by an estimated 10.91 points on a 100-point scale, more than the 7 points taken as the smallest change that matters. The certainty of that evidence was low, there was no evidence on whether the effect holds at 6 or 12 months, and the reviewers found some evidence that adverse effects may be rare.
AAO-HNS recommends CBT for persistent, bothersome tinnitus, and the VA/DoD guideline suggests it from a trained provider. NICE sets out a stepped approach for tinnitus-related distress: digital CBT provided by psychologists first, then group-based psychological therapy, then individual CBT. CBT for tinnitus and internet-based CBT cover what a course involves and how to find one.
Sound therapy: widely used, thinly tested
Sound therapy is tonight's advice used deliberately over weeks. A 2018 Cochrane review of hearing aids, sound generators and combination devices found eight studies with 590 participants, none comparing a device with a waiting list, a placebo or information alone, so there is no evidence that sound therapy beats them.
The guidelines read that uncertainty differently. AAO-HNS lists sound therapy as an option, the VA/DoD guideline suggests sound for self-care, and NICE's committee was unable to make a recommendation for practice. A 2026 umbrella review of 44 systematic reviews is warmer, listing sound and music therapy with CBT, hearing aids and tinnitus retraining therapy among the treatments that consistently improved tinnitus outcomes. Sound therapy for tinnitus weighs the two readings.
What not to spend money on
The guidelines largely agree on what not to use:
- Supplements. AAO-HNS recommends against ginkgo biloba, melatonin, zinc and other dietary supplements for persistent, bothersome tinnitus, and the VA/DoD guideline suggests against ginkgo, dietary or herbal supplements and nutraceuticals.
- Drugs aimed at the tinnitus itself. AAO-HNS recommends against antidepressants, anticonvulsants, anti-anxiety drugs and intratympanic medications for routine tinnitus treatment. The VA/DoD guideline suggests against anticonvulsants, antidepressants, betahistine and intratympanic steroid injections, among others, and NICE says not to offer betahistine. Treating the anxiety, low mood or poor sleep that can come with tinnitus is different: NIDCD notes that doctors may prescribe antidepressants or anti-anxiety medicines to improve mood or sleep.
- Low-level laser therapy, which the VA/DoD guideline suggests against; low-level laser therapy sets out the trials behind that.
The treatment comparison puts the options side by side, and drugs for tinnitus covers the medicines in detail.
A realistic meaning of "stop"
Given how rarely chronic tinnitus disappears, the achievable version of stopping it, for most people, is reaching the point where it no longer runs the evening. That is the outcome CBT's trials measure, and the average change among the 388 clinic patients, whose distress fell while the sound they described did not. How long it takes to get used to tinnitus covers that process, and can tinnitus be cured? covers the minority of causes where the sound itself can be made to stop.