Ok, Ok, this is not going to be about a serial killer who just wanted to silence the voices he is hearing in his head, though that might be an interesting thing for an article as well... I'll be talking about a way to reduce or eliminate the unwanted noise that is all around you, could be unwanted screams too, I guess, when you just need to have some silence... Silence, I Kill You!

To hear your own thoughts or the voice that whispers to you something weird... no, no, not that, just to get a good night sleep or to rest well while flying with a plane over a long distance. Or maybe not to hear the screams when the plane starts falling down, including your own... that is the voice in my head talking now, not me, so apparently the thing I'm going to be talking about here does work... ;)

Introduction

Now off to the serious part. Getting a good night sleep might be a bit of challenge nowadays when there is all kind of noise pollution all around you and all the time, even at night. Cars and traffic, planes, trains, people partying, bad weather, noisy neighbors, late night Pokemon GO players and so on... sometimes the noisy one can even be sleeping right next to you. Or you might be a home crypto currency miner and have noisy mining rigs all around you working 24/7 and giving you hard time sleeping properly.

During the day you may resort to things like noise cancelling headphones, passive or even active ones, however these are no go at night when you go to bed. What about traditional foam ear plugs, they do the job, but are single use and you need to constantly restock on these. Sometimes they do the job a bit too good and you can't hear your alarm in the morning and end up oversleeping.

I have found a different solution that works great for me and I have been using it for quite a while already. A reusable alternative to the common foam ear plugs that does a better job - SleepSoft by a company called Alpine Hearing Protection. So here I'm going to share my experience using these to get a good night sleep or even to get a few silent moments to relax during the day.

Alpine Hearing Protection, Never Heard of Them

Alpine Hearing Protection... I have never heard of the company up until a few months ago when I was researching for a solution to my noise issues and then I stumbled on them and decided to try their products. It is an European company from Netherlands, specialized in hearing protection, that was founded in 1995, so they know their stuff pretty well already.

The company produces high quality hearing protection for musicians, children, travelers, water sports enthusiasts, clubbers, motorists and people with sleeping issues. So you might be interested in checking out all of their products as my focus here is on only one of their solutions that I've been using for a while mostly to get a good night sleep.

The Alpine SleepSoft Earplugs

The Alpine SleepSoft earplugs are, as they name suggests, designed to be used for better and problem free sleeping by insolating disturbing louder noises like snoring or the noise outside. The earplugs are reusable and if you clean them regularly (lukewarm water and soap will be enough) they can be used for months without even if you use them every day and you most likely will, then you can just buy another pair, they are not expensive considering how long they can be used. They also come with a small and very practical carry case that allows you to take them with you anywhere you go, it does not take any valuable space at all, so you can even put the box with the earplugs in your pocket.

The earplugs are made from a soft silicone-like material (not silicone though) that Alpine is calling AlpineThermoShape. This is apparently a specially developed material that adapts to the shape of your ears when you insert it and it heats up by the body heat. The result is really comfortable fit in your ears and no uncomfortable feeling like the one you get when using silicone earphones for a while. Even if you sleep on the side these earplugs should not bother you when properly inserted and tweaked to fit you (you can safely cut an outside part if they stick out of your ear). Of course the first few times you use them they may feel a bit strange, especially for people that have not used in-ear headsets or other earplugs, but you quickly adapt to that and it should not bother you anymore.

So what about the noise insolation you get? When using traditional earplugs they just reduce all of the noise and it may become so silent, that you can get a feeling of being isolated or even disorientation, dizziness and/or nausea in some rarer cases. Have you had a weird feeling when using handsfree with in-ear headphones that provide a pretty good noise insulation and you had to talk to someone over the phone, apart from you talking loudly, you also feel weird as you are not hearing your own voice well like you are normally used to when talking face to face with somebody.

With the SleepSoft earplugs the concept is a bit different than traditional earplugs. They use a special noise filter (the green part at the back is the filter) that provides good noise insulation, but at the same time does not block completely all the sounds. The so called AlpineAcousticFilters reduce troublesome and harmful noise such as snoring sounds and environmental noise, but without giving you the sense of insulation from the outside world. You can still hear the sounds of the alarm clock, doorbell, alarm, a crying baby or somebody next to you trying to talk to you, although they are muffled too, but you can respond to these adequately.

The SleepSoft earplugs have an average attenuation (SNR) of 25 dB, meaning that they will reduce significantly the noise level around you. This is enough noise reduction to make unpleasant and loud sounds becoming barely noticeable, but without getting to feel insulated as if you are in total silence. As you can see from the table above different sound frequencies are blocked more or less by the noise filters inside the earplugs, so that you can still be able to hear some important noises.

Conclusion

As I've already said I've been using the SleepSoft earplugs for months already and am really happy with them. I'm not using them every night or often during the day, they manage to do great job especially at times when you are having trouble getting to sleep. During the day I usually try to battle the unwanted noise with the help of good music instead of having it silenced with the earplugs.

Prior to stumbling and trying out these earplugs I have tried various other solutions and the SleepSoft were the best working one that I found out after getting a recommendation to try them out. So now I'm also doing my part trying to help by recommending them as a good and working solution that I'm using and am happy with. There might be other good alternatives as well, but this is the best one I've personally came across, have tested and can vouch for.

• If I managed to get you interested you can check Alpine's SlepSoft and other earplugs here...

If you have any questions or want to add something, then please feel free to do so in the comments below...

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