I bought a piece of 1.5 inch stiff foam to try to fix a sag in a bed. It didn’t work but having that thick piece of solid foam around has been a life saver.
Need something flat to put a laptop on? Throw it on the foam. Going to be doing something that requires you to be on your knees for a while? Get the foam!
It went from stupid purchase to something I’d gladly replace if it broke.
Custom-made ear plugs. Even if you only wear ear plugs occasionally (I do when in a noisy hotel, or when a neighbor goes a bit too crazy), they are so worth having.
Basically you go to an audiologist and they put something kinda liquid in each of your ears to take a mold of your ear canals. A couple of weeks later, you have plastic earplugs that have the exact shape of your inner ears.
Upsides: • They work, always. I would typically use wax or silicon disposable ear plugs before that, and sometimes in the middle of the night they might move and let the sound in; those don’t. Also, foam disposable ear plugs don’t stay in my ear, don’t ask me why. • They never hurt. Since disposable ear plugs get shoved into your inner ear until they take the shape, they continuously push against the walls of your ear canals. I would often feel kinda bruised after using them for a long time. • They are crazy comfortable. Put your ear on a pillow, and you barely feel them at all. • But do they block too much sound? That’s up to you. Basically, you choose the level of noise you want to keep out, which I believe is achieved by using different kinds of plastic.
They’re not a trivial purchase (I think mine cost $150), but then you use them for decades, so it’s definitely worth it. It was a stupid purchase in my case, because I bought them on a whim out of anger against my neighbor’s party one night; but they’ve followed me everywhere since!
Don’t know if I’m losing my mind but I thought the inner ear was beyond the eardrum
Oh you’re probably right; I’m no specialist and I’m referring to the ear canals as “inner ear” in my post and could very well be wrong in doing so.
As a guy that had his inner ear literally scooped out, I can confirm custom ear plugs are a MUST HAVE for anyone. I use mine for swimming and places with a shit ton of dust cuz I can’t get water or other stuff in my ears or it makes them really hard for the doc to clean. They also just look really cool and I managed to get a few of my friends to get some as well.
I just got a pair in Canada they were 300 bucks. My ears are so small nothing else fits. 10 out of 10 would buy again.
I have a set of these designed for musicians, theres an open channel through them, and you put a special “button” at te outward end, that lowers volume without affecting sound quality. I think the company is called “Etymotic Research”
Oh my, I had no idea this was a thing, but this sounds amazing!
As for them staying in your ear, do you pull up on your earlobe when inserting normal ear plugs? I discovered this a while ago and it took in-ear stuff from being absolutely unusable to working great.
i’m currently waiting for a pair of custom molded titanium earplugs with interchangable filters. epoxy ones costs 180, Ti 200 € in central europe.
This post has me very intrigued