Misophonia is a little known condition which makes some people's lives unbearable.

It affects how someone lives, their friendships, their daily activities and much more.

The definition of Misophonia is as follows:

Misophonia is a disorder in which certain sounds trigger emotional or physiological responses that some might perceive as unreasonable given the circumstance. Those who have misophonia might describe it as when a sound “drives you crazy.” Their reactions can range from anger and annoyance to panic and the need to flee.

Examples of sound that would affect a person with Misophonia would include chewing gum, mouth noises, crinkling plastic or tapping fingers.

My mother had this problem and it made her life very difficult.

She couldn't go out in public easily and would often have panic attacks when thinking about interacting with the public where she would have no control over the sounds she was forced to hear.

I propose a set of noise cancelling earphones could be created which artificially block out this noise.

The earphones will have three parts, much like a hearing aid but with one added feature.

On the outside of this system will be a microphone which takes in the sound.

In the middle will be a computer chip programmed to remove certain sound frequencies.

And finally on the inside, will be a speaker which will relay the sounds that have passed the removal process.

It would certainly be possible to record the frequency of plastic wrinkling for example, then isolate this sound automatically and remove it from the sounds passed on to the user.

This technology could have many uses - not just as a cure for Misophonia.

For example this system could be used to remove irritating noise and sound affects in Youtube videos.

Another use could be for builders on work sites - we can block out the loud machine sounds and only allow peoples voices to come through the earphone.

I feel this system would be simple to make and would have many use cases.