Green Offices Make You Smarter At Work And Sleep Better At Night

If you're having trouble getting work done during the day, or sleeping at night, it might be your office's fault.

A new study compared workers in certified "green" buildings with workers at the same company who happened to work in a non-certified building. Those in green buildings scored 26.4% higher on cognitive function tests, after controlling for job category, education, and salary. They also had sleep scores that were 6.4% higher than their coworkers in non-green buildings.

In a previous study, researchers from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health studied workers in a lab, changing key factors that vary in offices: ventilation, common chemicals found in office air, and high levels of carbon dioxide. As they shifted each of these, they found that people in "green" lab environments had cognitive scores roughly double that of those with dirtier indoor air.

Via fastcoexist.com >