A big thank you to Debbie Perry for running our Tinnitus summer art workshop on Saturday at Liston Hall in Marlow. It was such a good morning, well attended, great fun and very relaxing.

Tinnitus-related anxiety

The workshop was based on Debbie’s recent research for her Masters in Applied Positive Psychology at Bucks New University. She is particularly interested in art-based research into emotions and emotion regulation and has just finished some research on tinnitus-related anxiety.

Emotional reactions to tinnitus

The idea behind the workshop was to help the group identify and express their emotional reactions to Tinnitus, in order to accept and come to terms with the condition. Art and drawing, like other leisure pursuits, all help to distract from the Tinnitus, while any form of relaxation helps to calm the nervous system. This is itself helps to create a positive emotional experience to help see Tinnitus differently.

About Debbie

Debbie is a member of the Marlow Tinnitus Group and a client at Help in Hearing in Marlow. She is dependent on two hearing aids and has experienced Tinnitus for a long time. Her journey has taken her from a very negative place to a positive one and at the workshop she shared her experience with the group. She used the opportunity to explain how her Tinnitus has become a signal to alert her to take time out. If she becomes stressed or anxious, her Tinnitus increases noticeably so it is time to deploy relaxation techniques that work for her.

Feedback

The feedback from the session, which included expressing both the negative and positive aspects of Tinnitus through drawing, colouring, stencilling and painting, was excellent. Here are a couple of the comments we have received so far:

“It was very interesting – whilst I was doing art I was not aware of [my] tinnitus at all. I think if you’d have asked me out of 10 what it was at the start and at the end – the score would have been different!”

“Thank you for a very informative and interesting morning. Driving home, I felt very relaxed in my shoulders and my tinnitus was barely audible.”

We look forward to seeing more members at our next session on Vedic Meditation at our Marlow practice on July 11th. Please see our Tinnitus Support Group page for details of future dates, topics and to book your place.

Some more photos from our tinnitus summer art workshop