Anxious? Tired? Is a WOBBLY BUILDING to blame?
It sounds bizarre, but research shows it’s FAR more likely than you think
WHeN Sharon Munro, 43, a single mother from Aberdeen, began to suffer nausea and constant anxiety, her GP tested her for everything from diabetes to multiple sclerosis, but found nothing.
Over the next year, Sharon’s weight plummeted from a healthy 10st to an emaciated 7st (she is 5ft7in). She felt so perpetually unnerved she even feared the newly-built council flat into which she and son Ronan, 17, had moved in 2014, was haunted.
But the truth, when it emerged, was perhaps even stranger. The three-storey block of flats was vibrating constantly and this, she says, was causing her symptoms.
Being made to feel unwell by building vibrations might sound like a wacky New Age theory. But respected scientists take the problem very seriously.
They believe that low-intensity, often-imperceptible vibrations in tall office buildings cause workers to feel tired, unwell, unproductive and even panicky.
Last week, the universities of exeter and Bath announced they are building a £7.2million government-backed national testing centre to investigate the problem and develop ways to solve it, following international research that highlighted the potential for vibration-induced sickness.
The new facility will examine subtle vibrations in tall buildings caused by wind gusts and occupants moving around. These problems typically start as low as the ninth floor.
While people may not consciously sense these reverberations often, authoritative research already shows they can have a debilitating effect on wellbeing.
The vibrations Sharon and fellow tenants felt in their flats at Marchburn Park in Aberdeen were less subtle. Minor provocations, such as traffic or a washing machine, made the building vibrate enough to shake cups and Tvs, she explains.
even so, it took a year for Sharon to make the link with her malaise. ‘I had been in the flat for six months when I started to feel shaky and nauseous,’ she recalls. ‘I was also waking in the night for no apparent reason.’
‘The nausea meant I couldn’t eat properly and my weight plummeted.’ She became so ill she had to leave her job as an accounts manager for an electronics firm.
FeLLOW tenants reported similar symptoms, such as blurred vision, diarrhoea and nausea. ‘There was this weird feeling about the place,’ adds Sharon. ‘I put up with a year of going to GPs, but they could find nothing; one suggested it might just be stress.’
But there was no reason for stress, she says. Before she and her son had moved into the new flat, Sharon was enjoying life.
‘eventually I searched the internet and discovered something called whole-body vibration syndrome.’ This is a problem that normally affects people who operate heavy machinery, but Sharon’s symptoms matched the syndrome with astonishing accuracy.
The syndrome even features the disturbing symptom of feeling a haunting paranormal presence. ‘When you are subjected to constant vibration and you can’t find a reason for your problems, it can cause paranoia,’ she says.
Indeed, a medical study at Messina University, Italy, in 2004 found that people exposed to long-term vibration at work suffered raised levels of anxiety and tension, as well as debilitating fatigue and depression.
Researchers believe we may have evolved as primates to sense vibrations as potential threats, such as a predator’s approach.
Sharon’s GP agreed her disparate symptoms fitted the bill, but said there was no expert available in Scotland to diagnose it.
But Sharon complained to the city council and contacted solicitors, who employed a specialist environmental safety company to test the building.
‘Their equipment showed that the vibration vastly exceeded normal safety levels,’ says Sharon. ‘The engineer told me he suspected the building’s design or construction was to blame.’
She and her son were refunded their rent and finally moved out of the block in January. Her fellow tenants have also been rehoused and the block is now boarded up.
‘Unfortunately, there seems to be a huge vibration problem with the flats,’ confirms Aberdeen City Council finance convener, Willie Young. ‘I have visited and did feel motion sickness. We are looking into the cause of the problems.’
While Sharon’s vibration sickness has now been recognised, a leading expert fears many more Britons could be suffering a lower-intensity form of the problem that causes tiredness, mental fog, low mood and loss of motivation.
Aleksandar Pavic, a professor of vibration engineering at exeter University, was called in to help fix the ‘wobbly’ Millennium Bridge in London, which caused panic in 2000 as it oscillated under pedestrians’ feet (the problem was solved by fitting the bridge with movement ‘dampers’).
Professor Pavic hopes the new project will inspire major changes in the design of tall buildings.
The medical term for symptoms caused by vibrating buildings is sopite syndrome, or early-onset motion sickness — first identified by two Nasa scientists in 1976. Recent research has found that high buildings can lead to wind induced motion sickness that reduces people’s ability to work.
In an eight-month study of 100 people working in high-rise offices in the blustery city of Wellington, New Zealand, researchers found wind-induced motion sickness was reported in 29 tall buildings at heights of nine storeys and above.
The study in the Journal of Wind engineering and Industrial Aerodynamics, warned: ‘Building motion has a larger effect on occupants than previously understood and can significantly reduce work performance in occupants experiencing motion sickness.’
Researchers found that ‘selfreported work performance’ was reduced by 30 per cent in participants affected by sopite syndrome.
Anyone who walks around areas of tall buildings knows that it can feel windy even on calm days. Such ‘urban winds’ can make buildings vibrate sufficiently to cause sopite syndrome, says Professor Pavic.
‘Tall buildings create canyons of wind,’ he explains. ‘When we build upwards, each tall building affects wind pressure on those around it.
‘We don’t have good information about how to design these things. We need to understand what’s going on — not least because more tall buildings are being built.
‘And climate change means wind speeds are set to increase.’
People walking around inside tall buildings also causes significant vibration, says Professor Pavic, which means the busier an office is, the greater the potential for problems. It is ironic, therefore, that walking may also provide a solution for sopite syndrome.
‘Taking regular breaks for a stroll every 20-30 minutes can re-set your senses, as the human brain is used to that type of motion,’ he explains. ‘It seems as you stand up, your sensitivity to vibration goes down by ten times, because you are setting in play your own motion-compensating sensors.’
The new government-funded research facility, which will open in autumn 2018, plans to put thousands of volunteers into virtualreality simulators that replicate the experience of working in a high-rise office block that is vibrating or swaying at low frequencies.
ENGINeeRS, doctors, physiologists and psychologists will study how this affects different symptoms of motion sickness, such as tiredness, low mood, difficulty concentrating and demotivation.
‘We also want to know what levels of vibration can cause a sense of panic,’ says Professor Pavic. ‘Such problems affect some people, but not everyone — in the same way that not all people get car sickness. We want to explore which people are affected, and under what circumstances.’
Meanwhile, Sharon Munro is recovering. ‘My symptoms have improved vastly since we moved out,’ she says. Best of all, she adds, her insomnia is abating.
And other families moved from the block report their symptoms have also improved.
It seems Marchburn Park’s ex-residents are finally getting their lives back on a stable footing.