Noise-Canceling Headphones Help My Schizoaffective Anxiety

I formerly used earplugs to drown out the noise and chatter in restaurants and some other public places, but now I’ve switched to noise-canceling headphones to deal with the anxiety those noises cause. Let me tell you about them and about why I need noise-canceling headphones for anxiety in the first place.

My Noise-Canceling Headphones Help My Anxiety

I am very sensitive to the ambient noise in a space. If it gets too loud or too many conversations are happening at once, it really amps up my anxiety disorder. So, I used to wear earplugs to tone down the sound. But they didn’t help that much. Enter noise-canceling headphones.

The headphones I got are from the Skullcandy brand. I really like the name. But they’re also really good at canceling out noise. I tried on several pairs at Best Buy, where my husband, Tom, and I shop, and the ones I got drowned out the noise the best. They’re wireless, which makes them a manageable tool as well.

But they don’t just drown out the noise. I can hook them up to my phone or laptop and listen to music from my personal collection, Spotify, or YouTube. On YouTube, so far, I’ve been listening to deep oceanic underwater sounds as part of noise control. I haven’t been listening to talk shows, probably because that’s the kind of banter I’m trying to avoid in the first place.

How My Noise-Canceling Headphones for Anxiety Can Be a Problem

My noise-canceling headphones for anxiety drown out noise most effectively if I listen to something, even though they work pretty well when I just put them on. But by the time I need them, I really could use a time-out. That’s why I go straight to listening to music as an added assist. However, the tradeoff with that is canceling out any conversation so I can’t hear the people around me. This is fine when I’m with Tom alone. He gets it that I need a time-out, and we communicate by texting.

It’s when I’m with other people in my immediate circle that being in my own little world of music or deep in ocean sounds gets to be an issue. It was a problem at my mother’s birthday dinner at Maggiano’s. I don’t want it to be a problem on Fathers’ Day, especially since my out-of-town best friend, who I've been friends with since I was five, is going to be at the dinner with us. I think what I’ll do then is put the headphones on but not listen to music.

I’m still figuring out how these noise-canceling headphones for anxiety work best for me in different circumstances. I will tell you that yesterday, when Tom and I went to The Cheesecake Factory, it was deafening, and my headphones saved the day. I would’ve had to leave without them.

See Also

• "Mental Illness Can Overstimulate Your Brain"
• "The Power of Sound and How It Affects Our Mood"