Finally got noise cancelling headphones

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My partner got me a pair and they came in yesterday. This is really good because yesterday I had an autistic meltdown in class because people kept messing with my auditory sensory issues.

People are very rude.

How do they work? Do they just block out some noises, or make them quieter? Do you listen to something like white noise or music for the noise-cancelling to be more effective? Are they comfortable or do they squeeze your ears? Would they work lying down?

That's helpful to know. Thank you.

I wear mine everywhere outside. They make it a lot easier to go to shopping centres and in town. I don’t have to talk to anybody. If I see someone I know and they see me I just nod and keep on walking. My pair you can turn active noise cancelling on and off. On you can hardly hear any background noise. Off you can hear everything. If they are Bluetooth, then you don’t have to worry about cables. You can wear them in any position, standing up, laying down, hanging upside down.

I'm thinking of getting myself some noise canceling headphones.

I don't know if this is normal
The noise cancelling button on my headphones only plays a white noise to block out sounds
The best I can describe it, is like tinnitus. I can still hear everything going on, but there's also a faint buzz going on to try and wash out the noise.
I think the best part part about NC headphones is that they have a good seal around the ears.

I have a pair of ear guards that are typically used for gun ranges. They def help, but the tradeoff is they are a bit tight on my head. But that's still preferable to meltdowns.

When I'm under pressure outside (but note for me its not sensory as such, although I'm blind I have some residual vision - legal blindness category - bright lights in my central field of vision give me this bright overwhelming glare that distracts me from all thought processes and can be very risky when I'm out, so I wear ultra dark sunglasses - my issue going outside is mostly people - I can't deal with face to face human contact and I keep my solitude to 1 hour face to face human contact a week in total unless I have an appointment with a medical professional), I put music on my headphones to stop my brain from realising the people around me (the sound of people around me is enough to make me have a meltdown if its too pervasive or especially if people are directly addressing me a lot, music on headphones gives off the message of - no, I'm not available for interaction) and I have found that a pair of Bose over ear headphones have been extremely good for keeping the people noise out. I usually leave a small gap in the headphones though if I need to for safety, like if I'm in a public place, which really annoys me because I would just like to have them full coverage, but I'm blind and can't rely on vision to keep me safe. And I live in London so I have to be careful. However I can't wear them when I'm walking, which really annoys me, and tbh is one thing about blindness that I find sucks a lot, I need to be ultra receptive to things around me when I'm walking. I'm glad I'm not noise sensitive because I need to hear cars moving on the roads, etc, so I don't get hit by cars. London is pretty accessible compared to many places around the world and I do have a minimal bit of vision.

But yeah for me noise cancelling headphones with music helps my particular issue and I thought this would be interesting for some to read of a different use of headphones (with music though, I can't have them silent, that beats the purpose).

Also funny thing is I'm hearing impaired, but not severely, and it affects mostly speech frequencies.

^
Although my vision and hearing aren't appreciably impaired, that's one thing I don't like about methods of screening out external sound and vision - sometimes it's important to be alert to those things.