Lying in bed waiting to fall asleep while your tinnitus rings is one of the worst experiences this condition serves up. The harder you try, the more wired you become.
A few rules of the bed, in order of importance. One: never sleep in silence. Run a low, broadband sound — rain, brown noise, fan — at a level below the tinnitus, not above it. The aim is to give your brain something else to track, not to mask the ringing entirely.
Two: keep the room cool. Sleep onset is driven by a small drop in core body temperature; an over-warm room blocks that drop and lengthens the time you spend listening to your own head.
Three: hide every clock. Watching the time turns the night into a maths problem.
Four: if you are still awake after about twenty minutes, get up. Sit somewhere dimly lit, do something boring, and return when you feel sleepy. You are training your brain to associate the bed with sleep, not with frustration.