2 Lesser Known effects of Air Pollution:

Troubled Marraige, No Promotion at Work ? 

“Roses are red, violets are blue, bad hair days are okay, but BAD AIR DAYS WILL SCREW YOU” – Anonymous

Could not have summarized it better!

I will spare the lecture on how air pollution , or for that matter any damn pollution, is bad. And how the world is suffering because of it.

Will surprise you with the lesser known impacts of air pollution on us.

So here we go!

Cognitive Impairment

A study at MIT done by Juan Palacios, shows indoor air pollution due to fine particles causes impaired learning and damaged health and performance outcomes.

Fine particulate matter refers to tiny particles 2.5 microns or less in diameter, commonly known as PM2.5. They are often associated with burning matter — in internal combustion engines in autos, coal burning , wild fires and in developing world burning of wood for cooking inside closed walls.

Before you reach any conclusions  that as emissions standards increase and more electric cars are adopted, particulate matter from vehicle brakes, wearing down of tires, and road surface abrasion will overtake fuel emissions as the leading source of vehicle particulate emissions within the next two decades

The World Health Organization estimates that air pollution leads to over 4 million premature deaths worldwide every year, due to cancer, cardiovascular problems, and other illnesses.

in Short , it has a negative impact on cognition.

Clean air makes for clearer thoughts and sharper thinking.

The high ranking office holders are more frequently than not making high stake decisions that range from product design to launch, market assessments and working on improving sustainability solutions. All these involve multiple levels of discussions and then seriously challenging decision making. When such decision are to be made at such a high frequency and  there is always a pressure to perform the impact of indoor air quality and  air pollutants especially PM 2.5 is drastic.

“when PM 2.5 level went up inside closed doors people were more likely to make mistakes- and the mistakes grew larger with time.”

Juan Palacios found out that when PM 2.5 level went up inside closed doors people were more likely to make mistakes- and the mistakes grew larger with time, thus impacting career growth . The effect of this air pollution became particularly pronounce under time pressure when situations demand a certain number of moves  in a small duration, giving less time to think , assess decision and recalculate their moves etc.

 

What can be done to protect yourself from its impacts

No one is immune to the ill effects

Air pollution is impacting productivity in career and no one in the offices’ is spared from bottom to top.

Install multiple air filters in your office just as you would do at home for your family

Use Cleaner days to make Key Decisions!

Be mindful of this especially when taking pivotal decisions ‘Make such major key decisions on days when air pollution levels are at their lowest possible.

SO now you know why you have been messing up your career progression and chances of promotion.

Its not you. Its the air!

 

Increasing Divorce Rates/ Troubled Marriages

Breathing dirty air can make you sick. But did you know it can also make you more aggressive. That can lead to clash of thoughts in spouses and thus can put strain on marriages.

That’s the conclusion from a set of studies  authored by Colorado State University researchers in Economics, Atmospheric Science and Statistics.

 “The research found strong links between short-term exposure to air pollution and aggressive behavior”

This was  in the form of aggravated assaults and other violent crimes across the continental United States.

The Colorado State University researchers cross-analyzed three highly detailed datasets:

• • daily criminal activity
  • county-level air pollution
  • daily data on wildfire smoke plumes from satellite imagery.

 

When it was  observed whether crimes occurred inside or outside the home; they found that 56 percent of all violent crimes and 60 percent of all assaults occurred within the home,

which is an indication that many such crimes are tied to domestic violence.

Notably all crimes  might not even be physical—one can assault someone verbally.That suggested  when you’re exposed to more pollution, you become marginally more aggressive, so those altercations where things that may not have escalated,do escalate, thus causing troubled marriages.

 

The researchers were careful to correct for other possible explanations, including weather, heat waves, precipitation, or more general, county-specific confounding factor solar exposure.

So the next time you shout at your partner realise that it might not be them who might be at fault but the Indoor air pollution messing up your brains.

You might as well get a heart attack because of the stresses, thats a different story for a different day.

Though there is no formal research on Divorce rates and air pollution but many other research pieces are suggestive that more domestic violence and increasing aggression in families can eventually lead to permanent or temporary separation.