Is Your Office Making You Sick? The Dirty, Little Office Secret You Need to Know About

Is your office making you sick? You go to the office each day and spend long hours working to earn your pay. You feel a little tired and run down, but attribute it to working too hard to get that last minute project done on time. You may want to stop and consider whether your office building may be contributing to your lack of energy and general, ill health. Could your office be making you sick?

It may surprise you to learn that some modern office settings play host to hundreds of potentially carcinogenic volatile organic compounds. These compounds enter the air you breathe as you're sitting at your desk and walking around the building. These compounds come from a variety of sources and have the capability of causing serious health problems among workers exposed to them. There's even a name for this phenomenon called "sick building syndrome". This is a syndrome where a building with poor ventilation houses a variety of hazardous chemicals that can enter the air and cause health problems among its occupants. It's true that your office could be making you sick.

What are the sources for the volatile organic chemicals that have the capability of causing health problems? Some of the potential sources include building materials that emit volatile compounds, office furnishings, printers, copiers, and even the carpeting. When an office undergoes a renovation, the health risk to the building's occupants becomes elevated as paints are applied to walls in a closed environment and new office furnishings are brought in that can be a source of fresh volatile compounds.

Other ways your office could be making you sick is by the application of pesticides and use of cleaning chemicals that are potentially carcinogenic. This can exacerbated by poor ventilation created by sealed windows and the general lack of air movement to needed to remove potentially dangerous volatile compounds.