Using foam earplugs along with an ordinary set of headphones playing white noise (or rather brown—not as harsh) has changed my life. Combining the two was the c

Using foam earplugs along with an ordinary set of headphones playing white noise (or rather brown—not as harsh) has changed my life. Combining the two was the critical factor; neither worked very well by itself. I keep the volume at the lowest level that still eliminates outside distraction. Normally that is very low. If there's something particularly noisy going on, I just turn it up a bit. I used to feel extremely vulnerable to ambient noise and get thrown off by it many times a day. I basically never have that problem any more. Curiously, after using this solution for a few months I found that I didn't need it as often. Frequently it's enough to just remember that it's available if I need it. (Earphones covered by industrial earmuffs sounds like kind of the same solution, just inverted.)