The Sound Level At Your Workplace May Be Impacting Your Physiological Well-Being, New Research Found

Flamingo Images - stock.adobe.com - illustrative purposes only, not the actual person
Flamingo Images - stock.adobe.com - illustrative purposes only, not the actual person

Do you prefer to work in populated spaces, like libraries or coffee shops? Or do you focus better in an isolated environment?

Either way, your preference may be tied to noise levels and how different sounds impact your productivity.

“It is a really complex relationship when you think about how sound affects people. Some of us like quiet environments; some of us like noisy environments,” said Karthik Srinivasan, an assistant business analytics professor at the University of Kansas.

While scientists have a decent understanding of this phenomenon from a psychological perspective, though, the physiological effects of long-term sound-level exposure are under-studied.

This reality is what inspired Srinivasan to conduct a new study that was recently published in NPJ Digital Medicine.

For the research, 231 federal office employees were recruited. Each study participant wore various devices– either strapped onto their chest or around their neck– that analyzed how noises within an indoor setting impacted individual well-being.

This analysis revealed that optimal physiological well-being is achieved when workplace sound levels are about 50 A-weighed decibels (dBA). For reference, a standard refrigerator emits sound that is 50 dBA.

It was also found that at lower and higher sound ranges, a 10 dBA sound level increase was related to a 5.4% increase and a 1.9% decrease in physiological well-being, respectively.

Among the employee participants, age, high blood pressure, anxiety, body mass index (BMI), and computer-intensive work were also factors that contributed to distinct variations in the results.

Flamingo Images – stock.adobe.com – illustrative purposes only, not the actual person

According to Srinivasan, he and his team aimed to capture the impact of sound on two distinct physiological stress representations.

The first is mainly related to a parasympathetic stress response; meanwhile, the second is a combination of sympathetic and parasympathetic stress responses.

“So, in layman’s terms, it means that when you are stressed, the parasympathetic and sympathetic responses are related to your body’s fight-or-flight and rest-and-digest functions, respectively, to cope with stress,” Srinivasan explained.

This study, led by Srinivasan, was a part of a larger project known as Wellbuilt for Well-being– which was launched by the University of Arizona.

Srinivasan and his team were also assembled to launch this study on behalf of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA)– which has over 10,000 employees who manage all U.S. federal buildings.

The GSA was essentially interested in how workplaces could be improved. And through the study, which took place between 2015 and 2016, the researchers ultimately found that neither high nor very low sound levels are optimal for physiological well-being. Instead, the “sweet spot” is approximately 50 dBA.

Still, the team found that the association between sound levels and physiological well-being varies from person to person.

The researchers analyzed employees from various demographics and job roles and discovered that these factors played a key role in physiological responses.

For instance, employees who had high blood pressure were actually more susceptible to noise. On the flip side, employees who participated in computer-intensive work were less impacted by sound.

And for Srinivasan, these findings are monumental for the definition of “well-being.”

“When we think about well-being, typically we think about emotional or mental well-being. We hardly ever consider the physiological well-being or the actual ‘what’s happening in our body,’ which is also important to understand when we are continuously exposed to environmental factors– such as sound,” he said.

To read the study’s complete findings, visit the link here.

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Katharina Buczek graduated from Stony Brook University with a degree in Journalism and a minor in Digital Arts. Specializing ... More about Katharina Buczek

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