Autism and Noise Reducing Earplugs

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

Leading on from my previous post about sound sensitivity, this week I’d like to explore the subject of noise reducing earplugs. In recent weeks, I’ve been getting a lot of Facebook ad’s for noise reduction earplugs, so I finally decided to take the plunge and buy a pair to see what all the fuss is about.

So how exactly do these noise reduction earplugs work? Isn’t the whole function of earplugs to reduce noise anyway?

Noise reducing earplugs are different to your garden variety earplug in that they are designed to reduce background noise without compromising audio quality in your immediate surroundings. Most earplugs will muffle sounds, but this next generation of earplugs focus on filtering them instead of blocking them. There are a lot of different models out there at the mo, but I chose to test drive Loop Earplugs. Loop are designed with an acoustic channel in the earplug to mimic the auditory canal in your ear, and use a mesh filter to reduce the volume of your surroundings. They are particularly designed with concerts in mind, as music is often played above safe levels (85 decibels) which can permanently damage eardrums in as little as 15 minutes. They have a couple of audio reduction levels from as high as 27 decibels down to 18 (which I tried) so you can purchase whatever reduction level suits your needs.

So how did I find them?

This weekend, I tested them out on a busy day in the noisy city of Dublin. I popped them in while walking down the street and found it really did reduce the sounds around me, but I could still hear everything I needed to, such as the noises from pedestrian crossings. As I was attending a musical, I also gave them a test run in the theatre for a couple of songs. I was really surprised at the results as the songs were just as clear with the earplugs in and out, just different volume thresholds. Unlike other earplugs, the loop in the plug is quite cool, and looks like a trendy piercing in your ear, so it’s also great that you don’t feel self conscious for having awkward things sticking out of your ears (like those ugly yellow foamy ones they give you on airplanes).

However, while these filtered out a lot of background noise, they did amplify and alter some internal noises. My voice sounded really distant and far away like I was down a tunnel, but everyone around me sounded fine. While walking to the theatre I ate a Magnum ice cream, and as I ate, the earplugs increased the volume of the chocolate crunching in my mouth to unsettling levels, and I could hear my jaw clicking as the upper and lower jaws rubbed against each other. It really weirded me out so I would not recommend eating while wearing them! I also found they didn’t sit in my ear that well and kept popping out, but I do have smaller ears (or so I’m told) so it’s possible that my ears are just not built for earplugs! 😛

I would definitely recommend trying out these earplugs or similar models (there are some that are more geared specifically for noise sensitivities such as Calmer) if you need to turn the volume of your surroundings down a smidge- I will certainly be adding mine to my handbag for days when I find myself in an auditory nightmare.

Hope you enjoyed this post dear Earthlings!

Have a lovely weekend! 🙂

Aoife