Hacker News Reader

Comment by wiggler00m | Hacker News Reader

Earplugs solve this for most locations.

For a little while. But earplugs are not comfortable for hours of use, and they can cause tinnitus-type effects if you do that.

I've worn earplugs and put a big fan next to my head every night for years, because I'm a very light sleeper. I don't get any kind of irritation from it.

I think the big thing is people don't know how to put earplugs in properly, the entire plug should be in your ear canal. To do it, you need to pull up from the top of your ear when inserting to fully seat it.

No, the big things are varying ear canal sizes and shapes, varying earplug sizes and shapes, and side sleepers.

Put an earplug in your ear that seals the ear canal, then press firmly on the outside of your ear canal (on the side of your head, in front of the tragus). Feel that pressure. Now imagine doing that for 8 hours a night.

I have had to sleep with ear plugs because of noise from neighbors. Two results: waking up with painful ear canals during the night, and semi-permanently enlarged ear canals, requiring the use of larger ear plugs to seal, which causes more pain.

If you can comfortably sleep with ear plugs with no adverse effects, you are lucky.

I sleep with plugs every night and I get that pain & irritation. It really sucks.

Maybe one day we progress as a society to the point where one's right to quiet isn't dwarfed by others' right to make noise. Not gonna hold my breath though..

The way I put them in, there's no pressure pushing on them through the night since they're so far in. And I'm a side sleeper, too.

I think you're one of the lucky ones, then, that the anatomy of your ear canal allows the earplug to seal the passage without the pillow putting pressure on it.

What almost works for me is using two differently sized earplugs and putting the smaller one in the pillow-side ear, because the pillow pushing on the ear canal causes it to seal despite the smaller plug. But when I roll onto my other side several times a night, I'd have to wake up and swap ear plugs. It's not feasible. :(

There's still the risk of inducing tinnitus (esp. if you had some mild hearing damage already, which I'm guessing is pretty common) - the theory is that, in total silence, the brain can eventually notice even the faintest tinnitus sound (that you might have had already due to hearing damage, but didn't notice because it was so quiet), and once you've became conscious of it, it will never go away.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com