My previous quality of life improvements post was a bona fide hit.
"This was one of the best pieces of writing I've ever stumbled upon" - BH (Anonymous reader)
"What blog post?" - JH
I orignally wrote a blog post about my quality of life improvements, but I spent 80% of it on earplugs, so I figured I'd make it a separate post.
(For reference, the other QOL improvement was this $35 bidet. I installed it myself with no tools in 15 minutes.)
Not to bury the lede, here's the link to the earplugs: PQ Wax Earplugs.
There are 14 pairs for $17. Assuming I use 1 pair/week, that's $17 per 98 nights of sleep or $63/year spent on sleep. Unbelievable ROI.
Before I talk about the importance of earplugs, I'll first briefly pitch these earplugs vs. the thousands of alternatives out there.
Pretty simple: way more comfortable and effective than foam earplugs. They don't fall out. They're airtight, meaning they block out way more noise. They're also way more comfortable—they don't go deep into your ear canal, just sort of "vacuum seal" your ear.
There's this piece in the NYT talking about the health impacts of noise. They claim that for every 1 dB increase in noise at night, the risk of developing a cardiovascular disease increases by ~1%.
NOTE: I did wonder if there were confounders, e.g., wealthier people tend to live in quieter neighborhoods, meaning wealth itself is the variable of interest (can access better medical care, etc.). However, based on my (albeit 30-second) reading of the paper, it seems they did account for this.
Economists also argue that a 5 dB reduction in US noise could result in a 1.4% reduction in hypertension, a 1.8% reduction in coronary heart disease, resulting in a $4B reduction in healthcare costs annually.
More locally, sleep efficiency (% of bed time that you were actually asleep) was reduced by 2-3% for every 10 dB increase in noise. (Source)
I know you might say you get used to the noise on your bustling NYC street, but your sleep still suffers.
As I put in my facts page, a 10dB noise increase in your environment decreases productivity by 5%. This is specifically due to an effect on cognition, not effort.
These earplugs reduce noise by 30dB (take it up with the manufacturer if you want to confirm this). Let's say you're in a bustling, loud office. The volume is roughly 30 dB greater than that of a silent room. Therefore, in theory, these earplugs should increase productivity by 16%.