When to Use Tinnitus Relief App: Sleep, Work, Calls & Travel
Sound Therapy
Adapts to Your Day
When to Use a Tinnitus Relief App —
Sleep, Work, Calls & Travel
Tinnitus doesn't pause for bedtime, a work deadline, or a Zoom call. This guide explains why each situation affects your tinnitus differently — and gives you the exact sound therapy settings to try in each one.
Why Your Tinnitus Feels Different at Night, at Work, and in Transit
Tinnitus volume doesn't actually change much during the day. What changes is how much your brain pays attention to it.
During the day, environmental noise — conversations, traffic, a coffee machine — partially masks the ringing. Your brain has other signals to process, so the tinnitus signal fades to the background. At night, in a quiet room, that competition disappears. Published research confirms this: 48% of tinnitus sufferers report that being in a quiet place makes their tinnitus worse.
Stress amplifies it further. When your nervous system is activated — a difficult meeting, a tight deadline, a long flight — your brain's threat detection becomes more sensitive. It scans for the tinnitus signal more frequently. Noise (31%) and relaxation (15%) are the two most commonly reported factors that help reduce perceived tinnitus.
This is why a single sound therapy setup doesn't work for every moment. Sleep needs gentle, time-limited masking. Work needs barely-there background sound. Calls need sound that doesn't interrupt the other person. Travel needs stronger masking to compete with engine noise.
The settings below are based on common user patterns and published principles of sound therapy. They are starting points, not prescriptions. Adjust to what feels right for you.
Falling Asleep With Tinnitus
Sleep is the number one problem tinnitus sufferers report. Research suggests that insomnia prevalence in tinnitus patients ranges from 40% to over 50%, with a vicious cycle: poor sleep makes tinnitus worse, and worse tinnitus disrupts sleep further.
The reason is straightforward. As your bedroom goes quiet, the contrast between your tinnitus and the environment increases sharply. Your brain, no longer busy processing daytime stimuli, locks onto the ringing.
Sound therapy at night works by reducing that contrast. You're not trying to drown out the tinnitus — you're giving your brain another signal to process, so the tinnitus stops dominating your attention. Published research on this approach recommends that masking sounds should not completely cover the tinnitus. Partial masking is more effective for long-term habituation. Studies also suggest that 30 or more minutes of daily sound therapy — particularly before sleep — may reduce emotional distress scores over time.
A pure sine tone at your matched frequency can be alerting rather than calming. Broad-spectrum sounds like rain or pink noise feel more natural and are less likely to keep your brain in "analytical mode." Save frequency matching for daytime use when you're alert.
Practical tip: Keep the same sound and volume for at least 7 consecutive nights before adjusting. Consistency helps your brain learn to treat the sound as a sleep cue rather than something new to analyze. If you still struggle after a week, try switching from rain to brown noise — it's deeper and some users find it more calming. → Full sleep guide
Staying Focused at Work With Tinnitus
Concentration problems are one of the most reported functional impacts of tinnitus. The ringing competes with the cognitive task you're trying to perform, especially during reading, writing, or any work that requires sustained attention.
Unlike sleep, you don't need heavy masking here. You need a light, consistent background signal — just enough to reduce the contrast between your tinnitus and the office environment. Think of it like background music in a café: present but not distracting.
Pink noise works well for extended work sessions because it has more energy in lower frequencies than white noise, making it feel softer and less harsh over hours of listening. Some users prefer coffee shop ambience because its irregular, natural rhythms are less monotonous than pure noise.
If your tinnitus feels particularly intrusive, adding your matched frequency at very low volume (10–15%) can provide more targeted relief. This works because it fills the exact frequency band your tinnitus occupies, reducing contrast more efficiently than broadband noise alone. Turn it off if it becomes distracting.
Practical tip: Pair sound therapy with a Pomodoro timer — 25 minutes of focused work, then a 5-minute break. Tinnitus-related concentration breaks are normal. Structured breaks prevent frustration from building up. → Tinnitus & stress management
Sound Therapy During Calls, Zoom, and Teams
This is the situation that inspired the app.
When someone with tinnitus joins a video call, the ringing doesn't stop. Between sentences, during pauses, while listening — the tinnitus fills every silence. Most existing tinnitus apps pause the moment another app uses audio. Your sound therapy stops exactly when you need it most.
Tinnitus Relief App was built to solve this. Background play keeps your selected masking sound running during phone calls, Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, and FaceTime. The other person hears nothing different. You hear gentle relief underneath the conversation.
The app uses an audio mixing mode that layers sound therapy underneath other audio sources instead of competing with them. This is why you can play a YouTube video, take a call, or join a meeting — and the masking never stops. This is the app's core feature, and it's free. No subscription required.
Practical tip: Start playing sound therapy 2–3 minutes before your call begins. This gives your brain time to settle into the masking before you need to concentrate on conversation. The other participants will not hear your masking sounds — only you do. → How background play works
"We tested 15 tinnitus apps over 15 days. Every single one stopped playing during phone calls. This one was built to never stop."
Background play during calls, meetings, and multitasking is free. No signup, no trial, no subscription required.
Try Background Play Free →
Managing Tinnitus While Traveling
Travel environments create a specific problem for tinnitus. Airplane cabin noise, train vibrations, and road hum generate sustained low-frequency sound that doesn't mask tinnitus but does increase overall auditory stress. Your brain processes both the engine noise and the ringing, leading to faster fatigue. For people who also experience hyperacusis (heightened sensitivity to everyday sounds), the combination of engine rumble and tinnitus can be especially draining.
This is the one situation where stronger masking makes sense. Brown noise — deeper and richer than white or pink — matches the rumble of engines and helps reduce the overall auditory load. The frequency tone can also be useful here, adding precision masking at your specific tinnitus pitch.
All sounds work 100% offline. Download before departure. No Wi-Fi or mobile data needed once the app is installed.
Brown noise concentrates energy in lower frequencies, overlapping with engine noise. This creates a more uniform sound environment, reducing the contrast between engine rumble and your higher-pitched tinnitus. Pink and white noise are also effective — the best option is whichever feels most comfortable to you during travel.
Practical tip: If you're flying, bring noise-isolating earbuds rather than open-back headphones. They reduce the baseline engine noise, which means your masking sound can be set lower. Lower volume = less ear fatigue on long flights. → White vs. pink vs. brown noise explained
Gentle Background Relief for Daily Activities
Not every moment calls for active management. At home — reading, cooking, watching TV — you may not need full masking. But complete silence can let the ringing creep back into focus, especially during quieter moments.
The goal here is habituation support. By maintaining a very gentle background sound throughout daily activities, you reduce the number of times your brain "rediscovers" the tinnitus after a period of not noticing it. This is consistent with the principle behind Tinnitus Retraining Therapy (TRT), which uses low-level broadband noise to promote long-term neural adaptation.
Some users find that structured, evolving sounds — like fractal tones or slowly shifting soundscapes — maintain gentle stimulation without becoming repetitive. Unlike static noise, these sounds introduce subtle variation that keeps your auditory system softly engaged without demanding attention.
This is the use case where consistency matters most. Published research suggests that habituation develops over weeks and months. The key is not intensity — it's regularity.
Practical tip: Play through your phone speaker or a Bluetooth speaker instead of headphones. This gives your ears a break while still filling quiet rooms with enough texture to prevent tinnitus from dominating. → How habituation works
When Your Tinnitus Suddenly Gets Louder
Tinnitus spikes — sudden, temporary increases in volume — are common and often triggered by stress, noise exposure, lack of sleep, or no identifiable reason at all. They are distressing, but they are almost always temporary.
The immediate instinct is to panic. This is counterproductive. Stress is both a trigger and an amplifier of tinnitus. Research shows that 36% of tinnitus patients identify stress as a factor that makes their tinnitus worse, and among those whose tinnitus worsens with lack of sleep, 67% also report it worsens with stress. The spike-anxiety cycle is real.
Your response during a spike should be: sound therapy on, breathing slow, expectations calm. The goal is not to eliminate the spike immediately. It's to prevent the anxiety response from extending it.
During normal use, partial masking promotes habituation. During a spike, your priority shifts from long-term training to short-term relief. Slightly louder masking provides faster reduction in perceived contrast. Limit this to 10–15 minutes, then return to normal levels. Extended loud masking can cause auditory fatigue.
Practical tip: Pre-save a "spike" preset in the app so you don't have to think about settings when you're stressed. The fewer decisions you need to make during a spike, the faster your nervous system calms down. → Emergency relief protocol
Quick Reference: Settings by Situation
Save this table or screenshot it for quick access.
| Situation | Sound | Frequency Tone | Volume | Timer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🌙 Sleep | Rain / Pink Noise | OFF | ~20% | 60–90 min |
| 💼 Work | Pink Noise / Café | Optional (10–15%) | ~15–20% | 30 min loops |
| 📞 Calls | White Noise | OFF | ~10–15% | Continuous |
| ✈️ Travel | Brown Noise / White | ON (20–25%) | ~25–30% | 15 min loops |
| 🏠 Home | Forest / Fireplace | Optional (low) | ~10–15% | Continuous |
| 🚨 Spike | White Noise | ON (matched, 20–25%) | ~25–30% | 10–15 min |
These are starting points based on common user patterns and published sound therapy principles. Your tinnitus is individual — adjust sounds, volumes, and durations based on what feels most comfortable.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a tinnitus app cure tinnitus?
No. No app can cure tinnitus. Tinnitus Relief App is a sound therapy tool that helps manage symptoms by reducing the perceived contrast between tinnitus and your environment. Published studies suggest that consistent app-based sound therapy may reduce distress over time, but individual results vary. This is not a medical device. If your tinnitus is sudden, one-sided, pulsatile, or comes with hearing loss, dizziness, or pain, see a healthcare professional.
Does tinnitus actually get worse at night?
Tinnitus doesn't usually get physically louder at night. It becomes more noticeable because environmental noise drops and your brain has fewer competing signals to process. Research from the University of Oxford suggests a relationship between sleep stages and tinnitus-related brain activity — as deep sleep pressure decreases through the night, tinnitus signals may reassert themselves. Sound therapy addresses this by maintaining gentle background sound.
Can I use the app during Zoom or Teams meetings?
Yes — this is the app's core feature. Sound therapy keeps playing during Zoom, Teams, Google Meet, FaceTime, and regular phone calls. Most tinnitus apps pause when another app uses audio. This app was specifically designed to never pause. The other person cannot hear your masking sounds. This feature is free.
How long until I notice improvement?
Many users report immediate comfort during active use. Longer-term habituation — where tinnitus becomes less noticeable even without the app — typically develops over weeks to months. A six-month study published in PLOS Digital Health found that 72% of participants showed clinically meaningful improvement on the Tinnitus Handicap Inventory. Consistency matters more than session duration.
Which types of tinnitus does the app help with?
The app is designed for subjective tinnitus — the most common type, where you perceive sound without an external source. This includes ringing, buzzing, hissing, humming, and similar sounds. It supports frequency matching from 125 Hz to 15,000 Hz. It is not designed for pulsatile tinnitus (rhythmic sounds that follow your heartbeat), which may indicate a vascular condition that should be evaluated by a doctor.
Is it safe to listen to masking sounds all day?
At comfortable volumes, extended use of broadband masking sounds is generally considered safe. The World Health Organization recommends keeping personal listening device volume below 60% of maximum, and limiting extended headphone use. Most tinnitus sound therapy operates at 10–30% device volume, well within safe thresholds. Take breaks if your ears feel fatigued. This is general information, not medical advice.
Should I use headphones or a speaker?
Both work. Headphones provide more precise masking and are necessary for frequency matching and ear-by-ear adjustments. Speakers are better for extended home use and give your ears a physical break. For sleep, some users play through a phone speaker on the nightstand. For calls and work, headphones or earbuds are more practical.
What's included for free vs. premium?
Free features include background play during calls and multitasking, white noise, pink noise, gentle rain, basic frequency matching, and one saved preset. Premium adds 40+ therapeutic sounds (brown noise, ocean, forest, fireplace, and more), sleep timer with fade-out, unlimited presets, ear-by-ear frequency control, and progress tracking.
Sound Therapy for Every Part of Your Day
One app. Six situations. Background play that never stops — even during calls. Free to start.
Download Free →