Professional Training for Integrated Tinnitus Care and
Active Sound Therapy: Treating the Whole Person
Active Sound Therapy (AST) brings together educational counseling, cognitive reframing, sound enrichment and Mind-Body Medicine into one clinical protocol, refined over 11 years of practice. It's a bimodal approach with no stimulation device: the breath does the work, engaging the nervous system and the relaxation response. Join the list to hear first when new trainings open.
What Patients are Saying About AST:
"It helped me shift the tinnitus to the background. I don't really ever notice it now unless it spikes up. When that happens I slow down, focus on my breathing for a little bit and that pushes the tinnitus back into the background where it belongs. And with my (Type I) diabetes, I notice that my tinnitus spikes when my sugars are high. I've been able to notice more of the connections of things happening in my body. Breathing helps me stay calm about things."
-Marc T.
What Makes AST different?AST treats tinnitus distress as a problem of regulation, working from both directions:
Top-down: reframing, attention, and meaning, building on educational counseling principles.
Bottom-up: breathwork and body-based practices that shift the autonomic state from defensive to relaxed and grounded.
Sound, integrated: sound therapy timed with purpose in service of calming the whole system.
AST is a bimodal approach that needs no stimulation device. Instead of a stimulation device, AST pairs sound with the breath, which engages the parasympathetic nervous system and the relaxation response naturally. Patients leave with a skill they carry everywhere, not equipment they depend on.
What you'll learn: a clear model of how the autonomic nervous system drives tinnitus distress. How to explain that model to patients in plain, reassuring language. Hands-on breathwork techniques you can use in session the next day. How to weave regulation practices into your existing tinnitus treatment protocols. How to implement a protocol that is not only patient-centered but patient-led.
How the training worksLearning a new protocol is one thing. Using it with the patient in front of you, and embodying it yourself, is another. AST training supports you at every stage.
Two-day seminar
Two days on the science behind Active Sound Therapy and the practical tools to put the protocol to work with your patients. You'll leave understanding why it works and knowing what to do in your next session.
Three-day Mind-Body Medicine Immersion
The best way to teach regulation is to know it from the inside. Over three days, you'll practice the mind-body medicine tools behind AST on yourself, through the lens of self-care. Clinicians who have felt these techniques work in their own bodies teach them with more confidence and presence, and that shows up in patient care.
Group mentoring
The real questions come up once you start using AST in your own clinic. Group mentoring sessions give you a place to bring those cases, troubleshoot with Dr. Downs, and learn from what other practitioners are seeing.
Weekly office hours
Stuck on a patient? Dr. Downs holds weekly office hours where practitioners can drop in and ask questions as they come up. No waiting for the next session. Dates are announced to the mailing list first.
Founder
Sara King Downs, Au.D.
Active Sound Therapy
Dr. Downs has earned Scholar recognition by the American Academy of Audiology, which recognizes audiologists for outstanding commitment to continuing education. She holds certification in Mind-Body Medicine (CMBM) and is a certified provider of the Safe and Sound Protocol.
Integrative Tinnitus Treatment and Active Sound Therapy grew out of more than two decades of integrating these approaches with real patients.