Maintenance and relapse prevention

Eight weeks is long enough to retrain the most reactive parts of the nervous system. It is not long enough to make those changes permanent. The next six months are when habituation deepens, and the only thing that derails it is dropping the practices entirely.

Pick two or three habits from this programme and keep them. Applied relaxation, a soundscape at night, and a thought record when something flares — that combination is what most long-term recoverers report.

Tinnitus will spike. Loud nights out, viral infections, stressful weeks, hormonal changes, dehydration, jaw tension — all real triggers. A spike is not relapse. It is your old loop reactivating temporarily.

Write a one-page spike plan now: the three things you will do in the first twenty-four hours of a spike. Suggested: sleep mode tonight, applied relaxation twice tomorrow, do not change anything else for forty-eight hours. Most spikes resolve in days, and the plan stops the spike from triggering the catastrophising thoughts you spent week three retiring.

Re-take the TFI today. Compare the three scores — week one, week four, week eight. The trajectory is the message; a single number is not.

If you have improved — keep the two or three habits. If you have not — go back to week three and week five, the two weeks with the strongest individual effect sizes in the published trials. You can also restart the programme. It often works the second time when the first time felt like reading.