When a workday goes badly, we blame the coffee or the sleep. Almost nobody blames the room. But the air quality, temperature, and noise around you have a measurable effect on how well you think and make decisions.

Alex and Moah recorded this episode with a CO2 monitor in the booth and watched the number climb while they started having trouble finding words.

Harvard's Joseph Allen put office workers in a controlled office and dialed the air quality up and down. Cognitive scores were 101% higher with enhanced ventilation, and dropped 50% at 1,400 ppm of CO2, a level plenty of bedrooms and conference rooms hit routinely. A modest rise in fine particle pollution made expert chess players 26% more likely to blunder. Students in dorms without AC performed 13% slower during a heat wave.

Air, temperature, and pollution have an ideal range no matter what you're doing. Everything else depends on the task. Alex and Moah get into why a 60-decibel air conditioner beats a 45-decibel conversation two desks away, what ceiling height does to a brainstorm, why open-plan offices backfired, and how to fix your space when you don't control the thermostat. Also: Moah's plan to monetize all of this with a scented candle.

This episode is dedicated to Ryeon, our editor, who made us sound better than we deserve to.

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Links from the show!

CO2 is a big deal https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26502459/

Temperature for health and productivity in offices https://www.osti.gov/biblio/886957

Colour of noise and work efficiency https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347958829_Spectral_content_colour_of_noise_exposure_affects_work_efficiency

Aromatherapy: effects on cognition and mood https://www.researchgate.net/publication/10808709_AROMAS_OF_ROSEMARY_AND_LAVENDER_ESSENTIAL_OILS_DIFFERENTIALLY_AFFECT_COGNITION_AND_MOOD_IN_HEALTHY_ADULTS

Chessmaster paper: Indoor air quality and strategic decisionmaking - https://dusp.mit.edu/news/how-indoor-air-quality-impacts-decision-making

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