If you’ve lived in a bustling metropolis for a while, you’ve probably become desensitized to the nightly disturbances of garbage trucks, after-hours clubs, and above-ground subways. Even if you’ve trained yourself to sleep through your city’s din, there are still unavoidable disturbances that violently tear you from valuable REM sleep—like your neighbor’s late-night DJ-sessions for his cat, or a partner with an extremely deviated septum. Let’s be real, you can live just outside of Times Square or the backwoods of Tennessee, but a snoring bedmate is an assault on our senses even in the quietest suburban towns. The best defense is finding yourself a super-comfortable pair of earplugs for sleep—ones that you can rely on to get you through overnight flights and out-of-battery smoke detector beeps.
To be clear, there are different earplugs for different situations—to say nothing of the difference between daytime and nighttime earplugs, especially when it comes to how much sound they block out. The main criteria for measuring the efficacy of earplugs comes down to the noise reduction rate (NRR), which is a good thing to keep in mind. In other words, the pair that saved you during a metal festival might not be the best for blocking out chainsaw-level snoring. Said another way, before you drive to your nearest hardware or convenience store and opt for the cheapest disposable buds on the market, the decision is a lot more complicated than it might seem. While there are quite a few things to debate when you’re shopping around—silicone versus foam, disposable versus reusable—we’ve weighed the options and found the best noise-canceling earplugs for sleeping, meditating, or just zoning the hell out.
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The best earplugs for those prone to sleeping through alarms
Loops earplugs have received a lot of praise for their comfort and wearability, and even helped one VICE editor survive “an entire weekend of metal at Psycho Las Vegas, and at least a half dozen other shows [while her] tinnitus [was] totally kept at bay.” Loops are great for reducing sound; they have an NRR of 14, which is lower than others on this list. In practical terms, this means they will block out constant background noise, but won’t make it so you can’t hear your surroundings, which is ideal if you already have trouble waking up to an alarm sans earplugs.
The best budget earplugs/the best foam earplugs
I can personally attest to these low-cost earplugs after ordering them in a half-asleep stupor when my neighbor started blasting techno music at 6 a.m. (shortly after he got home from a “night” out, of course). For less than five bucks, you get a pack of 10, and—if the over 30,000 reviews on Amazon don’t convince you, take it from my stepmom who has had to put up with my dad’s Earth-rattling sleep apnea and snoring for two decades. She swears that “the cheap ones that really work are Flents’ Quiet Contour.” Flents (plus a sound machine) is her secret to curbing extreme sensitivity to sound when she sleeps.
The best custom molded earplugs
This ain’t your first rodeo; try as you might, you just cannot seem to find a pair of earplugs that stay in your ear without causing discomfort. Fear not, you might just have extra special ear-cavities. Whether they are teeny tiny or surprisingly wide, get a custom-fit at home with Radian’s super-easy kit. One five-star review entitled “wow my little ear like these” goes on to describe how they “put them to the test…in the same room as a snorer,” and after popping in “these well formed bad boys…couldn’t hear the snoring anymore, but definitely still hear[d] the alarm clock the next morning.”
The best silicone earplugs
For some people, foam earplugs don’t do the trick. They need a squishier, easier-to-mold wax that they can conform to the shape of their ear. Basically the next best thing to having a custom pair is jerry-rigging your most comfortable fit with these super pliable silicone wax earplugs with 4.2 stars and over 27,000 reviews. An ecstatic five-star reviewer’s “only wish” is that she “had found these sooner,” and claims that they “block sound so that neighbors, AC units, snoring dogs and loud TVs are all muffled and allow [her] to sleep the entire night through.” I’d call that a win—she also gives one pro tip: “[U]se a Q-tip right before inserting them. Removing any oil from your skin helps with the seal.”
Sleep tight, don’t let the impromptu 6 a.m. DJ session bite.
The Rec Room staff independently selected all of the stuff featured in this story. Want more reviews, recommendations, and red-hot deals?Sign up for our newsletter.
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