Tinnitus Wizard — Evidence-Based Sound Therapy for Tinnitus Relief

TinnitusWizard
Today's Session
Choose your session type. Foundation for weeks 1–2, more modes unlock as you progress.Select mode. Week 1–2: Foundation only. Modes unlock progressively.
Brain learning boost active — great time for your sessionBDNF window active — start your session now
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Session active
0:0060:00
😴 Auto-fading to silence over the chosen session length…
Session Mode
Foundation
Shaped sound therapy with a gap at your tinnitus pitch. Your core daily session.
Notched noise + edge-frequency boost + optional coherent breathing. Core daily driver.
Always
Pattern TonesACRN Focus
Specially timed tones that help break up the overactive pattern causing tinnitus. Headphones required.
Hann-windowed desynchronisation tones. Web Audio ±1ms timing. Headphones required.
PRO + Wk 3
Combined Touch & SoundBimodal Focus
In the clinical device trials about half of people had a meaningful drop in tinnitus. Combines sound with gentle jaw clenching. Headphones required.
Shore RCT (Marks 2018; JAMA Netw Open 2023): ~53% had a clinically significant TFI drop vs ~20% sham. Note: trial used electrical stim; this app uses voluntary somatic timing. Trigeminal → DCN. Headphones required.
PRO + Wk 5
Morning Boost
Energising session for the morning when stress hormones are lower. Max 30 minutes.
Beta 20 Hz binaural + Gamma 40 Hz + Notched. Low-cortisol optimised. Max 30 min.
Morning
Sleep Protocol
Pick from four calming soundscapes with a gentle delta beat. Fades out as you fall asleep. UI dims to deep red.
Broadband masker (brown/pink/green choice) + low-level 1.5 Hz delta + optional transient rain, breath envelope, spatial drift, and fractal chimes. Auto-fades to a quiet floor over the chosen session length. No therapeutic notch.
Sleep
Foundation — your daily driver
Sound shaped around your tinnitus frequency calms the overactive brain cells causing the ringing. Slow breathing at 5.5 breaths per minute is one of the most effective natural ways to lower your stress response.
HF-boosted notched pink noise with edge-frequency peaking retrains lateral inhibition via tonotopic map reorganisation. Coherent breathing at 5.5 bpm is the strongest non-pharmacological HPA axis lever.
🩙 Breathing Guide
⏱ Rest Cycles
🌀 Freq Jitter LIVE
🎡 Fractal Tones 🔒 Pro
🌌 Brown Noise 🔒 Pro
Pattern Tones — targeted disruption
ACRN — precision desynchronisation
Four carefully selected tones played in a random pattern help break up the overactive brain cells causing your tinnitus.
Four Hann-windowed tones (×0.773, ×0.903, ×1.107, ×1.294 of notch freq) in pseudo-random order, scheduled at Web Audio precision (±1 ms).
🎬 Cinematic ACRN (reverb + pad + pulse)(reverb send + sub-fT pad + 1.5 Hz anchor)
Adds soft musical context around the tones for easier daily use. The four therapy tones themselves are unchanged.
Adherence aid only. The reverb is a parallel send (does not alter the dry CR tones), the pad sits ~4 octaves below fT (different tonotopic region), and the kick is at 60–75 Hz. The four CR tones, their Hann envelopes, their timing, and their spectral content are identical to non-cinematic mode. Not a claim of improved efficacy — a claim of improved adherence.
🎁 Teaser session: You have 2 free trial session(s) remaining. Upgrade to Pro for unlimited ACRN + Bimodal access.
Combined Touch & Sound — highest evidence
Bimodal — highest evidence mode
Clenching your jaw just before each tone sends a combined signal to the brain region controlling tinnitus. The timing — 20 milliseconds lead — is what produces the effect.
Somatic cue leads tone pip by 20 ms — activates trigeminal → DCN suppression.
Trigger muscle:
Place fingertip on jaw joint (TMJ, just in front of ear).
Rate:
☝ Manual tap mode
Flash colour
— gentler for light-sensitive users
📴 Haptic pulse (mobile)
Morning Boost — cortisol-aware
The energising tones suit the morning when cortisol is naturally lower. Don't use sleep or calming sessions in the morning.
Beta 20 Hz binaural is mildly alerting — correct for low morning cortisol. Gamma 40 Hz drives microglial activity and synaptic plasticity.
Sleep Protocol — consolidation mode
Pick a soundscape, then start as you get into bed. The sound thins out the contrast that makes tinnitus loud at sleep onset, then auto-fades to a quiet floor over your chosen session length (10/30/60/120 min — set above).
Broadband masker + low-level 1.5 Hz delta binaural. After a brief settle-in, the master output holds at full volume during the falling-asleep window (up to 8 min, capped at 30% of the session) then linearly ramps to a quiet floor by session end. No therapeutic notch (notching removes energy at the tinnitus frequency, which defeats sleep masking; notching also requires waking attention, which is gated off in NREM). Pick a soundscape — they differ in noise colour, masker geometry, and whether breathing-paced envelopes / spatial drift / fractal chimes are applied.
🌙 Soundscape
🩙 Breathing Guide
ready
Coherent 5.5  ·  0 cycles  ·  0:00
Session Length
Questions? Read the full FAQ — honest answers on safety, protocols, expectations & more
🕮 Evidence-Based Guides — Tinnitus Wizard Blog

Deeper reading on the science behind each therapy, calibration guides, and lifestyle evidence.

View all articles →
Your Setup
One-time calibration on Calibrate, your daily logging on Daily Log.Calibration tools left; daily trigger logging right.
Find Your PitchTinnitus Frequency Tuner
7,000Hz
Range: 4,000–11,000 Hz
4 kHz11 kHz
fine tune
Tone volume30%

Verify your headphones can reproduce your tinnitus frequency before relying on therapy.

⚠ System Volume: Always calibrate and use the app at the same hardware volume. Changing your phone or laptop volume after calibration invalidates your MML setting and makes therapy too loud or too quiet. Set your device volume once, then use the app's Master slider.
Sound Level TestMinimum Masking Level
Raise the slider slowly until your tinnitus is just barely covered. The app sets therapy volume to 80% of that level.
20%
Hearing ProfileAudiogram EQ⭐ Pro

Select the hearing pattern that best matches your audiogram. Gentle, wide compensatory boosts make therapy sound richer — without harshness.Preset-defined peaking filters (Q=0.4, max 9 dB) scaled by a global intensity multiplier. Changes are applied in real time while a session is playing.

Intensity 65%

⚠ Not medical advice — consult a hearing healthcare professional for an accurate audiogram.

🧪 Inhibition Test

After exposure to a soft focused sound at your tinnitus frequency, some people experience brief relief. This test measures whether — and by how much — your tinnitus quietens afterwards. Run it no more than once per week. Residual inhibition (RI): post-stimulatory suppression via lateral inhibition in the dorsal cochlear nucleus (DCN). Narrow-band noise (Q=8) at F0 for 60 s. RI magnitude correlates with therapeutic response in some models.

Before you begin: Find a quiet place. Remove your headphones or set volume low — the masking sound will start at a gentle level. You can adjust it during the test. Do this when you’re not already fatigued or stressed.
Stage 1 of 3 — Baseline
Sit quietly for a moment. Rate how loud your tinnitus feels right now — 0 is completely silent, 100 is the loudest you can imagine it.
50%
🎧 Bluetooth Latency Correction

Bluetooth headphones add 100–300ms of delay, which makes pairing a sound with a movement unreliable. This test gives a rough estimate of your hardware's delay. For Touch & Sound mode, wired headphones are strongly recommended. LDAC/AAC/SBC codecs add ~100–300ms latency. The Shore device achieved sub-millisecond auditory–somatosensory timing with electrical stimulation; a self-timed voluntary action cannot match that precision, and Bluetooth delay degrades it further. This test is an estimate (it includes your own reaction-time variance); use wired output for bimodal.

Current correction
0 ms
Not tested — run test first
Ready to test
Two-phase test: first you’ll react to visual flashes (to calibrate your reaction time), then audio clicks. The difference isolates your actual Bluetooth delay.

Keep your eyes on the button and tap it immediately each time it flashes or you hear a click.
Phase 1 of 2 — Visual
Wired headphones? Your latency will be near 0ms — no correction needed. This test matters most for Bluetooth users.
Daily Check-in

Log how you’re feeling — after 7+ sessions, patterns emerge that help identify your personal triggers.

😴 Sleep quality
😰 Stress level
💊 NSAIDs today?
⚡ Exercise today?
☕ Caffeine (cups)
🍷 Alcohol (last 24h)

Exercise Boost TimerBDNF Exercise Timer

Start therapy 30–60 minutes after exercise — your brain is primed for learning. The boost lasts about 90 minutes.

Brain learning boost activeBDNF window active
Profile & Volumes
Programme week
Controls which session modes are available
1
Master volume
75%
L/R Balance
Shift more sound toward your worse-affected ear
LRC
Monaural Habituation
If only one ear rings, route the notched therapy noise to just that ear. Binaural beats and rain stay in both ears.ILD therapy: route notched noise to the deafferented hemisphere only. Prevents contralateral masking from diluting the therapeutic signal.
Inhibition Sharpness
Higher = stronger edge boost. Increase for more severe or long-standing tinnitus.
Edge-frequency peak gain (dB). Steeper slope → stronger lateral inhibition at deafferented DCN neurons.
2.5 dB

Channel mix
Notched noise
65%
Pattern TonesACRN tones
50%
Binaural beats
40%
Gamma 40 Hz
55%
Rain
35%
Stuck or unsure? Read the full FAQ — pitch matching, volume, headphones, what’s normal
Your Progress
Track your 8-week programme, review your diary, and spot patterns.
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Sessions
0
Day Streak
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Avg Loudness
8-Week Programme
Most noticeable change happens in weeks 4–8. Don’t stop early.
Your 8-Week Programme
Session Diary
No sessions saved yet.
💡 Advanced Modes May Help You See Results Faster
Based on your diary, you've been consistent with Foundation — great work. ACRN and Bimodal modes have shown measurable improvement in clinical trials for many people at this stage.
🌦 Calm
These exercises activate your body's natural calm-down response. 2–3 minutes morning and evening makes a real difference.
😮‍💨
Physiological Sigh
Two short nose inhales, then one long slow exhale — fastest known way to lower your stress response.
Double nasal inhale re-inflates collapsed alveoli; extended exhale activates baroreflex. Fastest known autonomic downregulation (Balban et al. 2023, Cell Reports Medicine).
⏱ 2–3 minutes
🐝
Humming Breath
Hum on every exhale — vibration directly stimulates the vagus nerve.
Laryngeal vibration during humming activates the vagus via the recurrent laryngeal branch, increasing HRV and producing endogenous nitric oxide (Bhramari pranayama mechanism).
⏱ 2 minutes
Box Breathing
In for 4, hold for 4, out for 4, hold for 4 — used by Navy SEALs to control acute stress.
Equal-phase cyclic breathing with breath holds maximises baroreflex sensitivity and HRV amplitude through balanced sympathovagal oscillation. Validated in tactical/clinical settings.
⏱ 2–4 minutes
🌦
4-7-8 Breathing
In for 4, hold for 7, out for 8. The long exhale activates your calming system deeply.
Exhale:inhale ratio >1 prolongs the diastolic baroreflex phase, driving parasympathetic dominance. The 7-count hold facilitates CO&sub2; accumulation, sensitising the carotid bodies and deepening the subsequent exhale response.
⏱ 2 minutes
🧪
Cold Face Reflex
Cold water on forehead and cheeks triggers a powerful calming reflex — heart rate slows within seconds.
Trigeminal cold afferents (V1/V2) activate the mammalian dive reflex via the nucleus tractus solitarius → dorsal vagal nucleus pathway. HR reduction is measurable within 4–8 seconds.
⏱ 30 seconds
🧐
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Tense and release each muscle group in turn. Pairs deep physical letting-go with gentle sound acceptance.
Jacobsonian PMR reduces sympathetic tone and somatic tension. Adapted here for tinnitus: release phases include open-monitoring of the percept rather than avoidance, breaking the threat-attention loop (Cima 2014; Andersson 2002).
⏱ 5–6 minutes
👂
Mindfulness of Sound
Sit with the tinnitus. Not to silence it — to notice it without struggle. Often the loudest shifts come from this.
Open-monitoring meditation oriented around the tinnitus percept. MBSR-derived; the acceptance frame reduces limbic threat coding and supports habituation (Gans 2014; Philippot 2012; McKenna 2017).
⏱ 6 minutes
Mind & Habituation
The strongest evidence in tinnitus care is for psychological approaches — they reduce the distress and intrusiveness that make tinnitus disabling. CBT has the largest effect size of any tinnitus intervention across multiple Cochrane reviews (Fuller et al. 2020).
🧠
Understand Your Tinnitus
Why it feels loud — and why that can change
Neurophysiological model · Jastreboff · 4 min
💭
Reframe a Thought
Turn a distressing tinnitus thought into a balanced one
Cognitive restructuring (CBT) · highest evidence · 5 min
🌿
Watching the Sound
Practice letting the sound be there without fighting it
Acceptance & defusion (ACT) · Hesser 2012 · 3 min
Daily practice: Morning and evening — even 2 minutes consistently is more effective than a long irregular session.
The Science
Why your brain hears ringing, why this programme is structured the way it is, and the evidence base behind every therapy it uses. Neurobiological mechanisms of phantom auditory perception, protocol sequencing logic, and meta-analysis of clinical efficacy.
🔮
Why Your Brain Hears Ringing
Maladaptive Plasticity & Deafferentation
The real cause — it's not (just) your ear
Central gain upregulation following peripheral auditory input loss.
Foundations

Most people think tinnitus is a problem inside the ear. In most cases, the ringing you hear is actually generated by the brain. Damage to tiny hair cells in the cochlea reduces the signal reaching the auditory brain. In response, the brain "turns up the volume" (central gain) to compensate. This creates spontaneous hyperactivity that the brain interprets as sound.

Tinnitus is a neuroplastic response to partial deafferentation. Reduced cochlear input triggers homeostatic plasticity in the dorsal cochlear nucleus (DCN) and auditory cortex, upregulating synaptic gain to maintain average firing rates. This leads to spontaneous, hypersynchronous activity perceived as phantom sound.

~14%
global adult prevalence
Most
cases linked to measurable hearing changes
0%
cochlear drug efficacy in RCTs (to date)
Key references: Jastreboff PJ (1990) · Eggermont & Roberts (2004) · Shore SE (various)
🌊
Foundation: How Notched Noise Works
Tailor-Made Notched Sound Therapy (TMNST)
Playing sound with a precise gap at your tinnitus frequency
Frequency-specific lateral inhibition and tonotopic reorganization.
Level 1

Broadband noise or music with a narrow gap (notch) at your exact tinnitus frequency makes nearby brain neurons more active. Through lateral inhibition, they help quiet the overactive neurons responsible for the ringing. Over time, the brain reduces the spontaneous firing that creates the phantom sound.

By delivering energy to frequency regions flanking the tinnitus pitch (F0) while omitting energy at F0, TMNST strengthens lateral inhibition. This drives inhibitory input onto hyperactive neurons in the tonotopic map, promoting cortical reorganization and reduced hyperactivity.

Significant
loudness reduction in studies (up to 12 months)
3–6mo
typical time to peak benefit
~80%
MML target for effective partial masking
📋
Why the Programme is Structured This Way
Sequential Neuroplastic Priming
Why foundations come first and timing matters
Building plasticity threshold before targeted desynchronization and LTD.
Structure

The programme follows a deliberate sequence. Jumping ahead reduces effectiveness — each stage builds the foundation for the next.

Early stages (notched sound) prime the synaptic environment via homeostatic and inhibitory plasticity. This creates the conditions for later desynchronization (ACRN) and long-term depression (bimodal) protocols to more effectively reverse pathological synchrony.

“The absence of early subjective improvement does not mean the absence of neurobiological change.”
Wk 1–2
Neural priming — Tonotopic reorganization & lateral inhibition.
Wk 3–4
Desynchronisation — Disrupting phase-locked clusters via ACRN.
Wk 5–6
Bimodal suppression — Trigeminal-DCN LTD pathways.
Wk 7–8
Consolidation — Limbic decoupling & distress reduction.
Mo 3–6
Habituation — Sensory gating restoration.
🩙
Breathing at 5.5 Breaths Per Minute
Resonant Frequency Breathing (RFB)
Why slow breathing eases tinnitus distress
HRV-mediated autonomic & limbic modulation.
Level 1

Breathing slowly at around 5.5 breaths per minute aligns with your heart’s natural resonance. This creates a calming physiological wave that helps separate the brain’s stress centers from the sound-processing areas — reducing distress even if the ringing continues.

0.1 Hz (5.5 bpm) breathing maximizes heart rate variability (HRV) and baroreflex sensitivity. Increased vagal signaling to the nucleus tractus solitarius downregulates HPA-axis activity and uncouples amygdala-driven distress from auditory cortex activity.

Key references: Lehrer PM & Gevirtz R (2014) · Balban MV et al. (2023)
🔀
Pattern Tones: Breaking the Feedback Loop
Acoustic Coordinated Reset (ACRN)
Scrambling the synchronized "clapping" of tinnitus neurons
Desynchronization of pathological neural oscillations.
Week 3+

Tinnitus neurons often fire in synchronized bursts, like a crowd clapping together. ACRN uses four carefully spaced tones played in varying order around your tinnitus frequency. This disrupts the rhythm, breaking up the synchrony and often making the sound less intense.

Pathological synchrony and phase-locking occur in DCN and auditory cortex networks. ACRN delivers tones at specific offsets (e.g., ×0.773, ×0.903, ×1.107, ×1.294 of F0) to induce coordinated reset, shifting populations toward a desynchronized state via plasticity.

Significant
loudness & annoyance reduction in trials
Clinically meaningful
TFI / TQ improvements reported
Precise
timing important for effect
Key references: Tass PA et al. (2012) Restor Neurol Neurosci
🧠
Combined Touch & Sound: Shore Protocol
Bimodal Auditory-Somatosensory Stimulation
Timing touch and sound for stronger suppression
Stimulus-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP) at DCN.
Week 5+

By precisely timing a gentle body sensation (e.g., jaw or neck input) just before a sound reaches the brain, we create a stronger inhibitory effect on tinnitus-generating neurons than sound alone. This leverages natural brain pathways for better results.

Precise bimodal pairing (somatic input leading auditory by ~20 ms) induces long-term depression (LTD) in fusiform cells of the DCN via trigeminal-auditory convergence and spike-timing-dependent plasticity.

Clinically meaningful
improvements in multiple RCTs (e.g., TFI reductions)
Significant
loudness reduction in key studies
~20ms
optimal somatic-lead timing window
Key reference: Marks KL / Shore SE et al. (2018) Sci Transl Med (and follow-on trials)
🎵
Binaural Beats: Delta, Beta, and Gamma
Oscillatory Entrainment & ASSR
Supporting sleep and morning focus/repair
Frequency-following response for state modulation.
Sleep / Morning

Slightly different frequencies played in each ear create a perceived “beat” that the brain follows. Slow beats (e.g., 1.5 Hz delta) help with deep sleep; faster ones (e.g., 40 Hz gamma) may support brain repair and learning states.

Binaural beats drive auditory steady-state responses (ASSR) to entrain cortical oscillations. Delta promotes slow-wave sleep; gamma entrainment has been linked to enhanced plasticity and microglial activity.

Key references: Relevant studies on ASSR and entrainment (e.g., Becher et al., Iaccarino et al.)
🌊
Habituation: The Goal of Recovery
Thalamocortical Gating & Reclassification
Teaching the brain the sound is irrelevant
Limbic decoupling and restored sensory gating.
CBT-t

The brain turns up anything it flags as important or threatening. Through structured retraining (like CBT for tinnitus), we teach it the ringing is safe and unimportant — like background fridge noise. The brain’s “volume knob” naturally lowers over time.

Habituation restores thalamic sensory gating. Cognitive reappraisal reduces limbic (amygdala) tagging of the signal as salient, allowing the thalamus to filter it as non-relevant background activity.

“The goal is not silence. The goal is for the brain to reclassify the signal as irrelevant.”
Significant
TFI / distress reduction via specialized CBT
0 dB
change needed for functional recovery
Months
typical full habituation timeline
Key references: Cima RFF et al. (2012) · Leaver AM et al. (2011)
Exercise & the Brain Learning Window
BDNF-Mediated Neuroplasticity
Why moving before sessions boosts results
Transient upregulation of brain-derived neurotrophic factor.
Amplifier

Exercise releases “brain fertilizer” (BDNF). Doing your sound or retraining work while levels are elevated helps form stronger, longer-lasting neural changes.

Aerobic activity induces a BDNF spike that enhances synaptic tagging and LTP. Performing plasticity-targeted exercises within this post-exercise window (~30–90 min) augments reorganization.

Key references: Cotman CW (2002) · Winter B et al. (2007)
🐝
Calming Exercises: The “Off Switch”
Vagal Activation & Polyvagal Theory
Humming, sighing, and physiological calm
Parasympathetic activation via NTS.
Daily Practice

Simple actions like humming or extended exhales stimulate the vagus nerve — your body’s built-in relaxation pathway. This quickly shifts the nervous system toward calm, even in seconds.

Laryngeal vibration and physiological sighs activate vagal afferents, enhancing NTS signaling and promoting rapid parasympathetic dominance and baroreflex sensitivity.

Key references: Balban MV et al. (2023) · Porges SW (2011)
📚 Full Reference List
Balban MV et al. (2023) “Brief structured respiration practices enhance mood,” Cell Rep Med
Cima RFF et al. (2012) “Specialised treatment based on CBT versus usual care for tinnitus,” Lancet
Cotman CW & Berchtold NC (2002) “Exercise: a behavioral intervention to enhance brain health,” Trends Neurosci
Eggermont JJ & Roberts LE (2004) “The neuroscience of tinnitus,” Trends Neurosci
Jastreboff PJ (1990) “Phantom auditory perception (tinnitus): mechanisms of generation,” Neurosci Res
Leaver AM et al. (2011) “Dysregulation of limbic and auditory networks in tinnitus,” Neuron
Lehrer PM & Gevirtz R (2014) “Heart rate variability biofeedback,” Front Psychol
Okamoto H et al. (2010) “Listening to tailor-made notched music reduces tinnitus loudness,” PNAS
Shore SE et al. (various) Bimodal stimulation studies, e.g., Sci Transl Med (2018)
Tass PA et al. (2012) “Counteracting tinnitus by acoustic coordinated reset neuromodulation,” Restor Neurol Neurosci
Winter B et al. (2007) “High impact running improves learning,” Neurobiol Learn Mem
Combined Touch & Sound Bimodal Neuromodulation
Breathe with the halo — inhale as the ring expands, exhale as it contracts
Ready
jaw clench
Clench gently on the beat — anticipate, don’t react. Self-timed somatic action; clench on, not after, the audio onset.
0 pairs  ·  00:00 breathe slowly with the halo — long exhale
Clench in time with the pulse — anticipate the beat Self-timed somatic action, paced to anticipate the beat
Place a fingertip on your jaw joint (just in front of your ear). Give a brief, gentle clench when the circle flashes.
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💾 Save Session
👻 Stealth
👻Stealth mode on. Only session duration is logged — no loudness or distress check-in. Reduces the habit of monitoring your tinnitus.
🎵 Match tone to your tinnitus
Adjust the slider until the tone matches your tinnitus loudness.
7,000 Hz
Quiet Loud 30%
😟 Distress level
How bothered are you right now?
None Max 3/10
😌 🙂 😐 😟 😧 😱
📝 Notes (optional)
🏷️ Quick Tags
Tap to tag this session:
#spike #quietDay #stress #coffee #poorSleep #exercise #improvement #worse
🔊 Volume Mix
Channels — adjust while playing
Master volume
55%
L / R Balance
C
Notched noise
50%
🚪 SOS Spike Relief
3:00
Physiological Sigh
Ready
Two short nose inhales, then one long slow exhale.
Sound mix
Rain intensity80%
Notched noise30%
Master55%
Great Progress
Tinnitus Wizard · Setup
Free Plan
Foundation · SOS · Breathing · Diary
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Tinnitus Wizard Pro

🔒
Advanced Mode Locked
Upgrade →
Reset your calibration?

This will clear your tinnitus frequency, therapy volume, and wizard progress. Your diary, week progress, and session data will be kept.

Session complete!
Quick daily check-in? — about 30 seconds
😴 Sleep last night
😰 Stress today
☕ Caffeine (cups)
🏃 Exercise today?
Understand Your Tinnitus