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Don't blame yourself the next time you doze off between a lecture or in your office amid work, as a new research suggests it could be your office that's at fault.

According to U.S. scientists, their research has revealed that the concentration and decision making abilities in people may get affected due to high amount of carbon dioxide in class rooms and in offices, which generally accommodate a large number of people in a small space.

While typical outdoor concentrations are around 380 parts per million (ppm), indoor concentrations can go up to several thousand ppm, Mail Online reported.

Higher concentration of carbon dioxide indoors is usually due to poor ventilation say researchers.

The research by scientists at the State University of New York and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory at the University of California found that carbon dioxide concentrations in offices don't normally exceed 1,000 ppm, except in meeting rooms, where people gather for long hours. Mayb be that's why it becomes difficult to stay up for a meeting!

The concentration of carbon dioxide frequently exceeds 1,000 ppm in classrooms and sometimes may also exceed 3,000 ppm. Though this high concentration has not been found to be harmful to the health, it does affect the decision making ability and thinking capabilities of people, the report said.

The researchers said this was the first research findings to have linked high levels of carbon dioxide and a decline in work performance.

"In our field we have always had a dogma that carbon dioxide, at the levels we find in buildings, is just not important and doesn't have any direct impact on people," study co-author and Berkeley scientist William Fisk was quoted as saying by Mail Online.

"So these results, which were quite unambiguous, were surprising."

During their research, at carbon dioxide levels of 1,000 ppm, volunteers showed a major decline in performance in six out of nine tests conducted by researchers. The performance dropped further when the level rose to 2,500ppm.

"Previous studies have looked at 10,000 ppm and 20,000 ppm; that's the level at which scientists thought effects started," added Dr Fisk's colleague and co-author Mark Mendell. "That's why these findings are so startling."

Researchers say, that even students who sit in poorly ventilated rooms could be at disadvantage, even though the current study tested work performance and not learning.

Although there needs to be further studies conducted to conclude the results, researchers point to possible economic consequences of energy-efficient buildings, the report said.

"As there's a drive for increasing energy efficiency, there's a push for making buildings tighter and less expensive to run," said Dr Mendell.

"There's some risk that, in that process, adverse effects on occupants will be ignored. If people can't think or perform as well, that could obviously have adverse economic impacts."

The study was published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.