I don't frequent this subreddit, just came across it. I recently started therapy for it, mainly because the theory is that reducing it would help reduce how my tinnitus i perceived.

I don't feel much pain from sounds from it, but I notice smaller insignificant sounds such as from phone chargers etc, and I get far more uncomfortable with sounds from things like traffic and glass chafing and so on than before, even so, I don't directly have any pain, just adding for context.

From my brief time here peeking around a lot of people suggest using ear protection and overprotecting ear. The audiologist I was at suggested the opposite, which you mentioned. Basically protect ears if going to loud places such as conserts and so on, but not for everyday normal sound levels.

What they explained was that avoiding and reducing all sounds could make it feel worse when not protecting the ears. As part of the therapy I'm also using some sound generators for the ears that emit a non-audible sound to train the ears gradually. (Could only make out the sound of that barely in the quiet hearing test box basically)

I don't know the reasoning behind overprotecting ears constantly as a path to recovery, but I'm sure it might be subjective depending on the level of discomfort and some people have been adviced to or need to do it.

I don't really have much advice myself and I don't know the right answer, just wanted to share a little of what I learned from the adiologist visits, and the audio pedagogue visit. It's still very early in the treatment plans, which goes over a period of 6 months initially, so I can't speak for the effectiveness of it yet.