I just started using noise canceling earbuds and holy cow does it change things.

People talking and traffic blasting down the street in front of our office are my two biggest distractions on any given workday and I haven't heard any of it all day. It's heavenly.

I also have a brown noise machine I sleep next to and I've started dreaming again because I get actual restful sleep again.

I am glad and happy for you finding some peace.

I didn't think I was on the spectrum until I lost my noise cancelling headphones.

Get jittery without the calm now!

@MammaNeedHummus My extreme noise sensitivity comes from being woken up several times a week for years in a row by people with modified exhausts speeding down the street in the dead of night. The same people did the same thing during the day which prevented me from taking naps to recover from the previous night, and it only got worse when everyone had to stay home and I couldn't get away from it.

Talking to them inspired them to do it more, and for whatever reason the police are disinterested in making them stop.

Interrupted sleep is hard on a person. Years of interrupted and unreliable sleep is damaging. So is being startled by artificially created noise in excess of 140dba several times a day, that even in your living room is 90dba or more.

People need sleep and they need to be able to go about their business and relax without constant adrenaline and cortisol spikes and headaches and ringing ears. It is not just a trifling annoyance and it isn't funny.

@cuddlyogre what is the brand and model of the the earbuds, and how much do they cost?

@Nanos Bose QuietComfort Earbuds II. They are normally $300 but I got them on discount for $250.

@Jason Part of my *ahem* experience with sound that got me where I am today involves high intensity noise, which green noise definitely is. Almost all colors of noise are like this for me now, except for brown.

Brown noise is closer to the sound of summer rain, or water flowing through a pipe, or main engineering of the USS Enterprise D. I can, and do, listen to it all day.

@Nanos There are different colors of noise. White noise is like the noise you hear between radio stations. It's very high intensity.

Brown noise is like the sound of being near calm, moving water, or the warp core of a Galaxy Class starship. It's low intensity and deeper.

There are colors in between but those are the two I see most often.

@Nanos When I was a child and into my teens, I was exposed the sound of saws, hammers, pulling nails, and other loud construction sounds for 12+ hours a day but my hearing didn't seem to suffer, somehow. I had tinnitus for a week after doing something really stupid when I was younger, but thankfully it went away.

It has been suggested that I do have some kind of hearing damage which would cause me to be more sensitive to noise, but I'm not convinced. I can hear noises that are meant to annoy deer and teenagers, so my range of hearing is still intact.

I've dreamed about building a soundproof box or get a sensory deprivation tank like Daredevil had in one of his movies. But the space I have available doesn't allow for it. Plus, I don't think I'd ever want to leave.

There are over the ear noise canceling headphones, but I can't recommend anything.

@cuddlyogre I'm glad I'm not in your situation. I would have waited about a year and then perhaps something drastic like setting the car on fire. If it's a lawless place it's a lawless place.

Another fun thing to do if it's not a completely lawless place, is buy a similar noise maker and every time they wake you up do the same where some high cop lives after filling a complaint with cam evidence.
Then when the cops come after you and trust me they will. You can sue the crap out of them for not protecting citizens only themselves and abuse of power.

Funny enough I live in a pretty lawful place and my biggest gripe at night is the police helicopter. That sound really reverberates through the entire complex. After they flew for 1.5 hours at 1 for no apparent reason they got a lot of backlash and it's pretty limited now fortunately.