Bring a little of the outdoors to your indoors!

Houseplants add an organic, natural touch to rooms in your home or to your office workspace. Gazing at the greenery amidst that tangle of cords and technology can be quite soothing.

According to Eureka! Science News, “Adding these plants to indoor spaces can reduce stress, increase task performance, and reduce symptoms of ill health.”

Not only that, plants can also help to clean up indoor air - which can sometimes be even more polluted than the air outside!

Volatile organic compounds (VOCs) given off by furniture, paints, building supplies, and office equipment can make people sick, triggering headaches, nausea, dizziness, irritation to eyes, nose, and throat, and worsening of asthma symptoms. Long-term exposure to high VOC levels can increase risks of cancer and damage to the liver, kidneys, and central nervous system. (Read more about “sick-building syndrome” here.)

But thanks to a process called phytoremediation, indoor plants can gobble up these pollutants. Of the plants tested by researchers from the University of Georgia Department of Horticulture, a few leafy species seemed to have super pollutant-neutralizing powers:

- Purple waffle plant

- English ivy

- Variegated wax plant

- Asparagus fern

- Purple heart plant

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Got pets? Before bringing plants into a pet household, check their toxicity to cats and dogs (known to nibble on leaves now and then …)

The word is out: commuting can be bad for you.

Well, what a surprise. You have a choice between driving crowded streets or being herded around in public transit. But you can’t always avoid it. Some of us work where we wouldn’t want to live.

Take me, for instance. [Read more →]

There are two times of the year when the office fills with the sounds of a sneezing symphony: cold and flu season and springtime allergy season.

But for some unlucky sneezing, sniffling souls, allergy season lasts all year round. No matter the month, you’ll hear them ha-chooing and snorking into tissues. That’s because they suffer indoor allergies, which know no season.

Of the three main culprits of indoor allergens - mould, dust, pet dander - dust may be the trickiest to avoid at work, depending of course on what type of work you do and where you do that work. Dust collects on surfaces but also flies around on the air. And air quality is one of those invisible workplace hazards that might be beyond your control.

Naturally, if you work in construction or other types of jobs that kick up a lot of dust, you’ll need to take precautions - like wearing a mask over your nose and mouth - to protect yourself from irritation. If you work in an office, you shouldn’t just rely on the cleaning staff to deal with dust:

- Set an alert through your email program or mark your calendar as a reminder to take time regularly to shake out your keyboard or to use a compressed air product to blow dust and small particles from between the keys.

- At the end of the work week, use a damp rag and wipe down your work surfaces.

- Piles of paper are invitations to dust. Once a month or so, take a few minutes to clear out old paperwork. Chuck it into the recycling bin where it can be properly handled.

- If you sit too near a printer or copier and you notice allergy symptoms, consider re-locating your desk. Airborne dust particles emitted from these machines have been known to cause irritation in some people.

No matter where you work, check out these 6 signs that it’s time to talk to a doctor about your allergy symptoms.

Related information
What happens when you sneeze?
How to allergy-proof your home
How to avoid 5 common allergy triggers
Answers to 31 allergy FAQs
Video: What are allergies?
Video: What do antihistamines do?

Around this time of day, my eyes often feel so dry and tired.

Since I’m at work, I can’t take a nap, but I do as my eye doctor says and take a brief “blinking break”. More than a normal blink, not quite shut-eye, for my blinking breaks I close my eyes for about 10 seconds at a time to allow them to moisten and to rest. It’s like a mini power nap for my weary eyes.

Could the weariness be blamed on staring into a computer screen all day? My eye doctor seems to think that eye strain is part of the problem, but combined with the effect of my contact lens wear. I’ve been given some super-strong cleanser to keep my lenses clear of bacteria that can irritate and dry out my eyes. Still, when it gets really bad, I just switch to my glasses.

I’ve asked around the office and I know a couple of folks experience the same mid-afternoon eye dryness. Do you? And what’s your corrective lens situation?

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I had a note to myself that today (April 16, 2009) was International Moment of Laughter Day. However, I just did a little web searching and found two things:

1. I can’t quite tell who started it or what organization is fostering it – that info must be somewhere, and someone has to set the date, but I don’t have the time to do the level of internet archaeology to find out. Well, at least it has some currency.

2. Apparently (though there is some disagreement about this – perhaps unsurprisingly given the lack of a clear authority on it) it was Tuesday, the 14th. So I guess the joke’s on me.

But actually, any day is a good day for laughter. Laughter is good for you. I was going to write a whole lot about how it’s good for you, but Amy Toffelmire has already done the job: see Ha! Laughing is good for you!

[Read more →]

The sun is shining, and the sky is blue, and oh, my spring fever just gets worse and worse! Adding to it today: this dry indoor air vs. the fresher, crisper  air outside my window. Before crossing the threshold of my office building this morning - and after passing by that group of smokers - I took one more refreshing inhalation of the cool morning air.

Then I got to my desk and read this article about another office air hazard I never knew about: the perils of printer particulates.

A group of scientists has been studying how air quality can be affected by the use of printers. Their first report in 2007 detailed laser printers that put off “fine, toxic dust on the scale of inhaled cigarette smoke.” Recently the researchers released information about what could be causing this toxic cloud. [Read more →]