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If you arent feeling creative at work, perfume and paint smells could be to blame
Scientists claim that your creativity could be stifled by the amount of perfume sprays, aerosol deodorants, and paint fumes in your office air.
Have you ever found yourself facing writer’s block at work, or even just a little low on creative ideas at school? According to the results of a new study in Scientific Reports, that might be down to the amount of perfume, aerosols, and paint smells in the air.
Link found between office air quality and creativity at work
A team of researchers has found that poor air quality in the workplace might be significantly impacting our levels of creativity as nasty pollutants fill the spaces that we spend hours upon hours in every day.
These nasty pollutants are known as Total Volatile Organic Compounds (TVOC) and include gases released from countless products commonly found in or around an office such as aerosol sprays, perfumes, paint, pesticides, and detergents.
The new study comes from scientists at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore who joined forces with air filter manufacturer Camfil as they aimed to measure how TVOC can impact creative thinking in the workplace.
While most people would correctly associate indoor air quality with effects on the lungs, especially since we just emerged from a pandemic, our study shows that it could also have an impact on the mind and creative cognition, or the ability to use knowledge in an unconventional way , explained Professor Ng Bing Feng.
Over six weeks, the researchers simulated a typical office space and had a group of 92 participants building unique and complex designs from LEGO bricks.
Members of the sample group were tasked with building a certain model chosen by the researcher in under 40 minutes and reflecting on the building choices that they made; sometimes in offices with high TVOC levels and other times in well-ventilated offices.
The researchers found that participants tended to submit less imaginative solutions and less sophisticated answers on the building process when the workspace had higher TVOC levels.
Astonishingly, they also found that a 72% reduction in TVOC levels led to an increase in creative potential by up to 12% – which may not sound like a lot, but for businesses with hundreds of employees working in the same office space, its an incredible difference in output.
Professor Ng argued that Improving the air quality could be an economical solution to improve occupants’ creativity with co-author Professor Wan Man Pun sharing a very real example of how this research could impact the workplace:
This could have serious consequences for industries that rely on creativity for the bulk of their work. For instance, artists often use paints and thinners that release high levels of volatile organic compounds and may not know they need adequate ventilation to clear them from their workplace.
The findings also point to how making minor adjustments in the office, such as reducing the use of aroma diffusers or ensuring adequate ventilation, could positively impact employees and their productivity, he added.
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So, if you are feeling less creative at work or in school, crack open a window and perhaps reduce how much perfume you are spraying near the people around you.
