https://www.cnet.com/health/the-best-earplugs-for-sleeping-in-2021/

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The best earplugs for sleeping in 2021

Whether you need to block out a snoring partner or noisy neighbors, these earplugs have your ears covered.

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Lindsay BoyersFeb. 22, 2021 12:23 p.m. PT

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Good sleep is arguably the most important part of feeling your best. You can eat well, exercise and stream all the guided meditations YouTube has to offer, but if you’re up tossing and turning all night because the person sleeping next to you (who, you keep telling yourself, you love so much) is snoring like a freight train, you’re probably not going to wake up ready to tackle your day. 

While you can certainly opt for a sleep divorce — Steve Romine, head of Bose Health Division, shared with me that up to 25% of couples either sleep in different beds or different rooms — you might want to see if you have any luck with earplugs first. There are a lot of options out there, but the best earplugs fit snugly in your ear canals and help cut down ambient noise so you can drift off to sleep a little more peacefully.

When it comes to earplugs, options run the gamut from your basic foam earplugs to moldable silicone putty to high-tech sleep buds that play pink noise as you snooze.Best overallBose Sleepbuds II

Bose

The Bose Sleepbuds II aren’t your average earplugs. Classified as a noise-masking device (rather than noise-canceling), these sleepbuds don’t just block off your ears. They use technology that helps cover up unpredictable, sudden and impulsive sounds, like snoring or the honking of car horns, by giving you a different, comforting sound to listen to. They come with 10 preloaded sounds — everything from airplane noise to a waterfall to your standard white noise — that play throughout the night. You can also use the app, which has 40 sounds in total, to swap out sounds based on your mood or preference.

As soon as I turned the Sleepbuds II on, it was like the outside world faded away. While I could still hear faint snoring, they helped take the edge off by turning it into background noise and I was back to sleep within minutes. I usually go to sleep sans earplugs, then reach for them in the middle of the night when my boyfriend starts snoring and I can’t sleep. But the Bose Sleepbuds II improved my sleep so much that I found myself putting them in as soon as I got into bed and sleeping with them throughout the entire night, whether there was noise or not.

That’s because, as Jack Yu, Bose Sleepbuds II product manager, put it, “Noise is an enemy of sleep, but a bigger one is the inability to turn off your mind.” As someone who deals with chronic anxiety, these sleepbuds were a huge blessing for drowning out racing thoughts. Ironically, although I have a fear of flying, my favorite sound was the airplane noise. It sounded exactly like the soft engine sounds you hear when you’re in the back seats of a plane and it lulled me to sleep every time. 

They were also as comfortable as they were effective. Once the sleepbuds were properly placed in my ears, I could barely feel them. They didn’t move or shift at all during the night, and they were secure in my ears so they never felt like they were going to fall out. I sleep on my side and there was no poking or pain whatsoever. 

Each charge lasts about 8 hours, so I could only really get one night out of them before having to charge them again. There were some nights I forgot to plug them in, but even without the sounds playing, they do a decent job of acting like regular earplugs at blocking out noise.

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