Noise Cancelling Headphones

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Hello! I moved into an apartment building several months ago and the walls in my apartment are very thin. I can even hear my mother humming in the next room, and am noticing that I've been having more meltdowns again. I feel like I can't find a quiet, safe space to relax and recharge lately. I've only ever lived in houses before and I'd often stay in the basement or upstairs where I couldn't hear anything else, but I don't have that option here - even in my bedroom I can hear sounds from the other rooms. I've been looking into noise cancelling headphones, they're pretty expensive and I was wondering if they're worth it. Does anyone have any experience with them? If so, do you have any you recommend? I currently only have a pair of Etymotic ear plugs and they do help when I'm in public and need to hear what someone else is saying (as they don't cancel out voices, just the surrounding sound) but I need something that cancels both voice and surrounding sounds. Any tips would be appreciated at this point even if you don't know about any good noise cancelling headphones. Thank you!

I personally just use a pair of Billboard gamming headphones and listen to my favorite music when I start getting overloaded, but I do know about some fairly good and cheap noise canceling headphones.

Check into SonicSolace active noise canceling headphones. If I'm not mistaken they are right around the $45.00 - $50.00 price range and they work decently, plus they are stylish.

there are two kinds- the kind that totally engulf your ear versus the kind that sit on your ears but don't entirely cover them, that use active noise cancellation in addition to physically blocking sound [the first kind that engulfs your ear]. a partial third way is [if you can handle things directly in your ear canals] are the ear buds, they won't fit everybody and they can make your ear holes sore after a while, but they are a winning combo if you pair them with a pink noise or brown noise [or some combo] generator on your music player. they will effectively block out a lot of exterior sounds. the best the other two kinds [over-ear and on-ear] can do is muffle them somewhat, and they can get hot [sweaty] if you wear them long on anything but in cooler weather. the Bose are IMHO overpriced for their performance level, there are better values with better sound quality if you listen to music with them also, such as those made by Sennheiser.

Treated myself to a pair of Sony MDR 1000X a few months back for £220 using mostly vouchers I had been given.

I use them at work when I need to concentrate on spreadsheets etc and want to block out chat around me. Noise cancelling is great!

My tip would be to check the dB attenuation of the headphones - the higher, the better. 10-dB represents double the percieved sound, so a small difference in accentuation makes a big difference.

I like the 3M Pelter series, I have the X4s which are designed to look like normal headphones (mine get confused for that) and attenuate to 33dB, however the X5s have 37dB attenuation but look bulkier.

I used to use in the ear buds (the disposable ones you can mould into shape) and then regular builders ear defenders on top. That was a very cheap combo as the builders ear defenders were only like 3 gbp / 5 dollars and the in the ear bud ones about the same. I even used that when sleeping for a while. I don't need them anymore but that worked well for me.

I use the Sony MDRZX110NC noise canceling headphones. Cost me I think $30 and use with Soft Murmur app on my android for light background noise or play music. For what they are they work fairly well. Otherwise I buy earplugs multi-packs from Walmart for like $2 and they do the job.

When I'm in my room, especially when I'm sleeping, I have this playing...

Thank you, all who replied! You've all helped and I've found a cheap pair of noise cancelling headphones. They should get to my mailbox in a few days, so I'm excited to try them out along with the tips you've given. Even without the headphones, pink noise has been amazing! So thank you as well to the person who gave me a link for that.