The noise-cancelling trick nobody told me about

So I work from a shared co-working space near Austin, and the open layout was killing my focus. I tried foam earplugs but they made my ears ache after 30 minutes. Then a sound engineer buddy told me to pair my regular earbuds with low-volume brown noise instead of silence or music. It actually blocks out chatter way better than white noise ever did. Has anyone else tried different noise colors for their workspace?

3 comments

3 Comments

laura_wilson3d ago

Oh yeah, my friend Maya tried that exact thing at her library job. She said the brown noise was a game changer because it cut through the low rumble of people shuffling around and talking way better than white noise did. She used some free app and just set it to brown noise on her phone, worked like a charm for months until she switched to a quieter desk.

max_schmidt773d ago

Maya is totally onto something with the brown noise. I tried it during nap time once when my youngest was being a nightmare about sleeping and it actually helped muffle the kitchen sounds from downstairs. The free apps really do the trick, I just keep mine on my nightstand and it hasn't failed me yet. It's nice when a simple fix like that actually works out.

margaretc423d ago

I tried pink noise once and it worked wonders for drowning out my neighbor's loud TV...