Colleague One turns the radio on. Colleague Two turns the radio off. Colleague One turns it back on again. Colleague Three complains, loudly, about Colleague One’s taste in music and a spirited debate ensues.

Every desk-bound worker has been there. Noise is the number one complaint we have about our lives in the office, and that’s not counting those working in traditionally loud environments like shops or building sites. Some 49% of the workforce in the UK is in an open space according to a report from office furniture company Steelcase. That’s more than double the average across the world and we’re not coping well.

Trying to write a detailed report while a colleague is having a heated debate on the phone an elbow’s distance away is clearly nobody’s idea of fun. Worse than that, it negatively affects our ability to do our job. It’s believed that people working in an open-plan environment are 66% less effective than those in a private office because our brains simply aren’t designed to focus on writing, thinking and listening at the same time. A Cornell University study found that the kind of noises we experience in an office – the sudden sound of a cough, the ring of a phone – increase epinephrine levels which trigger the body’s fight or flight response and distract us from ongoing tasks.

But while a silent office is some people’s idea of nirvana, to others it’s a hell where you’re tortured by the sound of your neighbour’s nose-breathing. Thanks to silent air conditioning, efficient double glazing and inaudible computer keyboards, quiet shared offices are more common – and a more frequent problem – than ever before. When workers in a finance department at the BBC complained that the ongoing silence in their office was oppressive and causing them to feel stressed and lonely, a £2,300 white noise ‘chit-chat’ machine was installed to provide comforting background noise. So where does your workplace fall on the decibel (dB) spectrum? Use the chart below to assess the noise levels so you can work out how you can to save your sanity.

Here’s what to do if your work space is driving you to distraction