It's almost like you were stressed out and on the verge of snapping for hours before that. But that's strange -- you didn't feel stressed out. There's no life crisis going on at the moment. Well, the hormones that trigger what we call "stress" are affected by all sorts of seemingly harmless things that science is just beginning to understand. Like ...

Ever fly into a rage for no reason? You think you're calm, but something comes along and pricks your balloon, and suddenly you're screaming at the car in front of you to JUST GO JESUS CHRIST IT'S GOING TO BE YELLOW FOR LIKE THREE MORE SECONDS.

5 Open Plan Offices

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People spend a lot of time moaning about cubicles, but these days lots of offices have done away with them in favor of an "open plan" where everybody can see everybody else (just think of The Office sans the wacky antics, because, well, that's it). There's a good chance you're reading this article in an office like this right now and, as bad as "cubicle farms" are, these are worse. Stress-wise, at least.

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Now scroll down very gradually so the slow reader at the back can keep up.

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The Stress Factor:

Technically, it's not about the office per se. It's the people in it, and everything they do -- whether you realize it or not. The sneaky thing about stress is that you can feel it without knowing exactly what's causing it. There's the specific kind of stress you get from a guy chasing you with a chainsaw, and then there's the more subtle form caused by the little things -- like a conversation going on nearby that you can't quite hear, or the squeaky wheel on somebody's chair, or somebody continuously walking back and forth behind you. Open plan offices are full of that kind of stuff. You can't put your finger on it, you just involuntarily feel your hand clenching into a fist and think how nice it would be to just punch a dude through a wall.

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Or several easily assembled walls.

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In one research project, they made a guy work in an open plan office while wearing a helmet that measured his brain activity throughout the day. They found that, despite the guy getting to spend the day pretending he was Professor X and that his desk was Cerebro, his brain was nervously working on overdrive all the damn time. It was processing all of the disturbances in the office, and we do mean all of them -- the subject wasn't just flipping out at the horsey laugh of the dude at the water cooler. Instead, his subconscious took in every little thing around him and rolled it into one giant ball of "I've had enough of this shit."