it's a ritual, but probably also reduces the amount of sound you hear, especially frequencies that are alerting
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Yeah, like stuffing cotton balls in my ears. I usually sit at the dining room table, and it can be like a train station.
I also notice, they all leave me alone, when I have the earphones in. It's my "do not disturb" sign.
well, it works... but maybe consider going further and putting spectral shaped noise on a low-moderate volume over it for extra anti-distraction benefit... a bit of noise in the same frequencies as the sounds that most often make you distracted increases the volume of them required to get noticed