I use to work in a noisy office environment where silence wasn't really an option. The best solution was noise canceling headphones and a white noise generator.

I use to work in a noisy office environment where silence wasn't really an option. The best solution was noise canceling headphones and a white noise generator. I now prefer this over silence any day. Here's a great native Mac OS app for that (source available): http://code.google.com/p/noisier/ http://code.google.com/p/noisier/ I has White, Pink, and Brown noise with an adjustable filter.