I’m always looking for a comfortable balance between noise , quiet and pleasant sounds. With my lifelong attention deficits and extreme distractibility, sound sensitivity, and anxiety, I am very easily thrown off task by the noises around me. I like quiet when I need to process or focus. But sometimes I really need to hear some sounds in the background that feel calming and peaceful. And sometimes I need sounds to stop the constant chatter in my brain. But too many different sounds at once or TV commercials or barking dogs can be very irritating.
At my job it can be very quiet when I’m working on a tax return and no one is talking ! That silence can make me nervous. So I usually keep the air conditioner fan set to ON so at least there’s a little white noise.
I try to chat with the clients while I work so they don’t get bored. Some will scroll their phones while I enter their tax data and I appreciate that. But the older clients seem less likely to reach for the phone and they just sit there staring at me and I feel compelled to make conversation. Thankfully some of them chatter on all by themselves while I work, especially the men. With my current stress level, I do better when I don’t have to multitask too much.
At home I used to be fine with a quiet house while I read and wrote and researched, but now that I’m doing less of that I keep the music or TV going. My favorites lately are old Price is Right episodes that play continuously and soft jazz or a channel on IHeart radio called Yacht music.
I have found several good stations/playlists of background music on Spotify that I can play at work when no one else is there. You can find many more like these on the various platforms.
Then while sleeping I wear a headband with flat speakers in it that can also be pulled down like an eye mask. I cannot sleep without it! When I first lie down I usually listen to something with actual verbal content such as a podcast or sermon or the Bible, but then I set it to switch to a white noise podcast . Since Grace has been home I keep one ear uncovered. I really like this podcast. They put out new sounds daily! But my favorite sleeping sound is storms . I don’t like trickling streams at all.
Blue Skies and Green Pastures 
Paula, I can relate. I am so distractible, but I can only take so much silence. Personally, I love soft worship music playing while I write. I’ll tell “Alexa” to play music by Selah, and I’ll get Selah and other music “like” it. (I could get exactly what I want, but it costs extra, and we’re cheap. 🙄) We also have a “white noise” machine that we play at night, so we sleep with the sound of waves, even when we aren’t at the lake.
Worship music is great! I like waves, too.
I can relate. I’m pretty sensitive to sounds, too. I kid you not, sermons put my husband right to sleep. So I will put a podcast of an old sermon on and he will fall right to sleep but I will be wide awake at midnight still debating whether or not I agree with all the points being made!
You really do have an incredible amount of stress to deal with. I do hope you get some respite care soon and some good sleep.