We have, at times, advocated silence while you work. But there are exceptions. Many office workers choose to block out noise with ambient sounds rather than music. Which can be great for productivity.

Complete silence can sometimes be just as bad for work as a noisy environment too. Finding the perfect balance is essential.

This is one reason you see many people who work from home, leave the comfort of their couch and head out to coffee shops. The background noise can help them work. There have been studies that prove ambient noise can help!

One study separated participants into four groups. These groups were then asked to find the relationship between a series of words that, on the surface, seem unrelated. The groups were forced to listen to different levels of noise. Those were – 50 decibels, 70 decibels, 85 decibels, and complete silence.

And the team that did the best?

They were hearing noise levels of around 70 decibels.

The problem for you however, is that background office noise is distracting. It isn’t an ambient sound, but something your ears end up tuning into, distracting you from your work.

So, to help you tune out those distracting conversations and phone rings we have put together a list of ambient sound websites that will help you knuckle down.

Noisily

Probably the best on the list, Noisily lets you choose the ambient sounds you want to listen to, and mixand match them. So if you feel like hearing the chirping of birds and the crackling of a campfire while you work, you can. And it’s completely free. AND the site looks great.

http://www.noisli.com

Rainymood

This is the most well known ambient noise website. You can probably guess what it does from the name. It provides some rain noise on loop. It can be very relaxing – and sounds like rain is beating your window, even on a hot day.

Coffivitiy

This aims to provide that ambient coffee house background in the office. You can mix and match coffee house noises to your delight. All your missing is the lovely smell!

So, the next time you’re looking to block out noise in the office, try one of these three sites!

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2015 at 9:09 am and is filed under Noise. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.