--- title: "Noise at work or in the home office can cause burnout · Sunergos" description: "We live in an age of noise – the flood of information surrounding people today, thanks to the internet and smart devices, is immeasurable and constant. If we add the environmental noise we are constantly surrounded by in an open-plan office or in a home office alongside the family…" url: https://www.sunergos.ee/en/blog/noise-at-work-or-in-the-home-office-can-cause-burnout/ language: en --- [Home](https://www.sunergos.ee/en/) / [Blog](https://www.sunergos.ee/en/blog/) / Leadership Article · Leadership # Noise at work or in the home office can cause burnout Reet Neemoja Founder, partner · 9 February 2021 · 4 min read FemaleMale We live in an age of noise – the flood of information surrounding people today, thanks to the internet and smart devices, is immeasurable and constant. If we add the environmental noise we are constantly surrounded by in an open-plan office or when working from home alongside the family, how is it even possible to keep our attention on one specific task and concentrate undisturbed? And what happens when we can no longer focus? The internationally recognised Estonian brain researcher Jaan Aru has said in his book “Ajust ja arust” (“On the brain and the mind”) that conscious thinking is like a bottle of water we carry with us in the desert. This means it is a very limited resource that must be used wisely. Concentration, like many other skills, is not an innate talent, but needs conscious training and control over the surrounding environment. **Why are concentration problems a problem?** Working in an open-plan office, or in a home office alongside children and family, has become normal, but in such an environment there are many distractions, and they are often beyond our control. Every time colleagues talk nearby, the coffee machine hums or the children run around, our focus is interrupted and valuable brain resources are spent on the distraction and then on switching back to the main topic. Besides external distractions, we are often also troubled by so-called inner noise, i.e. the thoughts swirling in our head. Silencing them can be even harder than external distractions, which in some cases we can avoid by going to another room or using headphones, for example. In a situation where you feel you can’t concentrate because of various distractions, stress arises, which, if it lasts long, can lead to health problems and burnout. It is like a vicious circle: you can’t concentrate, the stress level rises, productivity drops, it gets even harder to concentrate, the stress level rises even more, and so on. When such a sequence lasts a long time, the result is burnout. From the point of view of both employer and employee, it is important that people can concentrate on their main activities and tasks. A [study](https://www.tlu.ee/uudised/kontorikeskkondade-uuring-avatud-kontor-parsib-eestlaste-toovoimekust) carried out a few years ago by the Institute of Psychology of Tallinn University among more than a thousand office workers found that dissatisfaction with the office environment and willingness to leave the job are strongly linked. It was seen that people can be more effective in a traditional office than in an open-plan office, because all kinds of distractions in the workspace require extra effort to concentrate on work, and the constant presence of others also reduces privacy, resulting in higher stress levels. The more complex the tasks, the more people wanted to work on their own. **Why** **is concentrating so hard?** You could say that our brain is like an addict, hooked on new information because it creates a feeling of pleasure. It is so pleasant, in fact, that if we don’t become aware of it and control it, the brain constantly demands a new dose and we keep jumping from one topic to another, trying to get ever new signals. Social media platforms, for example, and the whole smart world with all kinds of bells and whistles hunting for our attention are built on this phenomenon. Various studies have also tried to find out how much multitasking reduces productivity, and it has been [found](https://www.apa.org/research/action/multitask) that the drop can be as much as 40%! **How to help yourself?** To focus, you need to learn to consciously control your impulses and your addiction to signals of novelty, and to switch off distractions, most of which come through hearing or sight. Turning off all kinds of notifications, web pages, chats and the like on both phone and computer helps here. If possible, choose a workplace where there are no moving or otherwise attention-grabbing elements visible out of the corner of your eye. Headphones are a good aid for switching off external distractions. This was also shown by a recent study by the technology company Huawei, which monitored the pulse of open-plan office workers while they worked one day with noise-cancelling headphones and another day without. The results showed that people’s pulse was mostly lower on the day they worked with headphones than on the day without. As a slower pulse indicates a lower stress level, their ability to concentrate was higher without external noise. In their feedback, these people noted that they felt content and productive. Once the surrounding environment is under control, it is certainly important to put the tasks that need doing in order of importance and start solving them one by one, because our brain can only focus on one topic at a time. If possible, it is good to plan your time so that you do the tasks requiring the most focus when you are most productive. For many, this time is in the morning, but there are also “evening people”. It is also good to work with a fixed rhythm of focus and rest – for example, 25 minutes of work and 5 minutes of rest. To control the inner distractions mentioned earlier, i.e. your own thoughts, I recommend getting acquainted with meditation – different practices help increase your sense of control over your life and further support your ability to concentrate. Ideally, you could start and end every day with a 15–30-minute meditation, and also try simpler breathing practices at work or in the home office to find balance in the whirl of work and family life. There is a lot of information about meditation and mindfulness practices in all kinds of channels; the best known in Estonia is, for example, [Vaikuseminutid.ee](http://vaikuseminutid.ee/). Several supportive apps have also been created, such as the Estonian [Synctuition](https://synctuition.com/). _The article was published on 21 November 2020 in Eesti Päevaleht Online._ ![Reet Neemoja](https://www.sunergos.ee/images/team/reet-neemoja.jpg) About the author Reet Neemoja A process-oriented psychologist and coach with international experience, who has supported the development of leaders and organisations for over 20 years as an HR manager, management board member and external consultant. [Write to the author](mailto:reet@sunergos.ee?subject=Noise%20at%20work%20or%20in%20the%20home%20office%20can%20cause%20burnout) Related ## Read these too. 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