Tinnitus retraining therapy goes from the hypothesis that the anxiety and discomfort caused by tinnitus are governed by conditioned reflexes. By "retraining" these reflexes, it is possible to also remove the negative effects.

Tinnitus retraining therapy is based on a simple observation: in silence, the gap between tinnitus noise and the ambient sound is high, and thus the perception of the parasite noise is high, especially if the brain is not absorbed by another task. By introducing a background noise, the gap between tinnitus and the surrounding environment is reduced and the noise seem less intense conditioning the brain to better tolerate it.

Therefore, tinnitus retraining therapy is based on a few base rules:

• Avoid silence, which raises artificially the tinnitus and make it less tolerable
• It is preferable not to mask the tinnitus by hearing a more intense noise. The end goal of the therapy is to get used to no longer paying attention. It is therefore necessary that the added noise is less powerful than the tinnitus, which must remain audible
• The additional noise must be sent to both ears in order not to create an imbalance in the brain. The patient should therefore carry two noise generators, one on each ear. He or she, should use the noise generators for at least 6 hours a day for 12 to 18 month
• If the patient is also diagnosed with hearing loss, it is desirable to correct it at the same time for improve the auditory perception of the patient

Besides these, patients must go through counseling related to the physiology of hearing and have to understand how the technique tries to separate the two brain centers involved.