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Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Block Noise In a Dorm?
First time accepted submitter zmitch32 writes "I live in a dorm, and I have ADHD, so every little noise distracts me. I know this annoyance isn't limited to those with ADHD, so how does everyone else block out the noise? I can't really cover my walls in soundproof foam because I live in a dorm. I can't just listen to music because I find it too interesting and just end up getting distracted by it. I use ear plugs to block out small noises, but they don't block out human voices very well at all. What do you guys/gals recommend?"
... and Phish tapestries.
No reason you can't put up foam and cover it with... Pink Floyd and Phish tapestries.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Get a pair of noise canceling headphones. You don't even need an audio source, just some batteries to run them. A good pair of those will give you dead silence in all but the noisiest environments.
Use headphones with whitenoise. Something like a waterfall
http://www.amazon.com/3M-Peltor-H10A-Optime-Earmuff/dp/B00009LI4K/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1363305602&sr=8-2&keywords=peltor
I use them at work and to shoot guns. Comfortable and effective.
EAR PLUGS
Smoke weed. Lots and lots of weed.
as the subject says, if 'soundproof foam' existed folks building recording studios, vocal booths, practice rooms and so on would have a lot less issues!
As somebody that is also easily annoyed by noises and especially by people talking, the only things I can suggest are noise isolation headphones and a suitable source of noise (pink noise or something like raindrops, running water, etc.), the noise isolation headphones to lower the outside noise as much as possible, and the pink noise to mask it (otherwise you'd have to have the volume in your headphones way too loud).
You will find that pink noise or water noise masks voices pretty well if in tandem with the above, I sometimes even have to use isolation headphones (similar to the headphones that pit crews use on racing tracks) AND foam earplugs AND http://rain.simplynoise.com/ (with thunder disabled) to be able to concentrate in my current work environment.
-- the cake is a lie
You don't need two ears!
With whatever you're doing, silently use your internal somatic voice processing system in your brain to process the audio of counting from one to ten (basically process it as if you were going to say it, just never move your mouth). When it combines with whatever else you're doing, it will use up all that part of your brain's resources and you won't be able to hear/process any sounds around you. It's a technique that I learned very quickly when learning to speed read. It works very, very well.
When I'm trying to study at home I find that listening to white noise works well.
(A white noise generator on a laptop/pc)
It masks the noises the family make pretty well.
Best done with a pair of headphones that actually surround the ear rather than earbuds.
Noise cancelling headphones might help filter out some of the distractions too.
Its far from perfect, but it works for me.
(I have a pair of Phillips noise cancelling earbuds... and I'd have to say that they are a waste of time and money. There is no perceivable difference when noise cancellation is activated. Other brands might fare better,I dont know. My experience with these has been poor.)
Move. I mean that seriously. Not all dorms are alike, and chances are there is a quieter room available. You will have to approach your student services office or similar about your situation, and bring documentation. They may not be able to accommodate you entirely but they may find some arrangement that would be of benefit. For example, they may make a triple in a quiet dorm into a double with a known-quiet roommate.
If you want further information, give us the name of the school. Maybe someone here knows about a quieter dorm on your campus.
I don't think it's possible to block all the noise in a dorm unless you have designated quiet dorms.
One of the primary benefits of living in a dorm is the social environment. You either need to be prepared to enjoy living in close quarters with lots of young adults, or you should move out. Both are perfectly valid options, and your own predispositions will play a large role in succeeding with either choice.
It's OK to be annoyed by living in close quarters with lots of other people that don't know how to conduct themselves now that they're living on their own. You almost assuredly annoy them too.
I don't have ADHD, but I do have High Functioning Autism, and I had the same problem in college, even though I wasn't diagnosed yet (and wouldn't be for another 10 years).
The two solutions for me: A white noise generator to drown out the sound next door, and a "mix tape" of my most boring songs for when I couldn't stand the white noise anymore. Would be a playlist without shuffle now, of course, but MP3 players didn't exist when I was in college. Once your brain gets used to the order of songs, say about the 100th repetition or so, you can tune them out.
Another equally good option today that did not exist when I was in college is noise-canceling headphones.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
Good noise canceling headphones are expensive. Another, cheaper, alternative is to get a white noise generator. I know some people who swear by it. Personally I find it distracting, but each to their own.
In the future I guess it will be just a matter of switching on an active noise control device to make your room silent, but since so far the technology is only easily applied to headphones, how about a nice pair of those? You don't have to listen to music. You just have to find a pair that is very comfortable to wear and then play whatever low-volume sounds of nature (since silence on noise canceling headphones feels weird for some people).
If you don't like the idea, I would also try different earplugs. I mean during my army training they gave us these very inexpensive earplugs (like foamy rubber you would squish into your ear) for the shooting field and the commander would then be yelling commands on the loudspeaker as loud as he could and yet his voice barely registered! The actual 7.62mm shots were audible of course, but definitely tolerable. So give it another go with earplugs - soundproofing a room is much, much harder and can be very expensive.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent. Polar Scope Align for iOS
First (cheapest) option is to look for triple-flange earplugs. Look at a sporting goods store in the firearms department.
If that doesn't work for you, look into getting custom molded plugs made. I have a set from my time as a competitive shooter, and when they are in, and correctly seated, I cannot hear ANYTHING, even though I can feel the noise in many cases. For voices and random dorm noise, that should be sufficient.
Another option is a set of noise canceling headphones. Just don't feed them any input and they will still reduce ambient noise. I would recommend you borrow a set from a friend before investing, as the best are "over the ear" types, and they tend to create a sensation of pressure in your ears. Some folks find that uncomfortable.
Hope this helps......
Red (retired Field Artillery Officer)
Listen to a set of music until it's nearly worn-out, and use that as your noise-cancellation. For example, I have a set of ~700 songs that I've listened to almost daily for the last 5 years and I now know most of them down to the chord progressions. They've become so familiar that, while I still enjoy them, there's nothing 'new' there to distract me from work. This counts double for strictly instrumental songs, they provide even less distraction by lacking words to interpret and grab attention.
I imagine there'll be recommendations for things like noise cancelling headphones and such but I find they tend to make it worse; largely because they leave my mind too idle and I start looking around and get distracted again. Having the 'white noise music' keeps the wandering parts of my mind occupied so the rest of it can focus on the task at hand.
"Our goal each year should be to increase the number of goals we set for ourselves!"
I'm guessing by "music" you mean stuff with lyrics -- hence your comment about human voices. I have ADHD too and here's my advice.
My personal favorite for getting work done is Rodrigo y Gabriela's first album, but if you're not into that sort of thing, there's also classical, post-punk (Godspeed/Turtles), ambient (Brian Eno), orchestral video game music (Nobuo Uematsu) etc etc. If music fails, white noise may work but has the issue of your brain wanting to pay more attention to the noise you're trying to block out since what you're listening to is boring. A friend of mine also with ADHD loved to listen to fast-paced Celtic music when reading during college.
There's also noise-cancelling headphones.
-- Political fascism requires a Fuhrer.
Get some better quality earplugs.
http://coffitivity.com/
Plays coffee-shop-like background noise. Not intelligible enough to be distracting.
I use foam earplugs with Bose QuietComfort 15 Acoustic Noise Cancelling headphones which cover the entire ear (rather than just sitting on top of them). I then use a white noise app on my phone called SimplyNoise. It offers a few options for types of white noise; I find brown noise works the best. This combination blocked out three screaming babies on a recent overnight flight.
That said, why are you studying in the dorm if it's too noisy/distracting for you? Go to a library. With a little exploring, you will quickly find various cubby-holes where you will not see another soul for hours. You can also see what sort of meeting rooms are on your campus. These are typically hardly ever used outside of business hours in my experience.
I know the problem you describe well.
White noise (I actually prefer pink noise with a rolloff at higher frequencies) works well for me. Several people have posted links to mp3s of rain, surf and such.
I personally found that Tangerine Dream, Kitaro, and the like were quite good for studying and covering distractions, but it may vary for you or still be too distracting.
Do what everyone else who lives in a dorm does when they need quiet. Go to the library.
lots of good suggestions here, including maybe getting a different dorm. .. academics", i guess)
i think i recall there being a 'quiet' dorm at UCSC. ("live here if your main interest in being at college is
but mostly the suggestions seem to be either Block The Sound or Drown The Sound In Noise.
i'd highly recommend going for the former before the latter, for the kinda obvious reason of hearing damage.
i'm not an expert, but my tinnitus gives me a gut feeling that chronic exposure to even background-level noise can't be good for the cilia.
I live in New York, and there are always those maddening muffled voices, footsteps, TV, or sex noises happening somewhere nearby while I try to sleep/meditate/write/read/think. What works best for me is a fan with a nice hum. Easy to tune out, keeps the air flowing in your room, doesn't get repetitive.
http://www.amazon.com/MARPAC-Dohm-DS-Electro-Mechanical-Machine-Sleeping/dp/B002GTR902
Goofy but they work and are extremely reliable. They are especially good at masking talking and music.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty
Pink Floyd and Phish tapestries, to be more precise.
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
If you find music too distracting, just put the ear buds in and turn the device WAY up for a while. After a while you'll have completely destroyed your hearing. Problem solved! You're welcome!
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I solve it a number of ways.
1. Have a large HEPA air filter (a friend gave it to me) that I took the air filter out of and I run it to sleep well. The white noise this thing makes is natural soothing air flow, and it fills the room I am in.
2. At work, I use in-ear ear buds, the silicone ear peice combined with music or other sound greatly diminishes the external noise.
3. Motivation wise, I saw this problem affecting my children, and after I saw that my behavior (I expressed out loud that some sounds they made irritated me) then they started having similar problems. No. Way. In. Hell. Was I going to pass this on to them. So, I stopped expressing my irritation, and oddly, this made it easier to start facing the problem directly in my mind.
4. Mentally I started expecting certain noises and have made a goal to come to peace with them. I have tried really, really hard to be okay with certain sounds. At first it was incredibly agrivating and tremendously irritating on a level unexplainable to those that don't have this issue, but persistent work and effort to accept the noises has ultimately paid off, that they just hurt less now.
5. Diet, there are likely foods that irritate you and you may not know it, and this makes the sounds worse. (caffine makes it worse, etc...)
6. Sleep and exercise. This is the #1 thing, if I am tired, the noises are worse, even after all the things above. if I am stressed (exercise is _very_ relaxing after it's over) and I have little sleep, all the sounds invade my head like armageddon.
Take control, decide to live a healthy life style, control your mind and your body and this will help with this and many other issues.
I hope the best for you, and that you over come this difficult issue, I am 37 now and have been working against this for most of my life, and it only started to get better when I decided I could do something about (even when no one else thought it was possible).
Do not listen to people who will turn you into a victim, take control of your mind and start controlling your body, and everything in your life will look a little brighter, and the sounds will be not be so close to you anymore. You will be able to push them off and ignore them much easier.
play louder music.
Earphones playing white noise.
Cranky educator.
The best solution: Foam earplugs, the kind you can buy at a drugstore that are rated for 29 decibels (or something similar), that you wad up and stick well into your ear canal. Combined with a decent pair of headphones (ideally wireless) playing the sounds of a rainstorm.
Actually any white-noise-like sound will work, including actual white noise, a radio tuned to static, crashing waves, etc. For a month or two, I used the Fripp/Eno ambient tune "Wind On Water" playing on an endless loop. Watch your decibel levels-- it doesn't need to be played loud to work.
This setup will drown out the fucking zombie apocalypse.
I find exercise before bedtime helps me fall asleep faster. 5-10 minutes of rapid one-arm pull-ups, while I'm lying in bed... then I'm asleep 30 seconds after jizzing.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
If you want to shut absolutely everything out, get some high quality earmuffs (the kind they use at gun ranges) and wear earbuds (or earplugs) inside of them. Then start your playlist or get a white noise mp3 from amazon or wherever. A bomb could go off in your dorm and you probably wouldn't hear it. On the other hand you probably wouldn't be able to hear fire alarms or anything either, so use with caution...
Self diagnosed or professionally diagnosed?
If your school anticipated the problem, you can find the solution. First, see if your dorm has a segregated study area. At the school I went to, that study area was in the basement, down the hall from the laundry room -- the idea was that you should start some clothes washing, study, dry, study, fold, and be done. The room was soundproofed...but the lack of echo and noise unnerved some people, but I loved it. Also, there was a lounge in my dorm where -- most of the time -- you could find peace and quiet. Other people suggested the library as a place to study. The solutions don't have to cost money.
I know that you were being trollish, but I actually have to agree. I didn't spend my time in the dorms except to sleep. My study time was spent down at I-Hop, or in the library. I did find it mildly annoying when somebody was yelling down the hallway, but you can get used to it.
Some days I get the sinking feeling Orwell was an optimist.
All you need is competing noise. Get a large fan and turn it up, most of the outside noises will be drowned out.
Also, a website like http://rainfor.me/ helps me a lot when I find myself wandering off into my thoughts.
If you listen to music and the voices are too distracting, just listen to good movie scores, classical soundtracks, or something orchestra based like http://open.spotify.com/user/1225153336/playlist/174h1jI74KgCR30U60E5Wt or http://open.spotify.com/user/1225153336/playlist/0zfVN0HOmVKz5CVDNWigXg. I find when I'm programming or studying, having complete silence is great. When I can't achieve that, then I need background white noise and voiceless music.
Just some thoughts based on what I've learned since attending College.
Don't be over protective of yourself. You can not isolate yourself from everything unless you are in solitary confinement. You have to learn to get used to them and become immune to them. It's like too much antibiotics makes you less immune to diseases. Go practice meditation.
I used classical music as a white noise generator. I can't concentrate when listening to music with lyrics, but I needed something to overwhelm the noise. The nice thing is that you get cultured in the process. You can get the 100 best works of ___ for relatively cheap.
... yet no-one has suggested duct tape yet?
There's many ways duct tape can solve this. Some of them are probably even legal.
How about white (or pink) noise?
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Problem solved. You won't hear shit with this thing in your room with you.
Probably not a sensible idea, but I think I have often wonderd if a microphone an op-amp and a speaker could be employed to cancel out noise. Seems like it should work but the delay may just make it worse.
The circuit should be easy to but together though all you need is a a couple of resistors a decent modern op-amp (not a 741), somthing with a decent BW (~70dB) and a decent DR should do it. and a couple of a half decent resitors. the PSU may be more difficult you need to keep noise down and ensure you can push enough power to intefere with the original signal.
Concept is simple. If it will work it won't it will just make it worse. If it's slow it may just add to the amplitude of the sound.
Most Damage is done by people who are AWAKE
I never tried The Ramones for that, but I'm sure it would have worked well.
I found that cranking up Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor through a pair of 120 watt tube amps into some fairly efficient speakers was highly effective retaliation.
I'd worked at a loudspeaker manufacturer as a teen. I'd picked up some pretty impressive gear, and rarely lost a stereo war. :)
Rush's "Camera Eye" is also a great "neighbor be good" tune at high volume.
An old sweat sock in your roommate's mouth can reduce snoring. It either softens the snoring or will keep your roommate up at night in fear of you stuffing another old sock in his mouth thus allowing you to get some sleep.
It will never get better. You'll get to the point where you are taking way too much sleeping medicine just to get to sleep. Live off campus. Been there, done that for four years and it was hell on earth.
You're in college. Go have fun. Get out of your room.
You can dictate instructions, text, and the output you're typing/writing as you do it. You can think out loud. Listening to yourself does double duty: it focuses you on the work at hand and the sound of your own voice is like a loopback feed to your brain! Try it. Worked for me at crunch times.
Fill the room with breasts. Attached to beautiful coeds. You won't hear a thing.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Get the sort of ear protection that people who work around power stations, airports and other places with ear-damaging levels of noise wear. If its good enough to block out the noise of a jet engine, it should be good enough to block out dorm room noise.
Buy this and move are the only things people have been suggesting. One guy did have interesting advice about the somatic voice processing center of the brain, but I can't believe not a single person has suggested that you leave your room, walk across campus and go to the freaking library. Need a computer? There are computer labs everywhere, too. Seriously, I thought this was one of the worst ask slasdots and expected half the answers to be "Go to the f-ing library". But no one?! let me say it then.
GO TO THE F-ING LIBRARY!
Suck all the air out of the room. Problem Solved!
46137
This is how I dealt with the problem. If you combine both solutions, it'll be super quiet but I found just the headsets to be enough - usually:
1) Foam ear plugs:
1a) The foam earplugs have a trick. You have to roll them between your fingers so they become long and thin. Then put them into deep into your ear (not too deep). They'll expand and provide a good seal. Don't pull them out quickly because of the seal. It can hurt your ear drum. Pull them out slowly.
1b) Cost: Maybe 5 dollars.
1c) How to correctly put in foam earplugs. Can't just shove them in. They don't work that way.
1d) It says they're to be used only once. I use mine multiple times and put them in the case that usually comes with them. You can wash them if you want.
1e) Ear plugs from Bass Pro Shops. You can go to Dick's or whatever sporting goods store you'd like.
2) Shooting headsets: Put these over your ears after you put in your earplugs:
2a) Cost: Not too expense, like 30-50 dollars.
2b) http://www.basspro.com/Remington-M30-Earmuffs/product/26026/
2c) Amazon search
3) The best book on how to study I ever read: "College Study Skills" by Deanna L. Van Blerkom. Side note - When I was in school some *cough* years ago, this book was a fraction of the 2013 price. It is unreal how much they gouge students nowadays. Unreal. It was like 20 or 30 bucks back then, and like 110 bucks today. Unreal.
Don't go crazy with the headsets. They're a good investment but you don't need the microphones or anything else. Just get a basic set and save yourself some money. A high decibel rating from a reputable company. Look on Amazon for the reviews.
Decades back I sat in a large egg shaped shell with a small opening with a padded interior you could sit in with stereo speakers in it.
Whether it was music or white noise, once you were in the chair almost all the extraneous noise in the room just disappeared.
Even someone speaking right in front of the opening was difficult to hear.
Get a set of in ear plugs and then put a set of over the head muffs on.
Alternately, combine the white noise with ear buds and over the head muffs. You'll find you can lower the volume considerably to make it more relaxing.
There are basically two ways airborne sound travels between two rooms: 1) air leaks between the rooms. 2) through a mechanism where the sound wiggles the wall surface on one side, which wiggles the surface on the other side and re-transmits the sound back into the air.
You can stop air leaks with attention to detail during construction - the partitions should go all the way up to the ceiling, and the floor and ceiling joints should be caulked. The only way to stop the second problem is making the wall more difficult to wiggle - or increasing it's mass. Most modern dormitories have moved away from concrete and concrete block construction which is much better at stopping sound to a gypsum wall board on metal stud construction, which is lighter and therefore transmits sound much better.
Unless you want to pour a new 6" concrete wall or line the room in thick lead, you are unlikely to be able to stop the sound transmission. Having maintenance seal the door and windows better may help if there is a leak problem. You can tell by listening around the door. If the sound is much louder near the bottom of the door than elsewhere in the room, you've found the leak.
The best way to approach this problem is to go to audiologist and get fitted for custom earplugs. They will make a mold of your ear and send it to a company like http://www.etymotic.com/hp/erme.html. You can select the filter up to a maximum of -25dB over a much more even bandwidth than cheap earplugs. It will likely solve the problem without introducing masking noise willy-nilly.
That being said, a loudspeaker playing white or pink noise could mask the problem, if you don't mind listening to it. I dislike constant noise, but that would be up to you.
If you're hearing "thumping" of footsteps or feeling the noise problem, that's a different ballgame: structure borne transmission. Buy your upstairs neighbors a thick rug so they don't impact the floor as hard or replace the ceiling with something more rigid...
I know you've already tried plugs, but try this. Go to a gun store or a well equipped department store. Buy a good set of plugs, the kind that form to your ears. *also* buy a set of earmuff style hearing protection as used by shooters. Wear the muffs over the plugs. Unless you get distracted by your own heartbeat or the sound of your tinnitus, that should do it for you.
Alternate solution: I have a pair of on-ear noise cancelling headphones. I observe that they work even when I'm not listening to music. That is, turn them on, and the surrounding noise is lessened. Although I haven't tried this, I'm suspecting that a good OVER-ear set might seriously reduce the ambient noise level.
But the first solution is probably cheaper.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
Move to a dry dorm. Alcohol indirectly generates noise and vandalism.
Talk to an audiologist and get a set of custom molded earplugs. Put in a set of these and you won't hear much talking at all.
Now, I have never lived in dorm, so I have no idea if this is a valid suggestion, BUT...
Maybe there are rules about noise? Quiet hour? I mean, people are expected to be studying, so it makes sense (I could be talking out of my ass, but I really have no idea). If there is excessive noise, find out if there are any rules about noise in dorm and talk to your dean or faculty administrators.
Another suggestion might be to take your studying to the library where you know there's an expectation of silence.
Also, don't write off listening to music just yet. Maybe (*maybe*) you just need to find the right type or genre to help you concentrate and block out noises. Gentle classical music is a popular choice. I understand that ADHD may negate this, but at least give it a try if you haven't yet.
And if you do, you want to be looking for *isolation* headphones, not noise canceling. Noise canceling is only useful for getting rid of predictable noise in a pattern (jet engines, etc).
Klipsch makes some nice isolation buds that are actually comfortable. You won't hear *anything* other than what's coming through the buds.
As someone with the same problem, I feel your frustration. Apart from setting up some kind of fancy noise cancelling device, your only real option is to drown out the sound with another sound.
You can use things like
-a noisy humidifier/heater/AC
-an ocean track on repeat
-white noise generator
-various forms of electronic music. Ideally stuff that has no discernible melody and few if any vocals. I suggest Orbital, Apollo 440, Daft Punk or similar. There are some ok shoutcasts stations, however a lot of them will interrupt the music with somebody with delusions of DJ-hood start talking about this or that, so YMMV.
a shotgun ?
Butler: [Answering door] Yes?
Indiana Jones: [In Scottish accent] Not before time! did you intend to leave us standing on the doorstep all day? we're drenched
[sneezes in butler's face]
Indiana Jones: Now look, I've gone and caught a sniffle
Butler: Are you expected?
Indiana Jones: Don't take that tone with me my good man! Now buttle off and tell Baron Brunwald that Lord Clarence McDonald and his lovely assistant
[Drags Elsa towards him]
Indiana Jones: are here to view the tapestries
Butler: Tapestries?
Indiana Jones: The old man is dense, this is a castle isn't it? there are tapestries
Butler: This is a castle and we have many tapestries, and if you are a Scottish lord then I am Mickey Mouse!
Indiana Jones: How dare he?
[punches butler in face]
I have similar problem with OCD/ADHD tendancies. I can fixate on conversations, music, beeps, noises, etc. I have several pairs of Panasonic RP-HC55-S noise cancelling in-ear buds (~$50), and I use either ambient music or white/pink noise tracks I have on my mp3 player. They don't cut out high frequencies as well, but the white noise masks a lot of that.
Lots of models of sound canceling headphones so you won't hear what's going on outside.
Use headphones and an app like Babel Babble to create a Polyglot Cacophony. With hard ADHD, it might increase your stress level, but if you are trying to block out voices, that's about the best/cheapest you can get.
Ever tried switching on a TV to a program you've seen a hundred times, or a movie/show that you find extremely uninteresting? I generally have trouble going to sleep in a quite house because I find myself wondering about every creak so I usually set a sleep timer on a TV for about 90 minutes and turn the volume down to just the point where it washes out any background noise. It gives you something to focus your attention on but still allows you to be bored enough to conk out.
A combination of white noise from a fan and earplugs to dim out the high frequencies works for me.
Oh, and be sure to find a high quality fan. Cheap ones will have a rhythmic noise or squeak or wobble every time, which ruins the effect.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Back when I was a yout, I used a large box fan. It also helped because my dorm room was not air conditioned. ...And we LIKED it!
Fix Your Own TV - RiddledTV.com Avoid the Landfill
Trains build up in noise slowly; Jake brakes just startle the hell out of you.
I know you said that ear plugs don't block human voices well, but my experience has been the opposite. I work in a cubicle in what amounts to a hallway, and I use foam earplugs when I need silence. When I get them inserted correctly, they block out everything in my work environment. My breathing is the loudest thing I hear, with my heartbeat being a close second.
The trick to foam earplugs is compacting them enough so they slip into your ear canals before expanding. Once they expand in my ear canals, I hear nothing but my own heart and breathing.
Earplugs vary widely by performance and what you can get out of them if you put them in a bit better. Personally, I find the "OHROPAX Color" best. Rated at 30dB, if you put them in, let them warm up a few minutes, then re-seat them, my impression is that you get significantly more than 30dB. And if that is not enough, you can add a pair of external noise dampeners, the effect is additive. You may need to experiment, depending of the geometry of your inner ear, other earplugs may be better for you.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Use ear plugs. then on top of those put some ear protection you use at shooting ranges. I do that at the range, or I leave with a headache. I usually cant hear a thing with them on.
The larger, the better, 3 speed and adjust to taste. Just one such unit helped me through 1.5 years of graduate school.
I've found that voice and interruptive sound can be quite bothersome, but if music is both interesting and acoustic it can have a positive affect... Just the right - balance. Go to candyrat.com & pick out some artists you find intreaguing - you can listen to most on YouTube to try them out. I think you'll be very happy with listening to some acoustic guitar with a nice set of headphones.
I've got a home office and it is never quite in the house. I just got some Bose AE2i headphones (not active noise cancelling but large over the ear style) and someone can stand in front of my speaking and I won't be able to hear them. I went through the standard websites like rainymood and simplynoise before starting on the Android apps for my phone, I found the best was the pro version of White Noise https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tmsoft.whitenoise.full . Not only does it have tons of sounds (plus more to download) but you can make mashups - I like to combine all the rain sounds with brown noise for ignoring things and fire + ocean waves for going to sleep. There is a free lite version that is better than most of the other paid-for apps.
My Hello World is 512 bytes. But it's also a valid Fat12 boot sector, Fat12 file reader, and Pmode routine.
move out before it's too late. I also suffer from ADHD, and do to all of the distractions in the dorm was ready to fail until I moved out and into a place without all of those distractions. I might also suggest you go to the library, although I was never able to get there. And then of course as a final resort... Just get yourself some decent noise canceling earphones of some sort and turn your music up until you can't hear anyone. If you find music to difficult to work to, find some very repetitive trance piece that doesn't bother you and listen to it over and over until you forget about it. This also works well for cubical farms after college. Still, your best bet is to move out.
Get one of those old school SCUBA helmets.
My studio - www.graylands.ca
If distraction is a problem, you might want to get some medical marijuana from the guy right down the hall.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
A lot of dorms are made out of cement, and cement is excellent for attenuating sound. But if your door doesn't close tight, then it won't make much difference.
You want to plug up every crack around the door with the most dense material you can find. Look for rubber gasket type stuff you can put in the doorjamb itself to make a tight seal and rubber "lips" you can put on the bottom to seal the crack underneath. Look for the same kind of door-sealing products meant to save energy by stopping cold air from getting in to your house. Also, If your door has a hole in it - like vents - cover them up with somethin thick and dense.
If your door is a light-weight metal or hollow-core wood door, you can try attaching heavy duty rubber sheets to the door itself. There are even some products mostly sold for automotive sound-proofing that are basically asphalt on a roll - Dynamat is one brand although it is expensive. You might just use tar-paper from the hardware store. Either way density is key, forget about fluffy foam, the more dense you can make your door the less sound will get through. Just make sure whatever you use won't out-gas into your room and give you cancer.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
If switching to a better room isn't an option, your primary modes of attack are probably going to be the following:
1. generating white noise in your room;
2. blocking outside noise from entering your room;
3. finding times when noise isn't being generated.
4. Actively discouraging the noise sources. How? It's your problem. But whole you cannot actively discourage voices, you can do it with most of audio equipment. And BTW, please remember the difference between "Can" and "May".
I had a roommate who would listen to music in a language he didn't understand when
he studied. It easily blocked out any voices and wasn't distracting as it was in a
different language so there was nothing to grab his attention. Probably more
effective than white-noise or instrumental as it is still the human voice. If you get
really desperate, try multiple streams of foreign voices at the same time.
Earbuds and soothing non-rhythmic music for sleep. Its the only way to white noise out the noise. The buds work like regular ear plugs.
Either that or just get yourself so tired that you can just go unconscious during WWIII eventually your body and mind will adapt.
Move. I mean that seriously. Not all dorms are alike, and chances are there is a quieter room available. You will have to approach your student services office or similar about your situation, and bring documentation. They may not be able to accommodate you entirely but they may find some arrangement that would be of benefit. For example, they may make a triple in a quiet dorm into a double with a known-quiet roommate.
If you want further information, give us the name of the school. Maybe someone here knows about a quieter dorm on your campus.
We had designated quiet dorms on my campus; of the 7 campuses I've attended, taught at, or attended conferences at, all 7 had designated quiet dorms. Getting in may, however, take effort.
You will also be surprised how far a doctors note will go, even if you are not on medication, to granting exceptions to rules.
For example, I had a friend with cystic acne due to in-grown hairs, and with a prescription from a Dr., he was permitted to grow a beard at BYU, where the only people allowed to have beards are the statues of Brigham Young.
Who the heck is modding my post "troll"? That's my advice. Earn enough money that you don't have to pack yourself into high density housing.
Go back home to the P's :)
-- L8R, guitardood
Best of both worlds.
Ear plugs with larger muffling headphones over top. You can get ear plugs made for YOUR ears from a doctor and the headphones designed for use with chainsaws. You should then just hear your breathing, which can get really annoying.
http://www.bose.com/controller?url=/shop_online/headphones/noise_cancelling_headphones/index.jsp
They cancel out human noise fine. I use them in noisy places and I can relax and focus. You are going to want to listen to some sort of music, just pick something easy to listen to like new age.
With the right ear phones.
My advice is to habituate and develop innate control.
I wrote this in a reply to you because, just as your post is a real solution that is possible for motivated people, I expect it would be modded troll, too. Most people are now in the blame mindset and fail to see the reality that is truly possible, nyet only few are motivated and strong enough to achieve... The irony is that to achieve, most people simply need to believe it is possible and then plan accordingly.
I mean come on.. how hard is it to find a quiet place deep in the fucking stacks?
nuf sed
Table-ized A.I.
The essence of this is by far the best idea here. Build a sound booth. Whether it's egg-shaped or a tardis-shaped box, it's doable and can be very quiet. Make sure there's a window so you can see the fire alarm, though.
3M / Peltor 90561 ear muffs. 30dbNRR. I use them at work to drown out the noisy voices. They work far better than anything else I have found. You might also check out Chuck Wild aka Liquid Mind. Very soothing ambient no-beat mood music. Beautiful and relaxing without being distracting. Pandora has a lot in their library so you can try before you buy. I know that music really helped me get through my EE studies. Good luck!
option 1: You can move if it's possible. Not all dorms are bad like that and you might be able to move to a different story or whatever.
option 2: Asking your neighbors kindly might work -- if you're a girl. Guys tend to be jerks especially in college. They might make the situation worse but petitions could be made.
option 3: Report the noise to whomever runs the dorms. I'm sure there's a curfew for noise and all that.
option 4: Buy earplugs. They re uncomfortable but you might get used to them. They can help quite a bit except for the bass.
option 5: Buy white noise machines or something similar. This can just about cancel out a lot of the noise that you hear. I use an air purifier.
option 6: Reduce your stress levels, meditate, and get rid of that anxiety. If you have it, you'll notice that you can't sleep easily. I assure you if you work at it, which can take months to years, you'll sleep a lot better. It took falling asleep with my fiancee every night to get over this since somehow she makes my worries go away instantly.
option 7: Exercise early in the morning. This will help you explode your energy early in the morning and make you tired by night time. This is vital to help keep a normal sleep schedule if you have trouble sleeping. You might even sleep through crazy noises.
option 8: Do not eat before sleeping. Eat at dinner and leave about 4hours or so of time before you try to sleep. This way your body won't feel awake. Or, on the other hand, eat A LOT right before sleeping so you can get a food coma. The problem here is that you're in college and eating a lot is probably unlikely.
option 9: Do not drink caffeine after lunch. better yet, avoid it entirely! This will help you rest at night, and reduce your anxiety levels as caffeine and sugar tend to increase anxiety in just about everyone.
option 10: Pay women to sleep with them without music or make any noise. Not sure if that's considered prostitution but whatever, you need your sleep!
option 11: count in your head. count down from 1000 and focus on your counting. This won't just help you fall asleep by concentrating on something else but it'll improve your concentration.
option 12: Do NOT read, watch, or do anything that involves fiction before bed. This activates that part of your brain that makes you up and excited about things. You don't want that before bed. Work, studying, and all that good stuff will activate it as well so plan ahead before sleeping.
option 13: Last option for now -- Sleep medication can help. I sometimes can sleep right through noise but I mainly take it because of anxiety. A simple noise will make my adrenaline and anxiety levels jump through the roof. Lately, not so much because of my fiancee but I took the non-addicting kind and after 3-days it supposedly helps you sleep better for a good while. Try it out and see what happens.
I hope this helps!
I've run into this a lot; in dorms, in a house with other mates from uni, at work, and so on.
Here are some things that work for me:
- If you can afford it, noise canceling headphones are awesome. If you put yourself in a quiet place, they help a huge amount. Expensive though.
- Always have ear plugs in your bag. They are small, and you can use them in a pinch. Super good for exam situations where things are quiet anyway and you just want to block out that guy who keeps clicking his pen.
- Go to a hardware store, and find the ear protection section. For 20-40$ you should be able to find industrial grade ear protection. This works really, really well; and lasts longer than ear plugs. These are more effective than bose noise canceling headphones, but less comfy and won't play music.
Note that all of the above will only lessen the sounds around you; if you are already in a loud place, it won't make it silent. Which leads me to my next piece of advice:
Go somewhere else. I still have to do this to this day. There is a quiet, distraction free place somewhere on campus where you can go. You have to find it though. I ended up with a collection of about 6 places that were generally super quiet.
You'll also want to find places that are distraction free in other ways too (eg. a desk in a basement at the end of a hall; there was nothing there but what I brought with me, and very few people ever came by). Try to avoid populous study areas; there are other distractions there. Extra good if you can find somewhere that's not too far from a toilet for those long study sessions. If I had to walk too far to find a bathroom, it would take me 10 minutes to get there, and 90 to get back on account of interesting everything.
Music that you can't process. In my case it was chinese pop music, or very loud punk rock. Experiment with different things, you'll probably find something that your brain considers passive background noise. Note that it's not enough to simply change the language or find something without words. I'll happily hum along to classical, and I have no problem singing along to bhangra music. I'd suggest looking at pop music from other cultures, or genre's that are known to be loud and noisy.
Watch the chemicals. Getting the right amount of caffeine is a tricky balance. Obviously it keeps you awake, which is a plus. But having a hit can help sharpen your mind to the work at hand a little bit. Having too much will end up being a huge distraction.
Have a refocus point. Eventually you're mind is going to wander, I found it was helpful to have something that brought it back. Some people use excercise, or a smoke break for this. For me, I printed a little sign that I would stick at eye level that read simple "GRADUATE". Whenever my mind went, this little sign would act as a mental kick in the pants. Most times I could pull it together and get back to the task at hand. Maybe after a few breathes, or something.
Know when to quit. If it's just not working; stop. Take a break (ideally, a limited break; like having no more than three printed sheets of sudoku in your bag), or just switch tasks and come back in a bit.
A trick that I use in today's office cubicles worked fine back in college. Just get one or two cheap desk fans. They are always too noisy for the airflow they deliver, but the point is that they provide enough white noise and pink noise that makes life bearable.
If you can't sleep with white and pink noise, just give yourself one or two nights to get used to it. You will get used to it.
Kriston
Your solution is almost in-hand!
:) Add to that the straight blockage that a pair of earlpugs (from an Audioogist) will provide you, and you will be completely oblivious to all that is around you.
I long-ago created a solution that you will find useful, although created for my own self at the time, in a similar situation.
Play the MP3 "Gray-brown noise.mp3," found at the following public link, on repeat: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/84396909/Gray-Brown%20Noise.mp3
You see, the problem with noise-cancelling headphones is that they cancel repetetive noises. That results in a situation in which human conversation is easier to hear. For an ADHD, ithat's backwards. Right? You need a mask.
In reality, what you want to do is to raise the background level of ambient noise across the entire frequency spectrum, to obscure incidental noises (talking, music, etc.). Play my MP3. Whether you use headphones or speakers, your brain will get used to the monotonous (patternless) broad-band "noise," and will quickly adapt to a base level of "even" noise, so that it will ignore many transients (talking, music, etc.).
I call it gray-brown noise because, well, actually, just see Wikipedia. Anyways, gray noise is equalized to have the same perceived-energy-intensity across all of the octaves of the human range of hearing. So, unlike white noise, which is harsh and high-pitched, this MP3 is gray––it is even. Second, I used a Brownian noise-generator to generate the original 5-miunute sound file. (See Wikipedia, but basically Brownian=random walk vs random distribution of frequency energies––>more natural.) It is gray for me because I have adjusted the equalization to match the response of my over-earbuds (from Brookstone) and my iPod. To attain gray, you may have to play with your equalizer. (But hey, even playing this MP3 " straight" totally kills TONS of distracting ambient noise, as you will easily hear. So, don't sweat the perfection of the "gray" part).
You will have to adjust the equalization to your own computer speakers, or to your chosen type of earphones, to achieve the optimal gray. But, after that, you will be in heaven.
Once adjustments are done, you're set; your brain will quickly get bored of the pattern-less "noise," letting you ignore any spurious auditory input, and just get to work. A bonus is that it covers up lots of ambient and transient noises. That is, it raises the signal floor,the floor above which your brain says, "Hey, what's that noise all about?!?
People can blather, play music, and so on, but if you have your "WALL OF GRAY-BROWN NOISE PRESSURE" up in defense, then you are golden. The BONUS is that NO ONE really hears it. It's background to them; sounds like an airplane engine from inside the cabine).
Sincerely,
Sir Holo
sirholo@mac.com
Any thanks from you or other ADHDs (etc.) will make me feel good, knowing that I have helped someone. Feel free to re-post the (unedited) MP3 anywhere (with credit included in meta-data). (
Enjoy!
I have a pair of Shure noise isolating ear bud, then I put on a white, pink, or brown noise depending on the sound.
http://simplynoise.com/ is a free website that plays the sounds, or you can download the mp3.
It works awesome.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
Sound conducts through solids so your bones, head, skin will all conspire to breach your cone of silence. You can build a six wall frame and cover and fill the walls with sound proofing. There is a temptation to use materials that are not fully fire safe so don't. You may find that a two wall L helps a lot. Home Depot has products like Auralex 2 ft. W x 2 ft. L x 2 in. H Studiofoam Wedge Panels that you can spend money on.
My dorm had this same problem Since it was old, small and central to campus we asked for and got access to basement class rooms (needed a key) all night. I can tell you that they were quiet and had the advantage of boards and chalk to scribble notes on. In this modern world you might elect to take your ADHD card and make such a request. Who knows they might say yes.
Some libraries have tiny little closet offices in the stacks for grad students. Check that option too.
Stolen from the net:
Poly Urethane Foam Ear Plugs (Disposable)
Poly Urethane Foam Ear Plugs are the softest foam plugs available. They are available in a limited range of sizes because they are designed to be rolled into a thin cylinder, then inserted deeply into the ear canal where they expand to fit most ears. These plugs are very soft and so are a good choice for sleeping, studying, riding a motorcyle, attending the races, or when working on the job or around the house. Most are available with a neck strap (corded) to help keep them handy between uses. Most Urethane foam plugs are tapered, so they fit more comfortably and they have a thin smooth skin that helps them stay clean longer than PVC foam plugs.
MAX (NRR 33) (Average to Large)
LaserLite (NRR 32) (Average)
MaxLite (NRR 30) (Small to Average)
3-M 1100 (NRR 29) (Average)
EarSoft Yellow Neon Blast (NRR 32) (Average)
Sleep/Rest EAR plugs (NRR 32) (Average)
Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn't. Mark Twain.
Earplugs? neh... White noise? meh... Noise canceling? blah... I masturbated frequently when I was in high school and never had any problem sleeping. YMMV
I'm guessing it's even more effective if one is a screamer.
For me, all-news radio at a minimal volume is a not-too-demanding sound that covers distracting noises. If you don't have such a station locally, just stream it over the net; WTOP in Washington is pretty good for this.
My upstairs neighbor insists on using his washing machine at odd hours, which is apparently very well acoustically coupled to my bedroom. Bored and wide awake, I was messing around on an old laptop and remembered that its wifi card supported injection.
Now his Internet connection mysteriously drops out whenever the washer is running after midnight. That's generally enough to convince him to go to sleep rather than stay up all night watching porn and doing laundry.
Use a silencer on your assault rifle? I'm sure your dorm mates will see reason and make less noise when you show them a good example.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
And use this wire to connect the neutral to the ground. The safest way to fire the breakers. It will be very quiet after.
1. white noise - download a program onto your PC, or there's some websites. To be really effective, wear headphones.
2. keep a fan running (it also produces white noise).
3. earplugs (the foam kind that you roll up).
4. don't think they "should" be quieter and more considerate - this dramatically increases your sense of annoyance. Don't do the "right" thing and carefully "be quiet" yourself. Instead, be relaxed about making ordinary noise yourself. It will make others noise seem less annoying.
I found that as part of my daily routine was spending hours everyday in the main library. You find a quiet corner, preferably among a stack of non distracting books.
Routines are very good to have for people with focus issues. You get to your room, eat the gruel they serve in the cantina, and head off to the library with all your stuff. Work until 10-midnight, go home sleep. Wash-rinse-repeat.
Yeah, I remember those. Still want one. Modded for kybd/mouse/trak/joy/wand operations.
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Just be aware that plugs/earphones mostly cut off ventilation into the ear. Prolonged users tend to have more ear/nose/throat infections. Not sure if there is a solution for it.
Free, as in your money being freed from the confines of your account.
How did you get your APD diagnosed? I live in the UK and the standard NHS hearing test of varying tones at different volumes showed that i have normal hearing.
However - i constantly find myself mishearing words or combinations of words (usually as ludicrous combination that makes not sense). Is there a fix for this or is it just a case of learning to cope?
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
I know that you were being trollish, but I actually have to agree. I didn't spend my time in the dorms except to sleep. My study time was spent down at I-Hop, or in the library. I did find it mildly annoying when somebody was yelling down the hallway, but you can get used to it.
This is actually a good idea for a number of reasons, the most important though is to prepare you for work when you leave uni. Every office I have ever worked in has people talking on phones, idle banter about whatever, builders doing work next door, and whatever else you can think of. For some reason IT companies are often open plan.
It is important to learn to focus through your distractions, even if you have something like ADHD of whatever, unless you are going to spend the rest of you life letting it restrict you. Learn to master it instead. I know it is hard (I also suffer from being very distracted by noise, especially conversations) but it is easier to learn to deal with this when you are young than when you are almost 40 like me. I still have to work through it though and still try not to make any mistakes when I have difficulty concentrating.
Unless you are going to let crap like this rule your life, you just have to find a way of dealing with it. Sometimes headphones will be an option, but sometimes you need to hear some noises (in my case, remote monitoring alarms for servers) so you have to just put up with all the noises that distract you and still get your work done anyway.
Sorry this is not a better answer, but few companies will offer you a completely silent working environment. Even if they try, sometimes an important deadline will just happen to coincide with the office next door demolishing a wall or something and getting builders to work weekends does not happen unless you pay them off the books in cash or double time.
I dont read
Was this you?
I was just like you a couple of years ago: living in a college dorm room, wanting to study, and having ADHD. I studied math at a top university. This question isn't about noise in the dorm, and if you think noise is your problem, it isn't.
Your best solutions are all about your own behavior, but a little (just a little) bit of Adderall doesn't hurt (and if you take the behavioral lesson seriously you'll grow out of your need for Adderall). Most important things I did:
1. Go to the library. Make a rule: library is for work, dorm is for play/sleep (if you're outgoing, those might be the same thing).
2. Make rules for yourself about everything. (This is where the Adderall helps actually.) Compulsion and attention deficit are opposites. Move yourself toward the other end of the spectrum. My pens go in my backpack. My wallet goes in my back right pocket. I do all of my homework in black ink (yes I did math in ink) unless I'm marking something up which case I use red.
3. Study ahead of time and do all those goodytwoshoes things you've always been told to do. I know you're thinking, "duhhhh Anonymous Coward," but it's not a lesson I took to heart until half way through my college experience and good lord did studying ahead take the pressure off. Five minutes of work now = 15 minutes of work a day before the test.
4. Listen to music. You can't cover up the amount of noise you'll run into on a college campus without being a dick (e.g., white noise generator). I don't know if this is just me or applies to everyone who, but I found that as long as I was doing left brain stuff like math and programming, music didn't interfere with my thought process.
5. Stop worrying and learn to love the noise. Make friends with your dormmates. You might learn something from their study habits.
Careful with the Adderall. If you rely on it to get work done then you're not using it for what it's best for: teaching yourself to be meticulous (see number 2). Use it as an aid to make your behavior correct and the attention and self control will follow.
Get an I-phone, install what you need to concentrate on it and then pretend you're in a bar with friends! :D
Build a Man a Fire, and He'll Be Warm for a Day. Set a Man on Fire, and He'll Be Warm for the Rest of His Life.
That way you'll have an excuse for not asking people to clam up when you need to work.
If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
Play quiet stuff (be it music, noises from nature, white noise, a waterfall, whatever) ON THESE: http://www.extremeheadphones.com/ Your brain will naturally focus on whatever audio comes from them just like any other headphones... but on top if that you'll get twenty something dB less ambient noise, which is a lot of attenuation, that enables you to play whatever stuff at quite low volume. After reading plenty of positive reviews and the story about how they were conceived, they are definitely on my shopping list, my intended use is different, though, I'd like to be able to listen to music on while on the subway, pretty noisy in Madrid where I live, in a comfortable way.
I was the same way in college; I couldn't really study listening to anything with lyrics as it was too distracting. I switched to listening to classical and instrumental stuff from Windam Hill artists. Had I known about ambient like Brian Eno, that would have been perfect too. Music for Airports is relaxing and beautiful as well.
Do what I did: drop out of school.
Fata viam invenient.
Sorry, but your best bets are to get an apartment or just get used to it. If you can't get used to it then get an apartment. Personally, when I was in the dorms I loved it. The background noise was just right for me. If I went where it was too quiet I felt like I was disconnected, missing something and then my mind would wander. It was very hard to adjust to leaving the dorms actually. For you... maybe the opposite is true.
It may be a case of not having found the right kind of music. When I was in undergrad, I found that instrumental music was a lot less distracting than lyrical music. Noise-cancellation headphones have been godsend for me. Some dorms may have designated quiet areas or at least areas that are a little more removed from the action to help facilitate some of the studying. The library is always an option. If not the option, there's gotta be a place on campus, or maybe even off-campus that's a little more quiet. Also remember that college counseling centers are an option to help you get some support and developing some strategies towards managing your ADHD. There may even be a student learning center (i.e., tutoring center) on campus where people might help you develop study skills and strategies for organizing your work so that you can get through it more easily and efficiently.
If voices are a problem, add white noise to the room in addition to having earplugs.
The catch is that your neighbors would be annoyed with the white noise.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
I commute by train and have a fairly low tolerance threshold for other people's inane chatter and noise pollution from crappy headphones. In a bid to stay out of prison for assault I invested in a pair of Etymotic earphones. IMHO they're arguably the best you can buy when it comes to sound isolation (as opposed to noise cancellation) and sound reproduction. They come with lots of different tips - you can even have custom tips made which are moulded to your ear canals. Expensive, yes. But they really work. Without any music they're like a good pair of earplugs, which as you say still lets through the occasional raised voice. Listen to some quiet, neutral music, though (as mentioned by others, try white noise, nature sounds or gentle ambient stuff) and they really do feel like an isolation tank for your head. You have my sincere sympathy - I too have suffered the chronic stress of other people's noise. If you can get the cash together, try these things out. They have greatly improved my quality of life. Good luck. http://www.etymotic.com/
I think the noise canceling headphones are your best option. You want a set that fully covers your ears. The Bose Quiet Comfort 15 is the top of the line. It's $300, but isn't four+ years of concentration worth this?
The headphones alone will not suffice, you need to pump some sound into the headphones to drown out the remaining background noise. I have two recommendations. The first is to get an app for your smart phone that sends a different frequency into each ear. The right set of frequencies can help you get your brain into a state of focussed concentration. I thought this was BS, but I spent a few bucks for an app (BrainWaves for iPhone) and found that it works for me.
The alternative suggestion is classical music, but not just any classical music. Go read a book call SuperLearning. It explains the studies that determined that classic music with certain characteristics (tempo, time signature, etc.) help people to learn. Read the book, buy some digital copies of the right classic music and pump that into your Bose QC 15s.
So not just any classic and certainly not some of that technoshit, but the right, well studies set of classic music should help you quite a bit.
Enjoy.
Decades back I sat in a large egg shaped shell with a small opening with a padded interior you could sit in with stereo speakers in it.
Then you befriended one of the indigenous females, and moved into her attic. Of course it was all part of your mission to observe human culture.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
You could purchase a small but artistic rug. Staple one edge of it to a furring-strip, then hang that furring strip onto your wall. If the rug was 4x6 feet, you now have 24 square feet of sound-damping material hanging on your wall. The furring strip gives lots of 'hang-points', so you can hang it using a few of those cool 3M adhesive hangers.
Another suggestion is to get a small fan. This gives you the 'hum' of the running fan, as well as some air circulation.
Maybe you better find a way to deal with it. I know it's not easy, but when you're done with college and enter the 'real' working world, you will be expected to act like eveyone else. You're not getting special privilege to wear goofy ear protectors while sitting at a desk, nor would that endear you to your co-workers.
Check out http://simplynoise.com/
Feed it to headphones or earphones to suit your taste. I like the rain simulation, with occasional distant thunder.
Oh, I'm sorry sir, I thought you were referring to me, Mr. Wensleydale.
You can get a sound generator like some people use to help them go to sleep and set it to a sound that is pleasing and not distracting, like a runnng brook or a thunderstorm, perhaps. SOme of these devices have a headphone jack, so you may want to try earbuds or headphones with that.
You can also get these soothing sounds on CDs and just play them through headphones. Rip them to an MP3 player if it's more convenient for you that way.
Use noise-isolating earbuds to enhance the effect. Noise-canceling (different from noise-isolating) headphones or earbuds won't help so much with voices as they will with other types of sounds, like a jet going overhead, a refrigerator running, the HVAC system noise, etc. Between the soothing sounds and the noise-cancelling effect, you may just conquer the background noise.
I find it odd that you tried earplugs without success. When you buy earplugs, are you looking at the advertised level of sound attenuation in db? Some are much better than others. Check a large sporting goods store and see if they have any in the hunting or guns section of the store.
I have ADD also, and I sometimes use foam earplugs with a high attenuation rating to help me get to sleep. I also have used the sound generator at times with crickets, or frogs, etc.
A technique of eastern cultural temperment akin to "dont sweat the small stuff". It is a kind of meditation.
If the noise is loud enough to damage hearing, then you need to physically protect your ears.
It's cheap, easy to work with, flashy (for the girls), and as a bonus...blocks out government surveillance.
I frequently work at home, sometimes in the same room as my wife and home-schooled kids. In order to be able to concentrate, I have tried a number of approaches. What I usually do is put in ear plugs and then wear hearing-protective ear muffs as well. I use Hearos ear plugs, which offer a noise reduction rating of 32dB. I also have some cheap ear muffs that offer a noise reduction rating in the neighborhood of 25 dB. However, you can get better ones (NRR ~30-31 dB) for less than $25.
Instead of earplugs, I sometimes use my Etymotic 6i isolating headphones (now discontinued), which enables me to listen to music or white noise, while still blocking out ambient sounds. The similar Etymotic mc5 isolating headphones offer 35-42dB of attenuation as well as really good sounding music for about $50.
For $75, you could get the in-ear headphones and some good, quiet ear muffs. Or, if you think music or white noise would be distracting, you could just get some ear muffs and ear plugs for $30-35.
Orson, stop telling our secrets.
The best way to approach this problem is to go to audiologist and get fitted for custom earplugs. They will make a mold of your ear and send it to a company like http://www.etymotic.com/hp/erme.html. You can select the filter up to a maximum of -25dB over a much more even bandwidth than cheap earplugs. It will likely solve the problem without introducing masking noise willy-nilly.
The main design goal for most good earplugs like Etymotic's is to have a flat frequency response which means they decrease the volume level without distorting sound. That is great for music concerts, working around heavy machinery, and any other situation where you want to protect against hearing loss but still hear clearly. However, that same feature makes them horrible for blocking out voices, as they cut all sound equally so the volume difference between the voices and noise floor stays the same, and they are just as easy to hear. Noise canceling headphones are worse as they can only cancel relatively constant background noise, and can't cancel voices or percussive sounds at all.
I have used both of these in a setting like a dorm, and the net effect is to eliminate the beneficial background white (or colored) noise, while largely preserving the distracting noises. I found the foam plugs designed for shooting or sleeping to work much better because they muffle the sounds which makes them less distracting, and the total attenuation can be just as low as expensive earplugs (30-35dB).
It is possible that someone makes custom fitted earplugs design to decrease distraction which would be better than the foam ones, but don't spend all that money without having a long talk with the audiologist first and making sure they will make things better not worse!
When I get into a programming mood, I wear noise blocking ear buds and play new age music (enya and david lanz). The music is predictable, so it is not a distraction and it raises the noise floor so I can't hear outside distractions.
Get some -30 dB ear protection - not ear plugs, the kind that look like a huge pair of headphones. I got some from a hardware store for about $40, they make it so quiet I can hear my own heartbeat.
Try concentrating on the distractions, and you'll be distracted by your work!
The questioner asked how to deal with a problem at school, and your answer was "Finish school, then..."
You're not answering the question that was asked. You're answering a completely different question that is useless to the asker and is only intended to make you feel better about yourself, you Hard-Minded Realist, you. Thus, you're a troll.
1. Tape the vibrator to the hollow adjoining dorm wall.
2. Set it to the desired frequency that cancels out the intermittent noise.
3. Put on headphones with your favorite music.
4. WIN!
While I don't have ADHD, I work adjacent to a call center and find it completely unbearable. I often use music, but the noise level would be so high that it could lead to hearing damage for 8 hour shifts unless I also paired it with extremely bulk isolation cans which I don't find comfortable. For about $100 you can get Active noise canceling headphones on Amazon. They work even if you are not listening to music and will actively negate the noise with opposing sound waves from the area giving you a highly muffled experience and I can speak from experience that it handles human voices well as well as things like jet and train noise. (disclaimer: I'm not a sound engineer so do your own research). I use the Sony ones, but other brands may be good as well.
A baseball bat and a bad temper.
I wear Radians molded earplugs with a pair of these voice amplifying earmuffs on top when I go shooting, and I can barely hear the people right in front of me (and they're not talking softly).
Combine the in ear molded plugs with a bigger set of outer muffs, rather than ones designed to amplify voices, and you'd probably miss your neighbors screaming and killing each other.
Nothing will do much for loud thuds, like bass, stomping on your ceiling, Barry White, or slamming things against the wall, because our bodies propagate low frequency sound really well, while the higher frequency stuff needs to travel through the open air to get very far.
Also, if you have a particularly loud neighbor something that helps is putting furniture (particularly furniture that holds clothing) on the adjoining wall.
I use these earplugs:
http://www.earplugstore.com/eclsupvcfopl.html
and have been very successful blocking out noises.
I also was diagnosed with ADHD as a child and have gotten by without drugs (which you may or may not value) for my whole life. My technique is to change my environment. You cannot make the people in your dorms less noisy, but you can go somewhere else. For now, you can go to that quiet basement in the physics building, or the graduate study lounge on the third floor of the math building, or that anonymous study area in the Library with all the lockers where the students come and go talking of Michelangelo (but you don't notice because there are a hundred of them). I found all the little quiet spots on my campus when I was an undergrad, and knew how to hop from one to the next if an unexpected distraction arose. Long-term you will want to move into an apartment and get a car which will give you further capability to control your environment. Later on when I was a junior I moved into an apartment but always remembered and occasionally used my old haunts on campus. Changing my environment has been the best and most effective way I have found to get work done. Good luck.
--"You are your own God"--
The best sound blocker is lead such as acoustilead that can attenuate 30 dB or more. Mass loaded vinyl barriers can work as well.
Most noise is going to enter your room though the window or the door.
The window you can "plug" with foam. For a big window, you may need to spray glue the foam to a flat piece of wood.
For your door, try door seals.
For your head, use NRR 31 ear muffs with NRR 33 ear plugs physically in your ears.
Nice try, Lord Vader.
I just put on headsets or in-ear plugs and listen to a youtube video of white noise, such as rain. Here's a link which works for me: http://youtu.be/GyUwg2fBg3k
Forget studying in your dorm room. Go to a study hall and preferably find one of those desks with the walls on three sides so you can get into your own little world. Just try not to sit near the cute girl or that will distract you.
Never hit your grandmother with a shovel, for it leaves a bad impression on her mind...