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Does your office layout seriously mess with your stress levels? Do you have all your best ideas staring out of a window? Have you ever got lost in a building or city where every corridor or street is featureless and bereft of landmarks? Is it really possible that for some newborns, the room in which they spend their earliest days could affect them for life?

Yes to all of those, says John Zeisel. He’s one of a handful of people looking at how our physical environment affects our brains. Their theory is that many places cause stress just by their design, and that we can…

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