The Better Show
How to create a healthy environment
Episode Summary
We talk about the importance of tuning your environment for optimal health, focus, and creativity. We dive deep into sound, light, temperature, and air quality amongst other factors. We explore the idea that different environments are better for different kinds of work and how to best design the right environment for you.
Episode Notes
We talk about the importance of tuning your environment for optimal health, focus, and creativity. We dive deep into sound, light, temperature, and air quality amongst other factors. We explore the idea that different environments are better for different kinds of work and how to best design the right environment for you.
Show Notes
- 1:01— We start out by describing what we mean by “optimizing your environment” — lighting, sound, temperature, air quality, etc.
- 3:19— March starts off the conversation by talking about optimizing for sound, the definition of the word “noise”, and the effect of noise on one’s ability to concentrate and its effect on creativity.
- 4:15— March notes that although he likes the sound of a clock ticking, it is the type of thing that can drive other people crazy.
- 4:28— Ian shares a similar example of how a siren can serve both as a sense of relief that help is on the way but is also a sense of stress when fearing a sense of danger.
- 5:01— March notes that “one man’s noise is another man’s music.”
- 5:48— March describes the “marshmallow experiment” — an experiment measuring kids’ ability to delay gratification.
- 7:59— “Grit is the new currency in school”
- 8:58— March cites studies that show that noise has the ability to reduce the quality of sleep in ways you might not even expect.
- 13:11— Within the context of an earlier episode where we discussed how short bursts of stress can be beneficial to one’s health, Ian posits whether a more productive goal would be to build more resilience to negative environmental factors rather than try to avoid them altogether.
- 13:58— Darren agrees and suggests an alternative way to look at resilience to stress and suggests that practicing mindfulness can be one way to transcend physical discomfort.
- 15:04— Ian cites the conventional wisdom that it’s good to “eat a little dirt once in a while” to maintain your resilience and March compares the difference between acute versus chronic stress.
- 16:34— Darren shares his desire to make his home environment mirror the peacefulness of a spa and shares his tips for achieving this by removing screens from the bedroom and living room and lighting scented candles and incense to make the environment more pleasant and relaxing.
- 19:10— Darren shares his tips for extending a sense of Zen to your space at work with candles.
- 20:47— We learn just how important it is to be considerate of your neighbors at work when it comes to burning candles and how lucky Darren was to have a tolerant friend like March as his desk neighbor at work. :-)
- 21:55— As a former volunteer firefighter, March cautions against leaving an open flame unattended in the office.
- 23:29 —March delivers the quote of the day with “the best thing about a candle is the light that it gives off.”
- 23:51— We learn that removing televisions from one’s living room puts a damper on SuperBowl parties and March invents a fun alternative: SuperBowl charades.
- 25:52— March nominates Dr. Bose for the Nobel Peace Prize for the invention of noise-cancelling headphones and shares that he often uses them simply to enjoy the sound of silence.
- 26:42— March shares that he noise-cancelling headphones help him enter a flow state and that for writing he prefers music with no lyrics.
- 27:13— Oh behalf of The Better Show audience, Darren requests a link to March’s Spotify playlist for music to write by and we give a shameless plug to The Better Show Newsletter.
- 27:49— March shares that he has been using a 10,000 lux lamp every morning and has had the best, most enjoyable winter he’s had in years.
- 29:05—We give a shout out to Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.
- 29:16— March still loves his “eye bra” sleep mask (with apologies to Weird Science)
- 30:06— Ian confesses to going down the rabbit hole of environmental optimization and starts off his journey by donning a pair of sweet sweet BluBlockers. (Instagram post of Ian in his BluBlockers is forthcoming.)
- 31:15— Ian gives his strong recommendation for BluBlockers and describes the significant benefit he’s experienced from cutting out blue light including much higher quality of sleep. (He also does a rad impersonation of Arnold Schwarzenegger, too.)
- 35:27— Ian recommends Flux as another tool that can help cut the amount of blue light you get exposed to from computer screens. Darren and March ❤️ Flux as well.
- 36:55— Ian talks about his grandfather’s experience with emphysema and how it made him conscious about the importance of maintaining healthy air quality.
- 38:34— Ian recommends HEPA air filters for the home and shares how having cleaner air in his bedroom has helped his sinuses significantly.
- 42:17— Darren mentions an odd odor that he experienced with and air ionizer and March explains what ionization is and where that smell comes from.
- 45:51— We move into the Tips & Tricks part of the show and March kicks us off with the insight that it’s important to know what works for you and what works for the specific task on which you are working and offers a tip to keep a journal to discover what environments work best for you.
- 47:32— March describes an experience where he learned about one of the things that affects his ability to concentrate.
- 50:14— Ian suggests paying attention to the invisible factors that could be affecting your environment and teases something called “dirty electricity” that we’ll cover in a future Better Show Bite.
- 51:14— March shares that 40 decibels is the optimal level of background noise for creative work where you want a looser focus and more fluid thinking style.
- 52:37— By contrast, for deep focus work it is preferable to have silence.
- 53:10— We discuss the experience in quiet rooms where acoustic tools are tested.
- 56:02— Ian wants to build an anechoic chamber in his house.
- 56:42— Ian brings up the idea of “empty stomach intelligence.”
- 57:27— Darren shares a personal tip that in order to perform at his best, he fasts before an important presentation so that he’s a little hungry during the presentation.
- 59:01— March gives his strong recommendation for the Bose Quiet Comfort 35 noise-canceling headset and Ian and Darren chime in to share their love for those headphones as well.
- 1:00:51— March offers an alternative to noise-canceling headphones, the HearTech Silent Ears earplugs. (Which may or may not have been similar to an Elven D&D character name March used at some point in the past.)
- 1:02:10— Darren discussed researching showing the correlation between productivity and room temperature.
- 1:05:03— Ian discusses his experience with the effect warmer room temperatures during the summer have had on his productivity at home and suggests considering the extra heat generated from electrical devices in your house.
- 1:07:17— We talk about how to optimize the lighting in your space and March shares some research on lighting and people’s emotional state.
- 1:09:29— Natural light versus artificial light and the ways that people are using smart lighting to create optimal lighting for different spaces and different types of work.
- 1:11:08— Ian discusses ways to maintain a healthy air quality in your environment — from HEPA air filters to houseplants.
- 1:13:18— March discusses the benefits of keeping spaces tidy versus allowing some messiness to exist.
- 1:16:04— March decides to schedule more meetings outside and walking meetings to take advantage of the beautiful Seattle summer.
- 1:16:54— Ian has purchased a hygrometer called the ThermPro TP50 to measure humidity in his bedroom. If testing shows too dry, he’ll purchase a humidifier for his room to improve sleep quality.
- 1:19:47— Darren has decided to add more plants to his environment. He did this recently at work with a few desk plants (in addition to the candles 😃) but he doesn’t have any plants in his office at home.
Mentions
Follow Us
Subscribe
Full Episode Transcript
Feedback
Enjoy the show?
- Leave a review in iTunes!
- Tell two friends about the show!