Most people know tinnitus as ringing in the ears. What sounds like a minor nuisance is, in reality, one of the most widespread but least addressed wellness issues of our time.
Hundreds of millions of people live with it, often alongside stress, poor sleep, headaches, and declining performance at work. For businesses, tinnitus is not a fringe condition. It is an overlooked signal of how modern life undermines personal well-being and organizational productivity.
The need to reframe tinnitus is underscored by the ongoing Apple Hearing Study with the University of Michigan. In July 2025, Apple analyzed Apple Watch data from over 72,000 people, showing that lower heart rate variability, a marker of stress, was consistently associated with more severe tinnitus. (Report: Apple Hearing Study Identifies Connection Between Tinnitus and Heart Rate Variability in Adults). This was one of the first large-scale attempts to connect subjective experience with objective biometrics.
Read the article in Forbes: I Say Tinnitus, TIN-Uh-Tus, You Say Tinnitus, Tuh-NITE-Us, Why It Matters To Business
Exposure Research Lab 