What is the difference between noise masking and noise cancelling?

I spoke with a woman last month who was completely drained. Speaking with a pure exhaustion in her voice, she told me she hadn't been sleeping well for months because of her husband's snoring. She said she tried every pair of "noise cancelling" headphones she could find, but none were comfortable. She then desperately asked me if SleepPhones® headphones were "noise cancelling" like the expensive, hard plastic, painful headphones she had already tried.

Here at SleepPhones® HQ we get asked this question all the time. Many people expect "cancelling" to be the magic word, but, truthfully, noise masking is what you want for sleeping. Noise cancelling headphones use Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) technology, which is essentially a technical trick. For it to work, ANC uses tiny microphones to listen to outside sounds and then creates an "anti-sound" to cancel them out. It's fine for something like the steady hum of an airplane, but it struggles to keep up if a dog barks or a neighbor screams. Also, it can put pressure on your eardrums. I've spoken with people who say it makes them feel claustrophobic, which is not the feeling you want to experience when trying to drift off to sleep.

Noise masking, though, is a different approach. Instead of cancelling out a sound, we use steady, soothing sounds like white noise or rainfall to create a sonic blanket. By doing this, we're not fighting the world, but changing the scenery. We won't delete the snoring, but we'll help make it blend into the background so your brain stops freaking out every time you hear a snore. I usually tell folks that ANC is for staying focused in a loud office, but noise masking is for finding peace at home. One tries to block you off while the other helps you drift off.

Speaking of drifting off, I spoke with that same woman last week. She called back to say that ever since getting her SleepPhones® headphones she has been able to sleep peacefully while listening to ambient music and not hearing her husband's snoring. She really liked the flat, padded speakers nestled inside the soft, breathable headband, saying they didn't poke her in the ears while lying on her side. For someone like her, the blanket method absolutely worked better than the shield.

Find more answers on our "Frequently Asked Questions" page.