Sometimes the neighbors really interfere with sleep. Annoying sounds have different timbre characteristics. It can be male or female voices, the clatter of dishes, stamping of feet.
It is known that if the sound is repeated at a certain frequency, the brain begins to perceive it as a background and does not respond to the stimulus. Thus, if you turn on the noise-masking sounds (which are equivalent in volume to interfering sounds), it may become easier to fall sleep.
This sound file includes several types of sounds in a wide spectral range. I hope someone finds it useful.
The subjective loudness of tinnitus is characterized by the so-called perception threshold. This value shows how much noise in the ears exceeds environmental noise. Increasing the level of external noise (playing white noise in the ear), we lower the apparent tinnitus volume. The volume of noise masking is usually close to the volume of the tinnitus or slightly exceeds it. The sound used in the noise masking should be chosen in such a way that it is calming and less intrusive than the disturbing sounds.
The effectiveness of noise masking may depend on a person’s ability to experience so-called residual inhibition: temporarily suppressing noise in response to certain sound images.
There is a good result – sounds are no longer annoying in the presence of external noise. But this is not enough.