Reduce your stress substantially - and immediately!

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This may well be Old News for you - but it is an Exciting New Discovery for this ol' chap!

Ear plugs!

Those inexpensive foamies one may obtain by the bushel at any pharmacuetical establishment.

And it works!

Tested it, too. Where I am, meals are taken at an echo chamber euphemistically called a "Dining Facility" with 250 folks per room. I take my meals alone, but you can imagine - "NT's" are usually (and normally) loud, boisterous, yak yak yak, up/down, guffaw, scrape chairs, bump, thump thump, bang, whoops, etc. That's fine and really I do not mind - but had never realized what a toll all that racket takes.

Tried the plugs today and estimate a 50% reduction in stress/energy drain during my "refueling operation."

The initial "bother" of wearing these becomes less so with time, and if you reuse them - they become easier on the ear (I know, not supposed to re-use them, but I sleep with them and have reused these for years - started when was assigned to that aircraft carrier way way back when - never had a problem with an infection or complication).

Need to exercise extra caution crossing roads and such, however. Found that out too.

Last edited by Jamin on 12 Apr 2009, 1:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Interesting. I saw a boy in the mall recently with his mother, wearing what looked like headphones but lacking the wires I recognized them as ear protectors (the kind people wear at shooting ranges so they dont go deaf from the bang bang bang of guns) and realized the lad probably wore them to keep the horrible sounds of 'the world' out.

Generally not a bad idea, but you also would miss out important messages: E.g. travelling train alterations, car horns, fire alarms, etc.

They would be only save to wear in save environment.

like holding your mom's hand in the mall. . .

Merle

I use them all the time. I have a pair with me ALWAYS. In bag, in car, in pocket, in glove compartment. I am never without them and I wear them even to Wal Mart. I wear them under my headphones when I listen to music, too. I don't use the Iphone earpod type of earphone, but the big black ones with earplugs under.

You can still hear. I can hear people talk. I can certainly hear louder noises such as sirens, etc. It simply tamps down the screechiness of the world.

Yeah deaf people must die all the time not being able to hear those things, or maybe they compensate by being more attentive to visual cues.

You can still hear most very loud noises like alarms.

Actually, not all ear plugs shut out all noise. I wear "musician's" ear plugs - http://www.earinc.com/p1-reusable-reusable.php - that cut way back on the "roar" of noisy environments, but allow me to hear speech (and music) clearly. I keep them with me at all times, for when I have to be in crowded places, with lots of people talking at once. When I am wearing them, it's easy to pick out individual voices, but the ambient "noise" largely goes away. It's very restful.

I use to where headphones all the time and that did about the same thing.

I agree, earplugs work well but you need to be careful about ear infections I found.

Wow, your comment. One of my favorite movies is Donnie Darko - and there is a character of a Chinese girl who is made fun of/bullied. She in many ways acts AS. She does very unique presentations at the talent night, she talks funny when Donnie approaches her and tells her "everything will be all right".... AND, she wore earmuffs in the fall in California when nobody was dressed for winter. I was pondering why she did this! Now i have a reason to focus on.

I've been using earplugs for when I need to do noisy things like vacuum, and they work quite well.

I use to rely on music over headphones, whenever visting big stores such as Target. Recently I started just wearing earplugs. The first time felt like a whole new experience of serenity.

My favorite earplugs are QuietTime by Flents, with NRR of 33.

Yes earplugs and ear protectors are very useful. There's a couple of dudes working near to me who I could cheerfully throttle for the loud, stabbing effect of their voices, and rather than get dragged away screaming for justifiable homicide, or simply saying "excuse me gentlemen, but could you keep your voices down a little? It's playing Old Harry with my concentration" (which for some reason I find almost impossible to do), I've taken to wearing extremely conspicuous ear protectors - bliss! Time was when I'd have worried that people will think me nuts for doing that, but I'm past caring.

Trouble is, the plugs and ear protectors get uncomfortable after a while, but with judicious use I get a lot of benefit out of them. There's also a guy who plays a radio in a side room, and I find it embarrassing to hace to keep poping my head round the door and asking him to turn it down (the effect of my polite requests doesn't last long), so the ear protectors are a great help there, and there's also a noisy machine I sometimes switch on to drown him out - I'm fairly tolerant to most machine noises as long as they're continuous - rumbling, hissing, steady motors, etc., rather than bells, whistles or sirens - and they're very useful because I can leave them running for hours, and nobody seems tohave noticed that the said machines have nothing directly to do with the tasks I'm actually performing. I've also used various home-made mp3 sound files which I design to effectively mask the external noise pollution that enters my home from insensitive neighbours and passing motorists. Luckily I have an obsessional interest in music and sound engineering, which really pays off.

I agree hygeine is of some concern with plugs - I prefer clean bits of tissue paper, which seem to offer better attenuation than these modern foam plugs - another health issue to watch is that excessive insertion force can damage the eardrum. I suspect the makers of those foam things have traded off attenuation for safety - i.e. they're designed for idiots like so many modern commodities are, as a back-covering exercise in case somebody sues them.

am a veteran user of different types,but they're almost useless,also use ear defenders over the top [peltors' optime III-one of the best pairs available] -though can't use them whilst using a protective helmet as it's got ear guards,would be nice if a OT/special needs company could come up with a helmet that had them integrated,like they do for builder helmets.

yes I agree headphones help a lot. I use small 'in ear' plugs but also (in combination) Sennheiser PXC 450 noise-cancelling ones - excellent, and recommended. Noise-cancelling technology seems to be making good progress; I am hopeful there will soon be some even better than the Sennheiser PXC 450's.

Used to wear them at the club all the time. Not so much for the anti-stress qualities; but so that I'd retain more of my hearing than my wife has managed to (too many punk shows in her youth).