Air Ergo: Ventilation and Lighting
Air quality and lighting are typically not at the forefront of the conversation when the topic of ergonomics is discussed. I mean I get the fact that a lamp and air purifier aren’t as cool as the latest and greatest ergonomically designed chair.
However, the quality of our air and lighting plays an integral part in our performance and overall mental state. This concept may seem a little “out there,” but the amount of research that backs this concept up continues to grow. I’ve linked numerous studies throughout this post if you want to explore the topics a bit more.
In this first part of my five-part Elemental Ergonomics series, I’m covering the “Air” element, which is composed of Air and Lighting. I’ve enlisted the help of Dr. Karen Dawe a neuroscientist at Dyson.
How bad is it?
We typically don’t wake up and say, “I wonder how the air quality is in my house/office today.” If you do, then I tip my cap to you, but that idea is most likely the furthest from of your mind. Like most, I assumed as long as my house is clean, the air inside is too.
WRONG! (that was aggressive my apologies)
There are numerous contributors to indoor air pollutants, here’s a list of a few.
Stoves and ovens
HVAC systems and humidifiers
Tobacco products
Plug-in scent (A Febreeze plug-in caused me to have severe headaches and runny nose for months)
Indoor/outdoor pesticides
Outdoor pollution
Building materials (most notably if you have new home or recent renovation)
Radon and Asbestos
Cleaning supplies
VOC’s (volatile organic compounds) includes cleaning supplies, disinfectants, glues, etc etc
Now with some of the above, we can smell them or sense them, but many go undetected. Hence, why I recommend getting an air quality monitor. Here’s a solid one from Amazon that’s relatively cheap.
Why does air quality matter?
Don’t worry I don’t understand this picture either
As I began researching, I assumed that air pollution (both indoor and outdoor) was a health concern, but not the third leading cause of disease globally. Yes, you read that right. It’s an issue, and not only does it affect our long term health, but it can also affect our short-term performance.
Poor ventilation and indoor pollution have shown to decrease mental performance both in retrieval as well as fatigue. We’ve all felt this feeling before as we sit in the same room for long periods and become fatigued. As we open a door or go outside to get some “fresh air” we suddenly get motivation and clear our head.
The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of air flow and ventilation in regards to health. It’s crucial that we’re aware of airflow in our work environment both at home and in the office.
Ways to combat in house pollution:
Open a window
This is a reliable option if the outside air is not polluted, and the noise level is relatively low. We don’t want the new solution to become a distraction and now part of the problem.
Air purifier
Dyson Cryptomic
Dyson makes the Pure Cryptomic (upper-tier), the Pure Cool (middle tier), and a more budget-friendly brand . These choices cost a bit, but this is an investment for your health in both the short and long term.
Use essential oils
Essentials oils promote antifungal/anti-mold properties and they also act as a performance enhancer by boosting your mood. I’ve personally used EO for over a year now, and honestly, it does give me a small bump in productivity. Now I’m not saying you’re going to go Bradley Cooper in Limitless on your work, but you should feel a slight uptick. Plus, who doesn’t love the smell of peppermint or lemon grass wafting through their workspace.
Utilize indoor plants
Plants are all-stars when it comes to the home office, and I need to take advantage of them more. They provide mood-boosting properties, air purification (you will need quite a few), relaxation properties, and boost productivity.
Here is an article that walks you through the whole process how to get started, even if you may not have a green thumb.
Fresh Air Time!
Lastly, (if possible) take a break and go outside to get some fresh air. It will brighten your mood and promotes whole-body movement, which is a must.
Lighting The Way
Look, lighting isn’t one of the sexy topics when it comes to home office setup. Most of us work with whatever is over our heads at home. Or we may just use a side lamp that we stole from our guest bedroom (I’m guilty of that).
Dr. Dawe’s shines a light (pun intended) on what the most common WFH mistake is when it comes to lighting.
The fundamental mistake that most people make is to not think at all about their lighting set- up. So asking the question is the first, very important, step! More often than not, the right lighting is an afterthought. If you can see ‘well enough’ – it’s all too easy to think that the job’s done. Yes, your visual system adapts pretty well to all kinds of poor lighting, but ‘well enough’ demands a lot of extra effort from your visual system. This is why the wrong lighting can give you visual fatigue, headaches and eye strain.
Lighting has seen an improved shift in recent years from the annoying flickering and hum of fluorescent lighting, to LED-based systems (mostly likely what you have in your office now), and most recently lighting systems centered around our daily wake/sleep cycles. Temperature difference of indoor lighting plays a crucial role in our internal clock according to Dr. Dawe.
It’s important that we vary the light temperature of our interior lighting in accordance with what’s happening outside. We actually have light-sensitive cells on our eyes that are not involved in image formation, instead their main job is to detect the overall light level in the environment and report this information directly to the areas of the brain involved in controlling the body clock. The intensity and color of daylight send a strong signal about what time of day it is, enabling our body clock to be synchronized to local time. This really is crucial. One extreme example of what happens when our internal clock is out of sync is when we have jet lag – it can really impact how we feel and function.
Most home offices use LED-based lights that already exist throughout our homes. LEDs are great for savings and efficiency, but there is always room for improvement in the home office. The type of wavelength plays a significant role in our mental and physical wellbeing throughout the day, much more than you may think (more on that in a bit).
Natural light
In previous versions of the home office and gaming room, sunlight was avoided like the plague. We now know there are numerous benefits of increased exposure to natural light during the day, including antidepressant properties, vitamin D exposure, cost savings, and the natural energizing effects.
Daylight is so valuable! It makes us feel more alert but is also the main signal to our circadian rhythm, our body clock, which gives us our internal sense of time. The circadian rhythm also influences the inner workings of our whole body including our metabolism, our activity patterns, how our cells work and so on.
- Dr. Dawe
There are a few ways to increase your exposure to natural light from opening your shades in your office, to taking a walk outside or on your deck, or even using light therapy devices.
Increasing the amount of natural light in our workspace is a must, but be wary of glare. Glare on our screens will cause us to turn our brightness up and produce eye strain. The screen brightness and ambient light should be equivalent. I would also recommend taking regular breaks every 30- 45 minutes to rest and reset your eyes. I recently wrote an article that provides ways to prevent eye strain.
Lighting and Performance
Don’t be shocked by the subtitle. You’ve experienced it before as you’ve dimmed the lights as you read before bed or the inability to fall asleep right after a late-night gaming session. Our bodies respond to light based on the wavelength of the light, but we commonly refer to it as “blue light” and “red light.”
Blue light (BL) has a shorter wavelength than red light on the spectrum and therefore is highly energetic. This may seem scary, but we encounter BL via the sun everyday (unless you’re a Clevelander like myself). It provides us with alertness and boosts our mood during the day. We get into trouble with blue light from our electronic devices that emit BL. During the night or in a poorly lit room, BL can be harmful to our eyes.
Preliminary studies have shown a link between BL (most notably at night) to numerous detrimental effects, including photoreceptor damage, cancer, diabetes, and obesity.
As with most ergonomics concepts, only exposure to red light (RL) isn’t the solution either. The use of both RL and BL should be cycled around our natural sunrise/sunset for our specific region. As the day progresses, the ratio of RL/BL should increase with BL being eliminated at least an hour before bed.
My tips for controlling harmful lighting
Take breaks from the grind and limit screen time
Use blue light filtering lenses or glasses. Yes, they work. I would recommend Gunnar Glasses . Most eyewear companies now have the option for blue light filtering lenses.
Using the redshift control or temperature control on your device (it’s in the settings and usually under brightness)
Limit blue light exposure an hour before bed
Use smart lighting like the Dyson Task Light, which works with the natural day and light cycles, has glare control, and can rotate to bounce off of walls creating an ambient light. Smart lighting is a must for gamers who like to play in a dark room (like myself). Even having a small amount of ambient lighting, helps out tremendously for eye health.
Increasing your outdoor light exposure during the day which will allow you to sleep better at night.
Supplementation and or artificial tears will protect your eyes for both the short and long term.
The Effects of Harmful Light Conditions
There are certainly a few… Eye strain, also known as asthenopia, refers to all sorts of nonspecific symptoms such as fatigue, pain in or around the eyes, blurred vision, headaches and occasional double vision.
Sometimes eye strain is caused by eye problems, or forcing the eye to concentrate on a small region for a prolonged period of time, for example by reading a book, driving, using a computer screen or any other task that fatigues the eye muscles. However the symptoms of eye strain, such as pain, irritation, and headache, can also be caused by flicker and glare from a light source.
Detrimental effects of glare in particular can include eye pain, dry eyes, photophobia, eye fatigue, discomfort, burning, irritation, pain, ache, sore eyes, and headache. And we know that for screen glare, similar to the gaming set up, can lead to headache after only 30 minutes when compared to optimal conditions with low glare.
- Dr. Dawe
Low Light Level Gaming…….Ya Don’t Do it
My one tip is… don’t do it! Glare is a key source of eyestrain and your eyes will only put up with it for so long before you feel the negative effects. Stark contrast between a light source (such as a screen) and the ambient light in the room is not fun for your eyes to deal with. Anything that increases the brightness level of the area around the screen will ease this. You don’t want to ruin the atmosphere with bright ceiling lights, but just use some nice dim light to reduce that contrast a little.
- Dr. Dawe
An Air Tight Case for Ergonomics
Everyone and their brother covers ergonomics in the form of setup and tips/tricks. My approach with this five-part series is to look at gaming/WFH from a “Whole Systems Approach.” Creators must realize that there’s a multitude of variables that affect our body and performance.
The days of telling someone to switch their setup to X chair or switch to Y desk are over. I hope this series will provide you with the information to start making changes to better your performance and, more importantly, your health.
Here is the link to the Elemental Ergonomics landing page that will direct you to the other parts of this series.