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Snooze in silence with these noise-reducing bedtime essentials
Whether it’s a snoring partner or traffic noise outside your window, unwelcome sounds in the bedroom can ruin the quality of your sleep and seriously impact your well-being over time. That’s why we set out to find the best sleep headphones to nod off with.
Sleep earphones and sleep earbuds come in a few different styles. Some use active noise-cancelling technology (ANC) – listening for external noise and cancelling it – while some use passive noise cancellation (physically sealing out noise) to help you sleep. These sleep earbuds tend to be much smaller and slimmer, like earplugs, so you can safely sleep in them all night long.
ANC works better with consistent, repetitive noises, such as snoring or aeroplane noise, while some headphones using passive noise cancellation also offer noise-masking – playing ambient white noise once you’re asleep, to cover unexpected disturbances, such as passing sirens.
It’s important to check the headphones will suit your needs before you buy. Some will only play music from the brand’s own content library, so you won’t be able to drop off to your favourite podcast. Others include an alarm, so you won’t need to worry about sleeping through your own.
Although it’s recommended adults up to the age of 64 need between seven and nine hours of sleep per night, Mental Health UK says one in five people in the UK aren’t getting enough sleep. This can cause reduced immunity, poor mood, lack of energy and even depression. So, if noise is stopping your shut eye, it could be time to invest in a pair of the best sleep headphones.
We wore each of these headphones in bed every night for several weeks, to find the ones that felt the most comfortable and helped us enjoy a blissfully silent night. We also tried each pair while travelling on aeroplanes and trains, to see if they cancelled exterior noise, so we could read or nap in peace. For each pair, we judged the fit, whether they stayed in place all night long (if appropriate) and if they really did block out noise. We also rated battery life and extra functions, including any apps that worked alongside the device. These are the ones that should (hopefully) help you drift off.
Sleeping with something either inside or covering your ears is bound to feel unnatural to many, but is it unsafe? Firstly, sleeping with wired headphones is extremely unsafe, as you run the risk of strangulation while you sleep. However, noise-cancelling headphones doesn't directly pose a danger to your health while sleeping – for many, these headphones can be the solution to getting a good night’s kip in noisy areas or next to snoring partners. Although, there may be instances when you want to be able to hear what’s going on around you – in case someone phones with an emergency at 3am, say – so keep this in mind when deciding how noise-cancelling you want your sleep headphones to be.
In our tests, the Soundcore sleep A20 earbuds not only gave us the best night’s sleep, but became an indispensible part of our bedtime routine.
Sleep is a deeply personal thing however, so you might also consider the Philips sleep headphones for comfort, or the sweet sound of silence offered by the QuietOn 3.1 sleep earbuds. If your budget doesn’t quite stretch to these options, there are also more wallet-friendly options available, such as the Navly and SnoozeBand headbands.
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