The Best Headphones for Highly Sensitive & Neurodivergent People

The challenge of being a highly sensitive neurodivergent

It’s hard to describe to other people how much you feel everything.

Pleasure, pain, sound, smell, emotions, temperature, texture and fatigue are all experienced acutely.

Often to the point where you can no longer compartmentalise and you become flooded and overstimulated.

Noisy commutes. Crowded environments with cluttered sound. Overlapping conversations. These can be some of the most draining stimuli of all.

And with so much noise in the world, managing your sensory input is a full time job.

That’s why active noise-cancelling headphones are one of the best self-care tools a neurodivergent person can have.

How noise cancelling headphones work

Headphones that cover the ears can help block a lot of sound. But active noise cancelling headphones block external sound completely.

This is because a small battery powers a very subtle low hum, that cancels out background noise.

Here’s how.

All sound travels in waves. Including noise. And noise-cancellation is based on the principle of wave phase cancellation.

Waves that are 180 degrees out of phase, or inverted from one another cancel out when added together.

It’s like adding 1 to -1 and ending up with zero.

Inside noise-cancelling headphones are a small microphone, a processor and a speaker.

The microphone hears the background noise, the processor inverts the noise signal to create “anti-noise”, and then adds it to your headphones’ speaker.

By the time this sound reaches your ear? The background noise is reduced to almost silence. And all you hear is music.

You don’t really hear the hum of the “anti-noise” sound wave created by the headphones. You simply notice that the outside world is much, much quieter.

Are Highly Sensitive People neurodivergent?

Yes. The word ‘neurodivergent’ was coined by Kassiane Asasumasu as a radically inclusive term. It is a political and social justice term.

Which means that if you identify as neurodivergent, you are.

The neurodiversity movement believes that it is natural for people’s brains to work differently.

And Highly Sensitive People diverge from “typical” sensory processing.

Acknowleding differences doesn’t mean that there aren’t challenges associated with neurodivergence.

However, neurodiversity offers a new way of looking at the world.

Rather than declaring one type of brain as “healthy and normal”. Or believing that difference is “disordered and dysfunctional”.

Neurodiversity offers a way to accommodate people’s needs without trying to automatically fix, change or cure them.

In fact, we believe that Highly Sensitive People are proof that the world can accept a divergent brain without pathology.

4 reasons why noise-cancelling headphones are best

Tips for buying headphones

• Do your research. There are a lot of brands who create active noise-cancelling headphones. Check which brands are in your budget. Read reviews and decide which features are the most important to you.
• Try before you buy. Bring your audio device (phone, iPod, iPad) to the store and try several headphones using your own music. Brands will often have testing stations that play their own sound. However, you’ll get a much better idea of how the headphones sound if you use music you listen to often.
• They aren’t a magic pill. Noise-cancelling headphones are a real lifesaver in a lot of situations. However, even the best headphones aren’t a substitute for restful self-care; having good boundaries; and learning to become a calmer person.

Our favourite noise-cancelling headphones