Stuffy offices can halve cognitive scores | Hacker News Reader

Stuffy offices can halve cognitive scores

arstechnica.com

105 pointsedoloughlin35 comments

An interesting factoid: I used to be fine with stuffy environments. Then I started taking a stimulant medication for ADHD. Now I get headaches whenever I'm in a room with no air circulation (cars with the windows and vents shut are especially bad.) It seems turning my brain on fully requires more oxygen!

It's surprising, though—almost nobody I've ever asked to open a window or somesuch can tell, even when it's pointed out to them, how stuffy the room they're in is. (I don't even know if I myself used to be able to tell; it's a hard thing to remember.) Air quality might be a thing like odor, where you can become inured after spending hours in a room but then it's obvious if you spend some time outdoors and then come back. And yet, bad air seems to "hit me" when I enter a room, in a way it doesn't to most.

Some people, interestingly, get very defensive about the (bad) air quality of a room—even if the weather is perfect outside, and even if they have no allergies or anything similar, they just hate the idea of having a window open. (But, even more interestingly, this seems to be a habitual tic, rather than a physiological desire. One of my friends—who previously kept a horribly stuffy room, and would always ask that I close my own windows because of how "drafty" my apartment is—now keeps his own windows permanently open, after spending just a few weeks at my place.)

If by 'stimulant medication for ADHD' you mean one of the nootropics like Piracetam then you probably know these supplements crank up metabolic oxygen utilization through the roof. And, common knowledge, oxygen deficits easily trigger migraines. Plus as a byproduct of normal metabolism you pipe out a metric ton of CO2 per annum (according to James Lovelock material) so constantly replenishing the room's O2 level is probably a good idea. Wouldn't want that average 20 pt IQ boost acquired over three weeks to go to waste would we? :-)

I would wager a fair amount that most people diagnosed with ADHD are referring to schedule II substances when they mention stimulant medication.

I didn't know that the racetams (or, per your comment, Piracetam at least) have a major effect on oxygen utilization. Thank you for reminding me to look into the world of nootropics again. Straight up stimulants are so taxing.

I propose a HAB model as a next step in cubicle drone-tech. Individual airlocks, variable temp, humidity, noise, airflow... And no disco.

As my brother the psychiatrist pointed out the conventional stimulants prescribed for ADHD treatment can have wicked side effects and aren't necessarily effective. In moderate cases some in the field are trying nootropics plus cognitive stimulation therapy (of course that only works if natively there is sufficient functional cognitive hardware to stimulate and the patient wants to focus). Interesting footnote: the brother pointed out that Stephen Hawking is taking some similar cognitive enhancement concoction which includes a synthetic capillary growth stimulating chemical which goes by the name of vinpocetine. If a moderate ADHD patient, the combination of a nootropic (+ choline) and vinpocetine may be something worth testing.

For reference, a quick google of oxigenation and nootropics scares up:

http://nootriment.com/piracetam/

> vinpocetine

Hah, neat, I had just ran into that chemical a few days ago in my own research, for similar reasons.

Right now I'm trying diosmin, under a parallel theory: that it protects, increases tone of, and stimulates growth of, lymphatic channels. (Amusingly enough, the main on-label use is for hemorrhoids.)

I picked this avenue of research since my own body seems to have a rather sucky lymphatic system: I constantly get fungal infections (but not bacterial/viral ones); I've had middle-ear infections several times in my life, once leading to labyrinthitis; I have a family history of lymphedema and varicose veins; and no matter how well I maintain my oral hygiene and stay hydrated, I still get dental carries and periodontal abscesses. (Also, oddly enough, all my hair grows really fast; and directly atop lymph nodes, I will get ingrown "compound" hairs (pili multigemni). Both sort of suggest an eccrine system trying to expel debris that isn't getting cleared any other way.)

So far I can at least say that it unplugs my sinuses (in a different way than a decongestant—gunk ends up in my throat, and my sinuses don't dry out), makes me experience heartburn for the first time since I was a child (probably a bile duct thing), and makes it actually painful to sit with my legs folded under me for more than a few minutes, whereas I used to be able to do that for hours (which was probably a bad thing with a high risk of DVT anyway.) So it's doing something.

The experiment I really want to try, though, is to combine the diosmin with N-acetylcholine (or any other metabolically-active glutathione precursor.) From what I understand, glutathione is used up by lymphatic processes (at least both of liver xenometabolism and mucus creation.) I expect, without NAC supplementation, it will appear that my body eventually "habituates" to the diosmin and stops doing anything useful.

Edit: one more bonus piece of anecdata—I've gone, on one week of diosmin, from a person who hates being too hot (to the point that I don't enjoy ever getting my face/chest wet in the shower; to the point that I hate drinking coffee/tea just because it's hot) but is fine in the cold (often not bothering to wear a sweater outside in Canadian winter)... to a person who can easily tolerate heat, and gets cold very easily. Very, very bizarre.

casual asides: a local retired GP where I once lived was into herbal supplements. For fungal disorders when all else failed he would frequently push high-concentrate oregano extract. Plus vinpocetine appears to be useful in treating tinnitus.

quick google scares up:

http://hubpages.com/education/Vinpocetine-as-an-Effective-Ti...

which suggests this may be something to research (Puritan's Pride online has it). And heat/cold tolerance seems circulation-focused. When growing up I was shuttled between northeast US and frequent sailing trips in SW Florida (where I am now ... snow sucks). Back then 30C seemed hot and sweaty. Now that's just a pleasant day in November. 10C seemed pleasant up north but now 10C in January here requires 2 or more layers. When the physiology stabilizes and acclimates the circulation adjusts.

> Straight up stimulants are so taxing.

This is so true. You become so productive, but at the same time you feel that your body is being overdriven.

Yeah for me it was not worth it at all. I was prescribed in High School through College but I stopped taking them in College because I turned into a irritable zombie. No amount of productivity boost is worth the emotional and physical damage that stuff does to you.

Also Exercise and Diet helped far more in the long run.

TFA is about buildings and working environments, but I have been suffering through these same environmental aspects on my bus commute recently.

I have a short (35 min avg.) ride with no transfers from my place to the Los Angeles office. The past few months my transit operators have been really inconsistent in the use of the AC on the bus and it's killing me.

When I step onto a bus and the wave of warm, moist air hits me I will nearly freak out[0]. I can't help but snap at the operator, "Will ya' turn on the dang AC, please... it's hot in here!".

How can 20-40 people just sit there like that and not feel it, or say something about it?

With West LA (my area) having such a temperate climate, I suspect the bus operators -- who sit by their own window, and have the boarding door open constantly, providing circulation -- don't seem to know how bad it is in the back.

And while it may be 18c or so outside, as you HN folks know, the human body puts out a great deal of heat. I did a little BOTEC the other day, and 40 people on the bus puts out about the same heat as 2 1/2 conventional (open) gas fireplaces (~4kw).

I don't care if the windows are open or if its 15c outside -- it's going to get warm in the bus with 4kw of heat burning inside, and that doesn't take into account CO2 levels or water vapor (humidity) increases, which I don't have good maths for.

[0] TBH, most day's I am titrating some ADD (CII) meds, but I'm sensitive to these conditions even when I'm rolling my normal cognative/CNS self. (I'm from SEUS originally, so maybe I'm hyper tuned to muggy, stuffy air...).

edited for layout

One hypothesis I have myself, is that it could be possible for ADHD to be developmentally "caused" by venous/lymphatic insufficiency. In est, the brain notices early on that it can't drain waste amines from the neural cleft through the glymphatic system (because it's underdeveloped), and downregulates their production to compensate.

If that were to be true, then you'd expect to see a high correlation between people who have ADHD, and people who are very sensitive to heat. Blood would be pooling toward their extremeties—though not necessarily to the point of causing edema—and keeping them warm, but also making it easier for the environment to overheat/overcool their blood, somewhat similarly to people with third-degree burns.

It would also suggest that people with ADHD would feel positively about any medication that causes a parasympathetic response, pushing blood toward their core—caffeine being a primary example.

> An interesting factoid:

A factoid is, formally speaking, not a small fact, but instead something that appears to be a fact but may be false. Similar to how an android is not really a man, and a spheroid is not really a sphere.

That said, I love the self-referential truth of:

"Saying 'a factoid is a small fact' is a factoid."

It works whichever definition you believe in :)

Factoid is both - Truth & Not-a-truth. But in todays world it usually (actually overwhelmingly) means an interesting piece of trivia.

From Wikipedia: [Factoid] The term was coined originally in 1973 to mean a "piece of information that becomes accepted as a fact even though it’s not actually true, or an invented fact believed to be true because it appears in print." Since then, the term has evolved from its original meaning, in common usage, and has assumed other meanings, particularly being used to describe a brief or trivial item of news or information.

Yup, that's actually how I was using it. A fact extrapolated from sample-of-one anecdata is a factoid more-often-than-not. ;)

tl;dr, because it looks like I rambled: I agree, here are some possible underlying causes, people have different perceptions of the material world, people respond poorly to certain types of criticism, and the aging population suffers from this x10000. I am a poor editor, but I mean well.

I'm not sure if that is a generally interesting factoid so much as it is interesting as an anecdote; that said, I happen to have a lot of similarly anecdotal support for your observations.

Let's say I take medication for "ADHD-PI". If I am being 100% honest, I might change the diagnosis to "easily bored; requires interesting work and regular novelty; try meditation prior to stimulant exposure" . In any case, the meds work, at least they keep me focused for the duration of a particularly tedious task, and allows me to function in normal society with a modicum of normalcy. However, most of the medications Rx'd for ADHD are stimulants, and they are the real deal. Dexedrine and Adderall/Vyvanse are both chemically equivalent to amphetamine sulphate that one might purchase illicitly; they just come in measured doses, from a pharmacy, are legal, and have different fillers/binders and ratio of levo vs dextro isomers contained. Technically, Vyvanse is a pro-drug of dextroamphetamine, converted in vivo at a roughly constant rate. So it's just a new way of doing an XR formulation of speed. Also a new patent to feed off of a drug that's been around forever. The other stimulants commonly prescribed are not amphetamines, but the end result (elevated dopamine and norepinephrine, primarily)- amps are potent DA/NE agonists, while the -phenidate family (Ritalin/Concerta, etc) blocks the reuptake of those catecholamines. There are other drug classes, but they are not in the same ballpark, efficacy-wise. (And this applies to just about any healthy individual fed a mild dose of a powerful stimulant, no diagnosis or disorder required).

Reeling myself back in, sorry - (not on meds, tend to get parenthetical and non-linear as they wear off).

So, I noticed the same thing you write about with regard to a sudden change in atmospheric sensitivity. I cannot stand to be in an overheated room, or a room without at least a hint of movement in the air. I have also noticed that other people don't seem to care quite as much, or even notice. This makes a lot of sense when you consider the effects of stimulants that flood your brain with chemicals with such intimate ties to one's alertness, attentiveness, and other such qualities of vigilance. They also tend to increase your heart rate, BP (usually minor), sweat production (sweaty skin is hyper-sensitive to air flow), and body temp. On meds, I literally (in the traditional sense) run a little hotter than unmedicated co-workers.

And, yeah, people can get defensive about the air quality of their space, whether it's the house or whatever. I try to be sensitive, maybe ask if I could crack a window (hint, hint), but some individuals take these things personally; as if you were commmenting on their breath, BO, or child-rearing capability. It's just human nature, I think.

I have spent extensive time working with dementia sufferers, and some of them were NOT OK with any open/unlocked doors or windows. And the houses/rooms they life in are filled with this thick, gluey, slimy "air". I would call it unlivable. They would (if still verbally and cognitively able) call it "normal" or "pleasant". I used to do food drops for meals on wheels in downtown Portland, and I saw the same scene in SRO's throughout the city center and Old Town. For some, who were still mentally intact, the closed windows were an issue of hypervigilance due to past experiences in the past, or because they can cut down on street noise by minimizing sound transmission.

I hope this at least supports your assertion re: "habitual tic" vs. materialist/physiological explanations. It is usually a bit of both. For some, it's a deeply rooted habitual behavior, for others it is a manifestation of psychological/neurological/physiological changes associated with aging in general, whether or not the individual is healthy.

Context for my observations include caring for dementia patients in close quarters, at length, exhaustive research, regular meetings with the Alzheimer's Association (donate! please! I guarantee someone close to you is burdened with incipient senescence, or caring for a family member who has symptoms), weekly conversations with a respected gerontologist, and, as mentioned, the ADHD experience, and the pharmacological element that can accompany it.

As mentioned earlier, it might just be a human trait to take offense at lifestyle criticism, or the perception thereof. I think it is one of those things that transcends cultural, national, racial, gender, whatever differences we have from one another. I am supposed to be really sensitive to this stuff, to have an above average self-awareness when it comes to these issues... But I still get a little pissed when I feel slighted or looked down upon, like someone just farted in the general direction of my ancestors. Alas.

Sorry for the rambling post, but nice to look at quirk I don't hear much about. updated because I don't post, and my formatting was way off.

I do wonder about the possibility of some sort of causation (in either direction) with the dementia sufferers.

I could well see an experiment that says "chronic low-grade hypoxia causes brain damage that looks like dementia."

I could also easily imagine an experiment proving something like "dementia sufferers' brains run in a 'battery-saver mode'; have lower resource demands on their bodies", where the "resources" are nutrients and, surprise surprise, oxygen. Dementia patients would then be comfortable in regular- or low-oxygen environments, while the rest of us are only comfortable in the regular-oxygen environments—making it look like the dementia-sufferers prefer the low-oxygen environments. (Such an experimental result would also suggest that dementia would tend to make you gradually become fatter or darken your urine, because you're consuming the same nutrients but using fewer of them.)

One thing I heard a while back was that dementia happens almost inevitably in the elderly if they lose their teeth and end up on a liquid/parenteral diet, rather than using dentures. I've always wondered if this implied that regular jaw pressure was necessary either to drive (g)lymphatic clearance from the brain, or oxygen to the brain, or both. It seems like another associative data-point in the "chronic hypoxia <=> dementia" correlation, at least.

You bring up some interesting ideas, and I am well aware of the current research on dementia (first hand exposure for prolonged periods will either turn you into an expert on the etiology of dementia, or make you run for the hills). If you're like me, you also notice the utter lack of progress we've made in this area. Pharma has hit or miss symptom management approaches that many cannot afford; once symptoms are noticed, intervention is unlikely to have much of an impact, except to further degrade the quality of life of the patient. We should be aggressive when it comes to new approaches, and I have been closely following studies and the experiences of those who self-experiment. I did trials of vinpocetine, among other nootropics, follow the community, and if a promising compound is released, procure a sample prior to someone patenting it. When my Grandmother was showing signs, I took a course of memantine to help stall with growing ineffectiveness of medication that I relied upn, and also to let the family know about what to expect if they decided to go that route. That was several years ago; they chose not to use meds, and it was too late at that point anyway, as I came to realize upon arrival.

BTW, after a week of acclimating, I was pleasantly surprised at the effects offered by that compound. I'm currently obsessed with certain types of inflammation, and am using a dietary approach, augmented by certain supplements, yoga (oxygen!), socializing, challenging myself (SICP, why not), and meditation (more oxygen! and meta-cognitive benefits to boot - observing changes in cognition is not easy without it, and observations regarding mental status decline from others is hard to accept). I'm not young enough anymore to believe hype on longecity, e.g., but I'm not going to discount personal experiences either.

One thing to remember about the O2 hypothesis you propose,is that dementia sufferers often do not get sufficient nutrients. The forget how cooking works, what food is, that water should be consumed on a regular basis, develop phobias around food, security, paranoia, and in my case as a temporary (but almost full time) caregiver is showing me the limits of care. In the morning, I systematically walk through the house, open all windows, blinds, remove barricades, turn on all fans, and prepare meals (was a chef in a past life, luckily), ensure the food is labeled, with a note to enjoy, and we cook a meal (I cook, and give out busy-work assignments while the meal is prepared. It is important to do an evening meal and do what you can to make it "fun"; oftentimes that is the best part of the day for someone experiencing cognitive decline. Food is intimately tied to memory, and I notice the effects, especially when incorporating ingredients from her childhood. Ah, I don't know... If you are young (I'm early thirties), now is the time to become an expert. Doctors are not equipped or understandably risk-averse when it comes to dealing with our new era of elongated morbidity. I'm getting a tattoo that reads "DNR" somewhere on my torso whe I hit 60. The devastation to family in the case of unclear wishes regarding such matters cannot be overstated. I have been doing this for just under a year, almost burned out twice, and have radically changed my own life to decrease stress, engage in primary prevention, and live as well as I can.

I wonder if some people (or even a majority of people) just find warm, stale air comforting?

When I visit home I'm stunned by just how warm and stuffy my family home is. They keep the place air-tight, with heating on high all the time, in a not-particularly-cold part of Ireland. The people living in that house think this is wonderful, using the words "toasty" and "cozy" to describe it. I'd be more inclined to describe the air quality as "hellish" and "oppressive".

Maybe for some there is a strong emotional link between warm, stale air and a sense of homeliness?

I was curious how indoor CO2 levels change from people breathing, so I did a quick calculation. A small room is 4m x 4m x 2.5m. That would contain 40m^3 of air or 40000 liters, 8000 of which is oxygen. From what I can gather, a normal person working will use 30 liters of oxygen per hour.[1] If the room contained one person and was completely sealed for 8 hours, it would end with 7760L of oxygen, 192L of CO2, and some water vapor. Around 0.5% of the atmosphere in the room would be CO2. While at the occupational limit, that's still enough to cause drowsiness and mental fatigue.[2]

It's surprising how little CO2 is required to disrupt cognition. Still, even getting to those levels would take an extremely stuffy office. I'm not convinced this is a issue in most workplaces.

1. http://www.molecularproducts.com/pdf/technical-library/A%20G...

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide#Toxicity

From the Wikipedia article:

"Another study of humans exposed in 2.5 hour sessions demonstrated significant effects on cognitive abilities at concentrations as low as 0.1% (1000ppm) CO2 likely due to CO2 induced increases in cerebral blood flow."

You can easily reach .1% in a normal office. Therefore, office-environmentally conscious people install CO2 sensors ;-) Here's an example:

https://metrics.librato.com/share/dashboards/l7pd2aia?durati...

I'm not sure if we're arguing the same point and if we agree or not, but e.g. http://piers.org/piersonline/download.php?file=MDkwMjIwMTQ0N... ('Ventilation Efficiency and Carbon Dioxide (CO2) Concentration', Progress in Electromagnetics Research Symposium vol 5 no 7, 2009) seems to suggest that even in workplaces with air conditioning (albeit old airco and densely populated rooms), CO2 concentrations can reach higher-than-recommended levels in everyday usage. Any modern residential building requires mechanical ventilation to keep CO2 levels in check. CO2 levels, in real-world usage, also don't rise linearly - opening the windows for 30 minutes in the morning is not ventilation. IIRC (although I don't have a reference at hand) rooms reach 70% of their pre-window-opening levels within less than an hour of closing them. (maybe, although again I don't recall details, because of CO2 in other rooms, or maybe it gets 'cached' in materials (sound unlikely though... guess I'm giving away my lack of chemistry knowledge here), or other reasons?)

Point being - in building design/architecture it's assumed knowledge that CO2 does rise to higher-than-recommended levels in modern (i.e., low air leakage) buildings without mechanical ventilation.

I know for sure, after years of struggling in several companies, that I just can't work in a room with no fresh air. Just can't. I can be well rested, I can drink 10 coffees, and I still will be insanely tired and sleeping on the keyboard while everyone else next to me is working full power.

The other thing that gets me is temperature. Most of my cow-orkers feel cold at the level that is comfortable to me, and conversely they feel a-ok at the level I can't focus anymore. Which leads to conflicts, because I simply can't tolerate their optimal levels and they can't understand that you can dress up when it's too cold for you, but you can't really dress down from t-shirt and pants when it's too hot.

EDIT: I have those problems while not on any medication. I've been having them since high school or earlier (I don't remember), they're a serious problem at work (thank god that my current employeer has AC in the offices and people don't mind me cooling down the room). Few times I actually used cognitive enhancers to force myself to stay awake, with little effect.

I'm one of those who are sensitive to cold, and no, we can't just dress up. It's about the extremities, not the rest of the body, and I can't code with gloves on. I absolutely cannot work if I feel cold, just as you can't an a room with bad air, but don't think your situation takes precedence.

>we can't just dress up. It's about the extremities, not the rest of the body

you just don't dress up enough. Once the rest of your body is hot enough, the blood vessels in extremities will open wider to ventilate that extra heat off.

I'm the same, what's comfortable for me is freezing for everyone else (I've coded in my boxers in winter with the windows open).

Right now I'm sat at the office with all 3 windows wide open and a fan blowing to get some circulation, I loathe stuffy buildings they make me feel physically ill after an hour or two.

Lately I've been becoming more mindful of how much my mental state and cognitive ability can vary depending on my mood, surroundings, etc.

I work in an individual, windowless office that can get quite warm. One thing I've learned lately is when I start to feel overwhelmed a 10 minute walk around my company's campus does wonders.

Fresh air, getting the blood circulating, and looking at something other than a computer screen. It's amazing what an impact the simple things can have.

It's meaningless to say cognitive scores "halve" or "double". That depends entirely on how the test results are presented, not the person or even the test. What's half a human intellect? Is that being as smart as a dog? As smart as a drowsy person? Certainly not the difference between IQ 100 and IQ 50 because IQ is scaled so as to be normally distributed with 50 being almost impossible to achieve.

Even the linked paper (great that it's linked and free access!) doesn't appear to explain what the scores mean in its "Cognitive Function Assessment" section but identifies the test as using "Strategic Management Simulation" software.

So perhaps the conclusion should be "stuffy offices reduce cognitive function by an unknown amount".

Very good point. Intellect is not a ratio scale.

Weird, recently Ive changed jobs from a place with plenty of space to each individual worker and windows with the view to a commercial street(which remained open), natural light, etc, to standard cubicle corp with at least a hundred people on the same place and I can't stop thinking there's something wrong with this type of environment.

Indeed I feel dumber and anesthetized, the lack of natural light, outside stimulae, seeing the day pass, I suspect makes time drag. Past experiences in this kind of environment also gave me the same feeling.

I dislike stuffy rooms, but I personally hate natural light and a view of the street or even outdoors at all. The room I work in at my job has no windows at all (either to the outside or to other parts of the building), and it's fantastic for me.

also weak AC ("energy efficient") in a hot climate like CA, bad lighting like these latest fad transparent "blinds" which let direct sunlight (of midday CA Sun) hit your screen or eyes, people packed together into a claustrophobic stall ("team work area") in an open floor office plan, open ceiling ventilation duct work (supposedly seeing those ducts is good for your creativity) which radiates that low-frequency pumping/humming noise that no earphones can protect from ... yea, there are a lot of ways to turn one into a corporate drone who doesn't need no cognitive score.

I have a perfect defense against getting zombified - shit like this tends to shoot my anxiety levels sky-high, which lowers my productivity down to zero, which means I'll kill myself or die of heart attack long before I become a drone...

I have recently changed job from a large stuffy office to a small office with sliding doors that let in fresh air (Sydney weather = fairly comfortable a lot of the time!). Although I can't say I am performing better based on that, I can say I feel more humane with the combination of fresh air and natural light that the new office is offering, and I would hesitate to take a job without those factors.

This is kind of fascinating. I wonder if I could pack a mask and oxygen cylinder for a day and see any improvement?

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