Researchers from Germany recently conducted a study looking at the effects of qigong for the treatment of tinnitus. While there are a number of causes of tinnitus from a Chinese Medicine perspective a common cause of acute tinnitus is something we call Liver Yang Rising - this is the very loose equivalent to saying stress/anxiety induced/promoted tinnitus in western terms. Other factors such as noise damage may not respond as well to qigong or other methods - although any positive change in circulation, etc. can promote healing from noise trauma.
This qigong study recruited 80 patients all of which had tinnitus for more than 3 months. The treatment group received 10 qi gong training session in 5 weeks (40 participants) and the control was put on a "wait list".
Using the visual analogue scale (VAS) and a tinnitus questionnaire (TBF-12) before and after treatment as well as 1 and 3 months afterwards, researchers found the following:
"Qigong participants experienced improvement in tinnitus severity, as reflected by a significant reduction in both the VAS and the TBF-12. In the subgroup of patients with somatosensoric tinnitus, Qigong effects were more pronounced"
In addition to helping with their tinnitus, qigong has a number of other positive health benefits and essentially no side effects.