Anchors reinforce the positive change that your brain is making by incorporating physical behaviour with the mental exercise you’re doing. They offer a very tangible kind of support in managing stress or anxiety associated with tinnitus. They’re also very simple e.g. tapping your fingers or opening and closing your hand.

Practising anchors will create a link between a physical motion and the new neural pathway which your brain is forming. For example, if you practice opening and closing your hand as you do a conscious breathing technique, the physical benefits your body experiences from the breathing exercise (feeling more calm, more in control and less stressed, for example) will become linked to the motion of opening and closing your hand. Your brain will start to associate that motion with the positive response to controlled breathing. It reinforces the work your brain is doing and is something you can then turn to at any point in your day.