Practical measures to protect yourself against EMF

In Part 2 of Veena’s research into the dangers of electromagnetic fields and radiation to our physical bodies, she lines out several protective solutions she has found and applied to her daily life.

In writing these articles I really want to emphasise that I have no wish to scare people or dramatize the current EMF situation; I just want to hopefully increase awareness about it and offer some practical solutions. Fore-warned is fore-armed! Making sensible, informed choices and taking relevant precautions – just as we now know it is better not to smoke, eat red meat, eat junk food and lots of sugar, abuse alcohol, fry yourself sunbathing etc, etc – could be beneficial. In a similar way, knowing more about EMF helps us to take a few more healthy precautions and to maybe use technology intelligently without allowing it to dominate our health and lives.

So, what can you do to try to minimise the effects of EMF in your environment?

The following tips are some practical solutions I have found. Of course, there are others but these are things I have tried to use and put into practice. They do work – to a certain degree.

Your Home

If you can’t move to the country and delete technology from your lives (very few can!), the single-most effective thing to do is to cut out WiFi in your home. This means going back to using an ethernet cable (as we used to do before WiFi arrived) to connect your router to your computer and laptop; going back to a corded phone instead of a cordless one; reducing your use of the cell phone and iPad; not using smart meters nor, if you have small children, baby meters.

WiFi routers: Be aware! With modern WiFi routers, if you plug in an ethernet cable the router doesn’t automatically switch off the WiFi function so, if there is no on/off switch, you have to call up your server and ask them how to do it online. I have an old router so my internet access is slow but I have kept it because it has a WiFi on/off switch which is convenient if guests come with iPads etc and need to use my broadband.

There is some confusion about fibre optic cables. They are simply a different kind of cable to deliver your WiFi to your home via the router. It does this more efficiently than the usual cable coming out of a telephone connection. It does not protect you at all from EMF; in fact; I find it is stronger. A friend uses a fibre optic broadband/WiFi connection and I can’t be in her flat for longer than a few minutes.

WLAN icon

Cell phones: I can’t do without mine but I keep it as far from my body as I can in my house. I also use a kind of shielded box that is open at the top. As long as the box is above you, you are less subject to the electronic RF radiation yet it still works. Obviously, I don’t use the WiFi feature (WLAN). If you are not expecting an urgent call, switch the phone to flight mode when you go out and are carrying it in your pocket or bag. There are a few special cases available to buy online to help shield your body when carrying your cell phone. Turn the phone off at night and never keep it, or any of these other electronic gadgets, in your bedroom when you are sleeping, even turned off.

When speaking on the phone use the speaker function and a shielding ‘blanket’ over your body and up to your chin to prevent waves going into your body. One of the main symptoms of exposure to EMF is heart palpitations, heightened blood pressure and breathing difficulties. Also, thyroid problems. So that part of your body, while not as sensitive as your head and brain, is still very sensitive.

Treat iPads as you would a cell phone. I find Apple technology particularly lethal. I can’t be in the same room with someone using an iPad.

Modern printers usually have a WiFi function, like a built-in WiFi router. Turning it off doesn’t turn off the WiFi function – you have to actually unplug the printer or turn it off at the wall socket to stop the WiFi.

Make sure your bedroom is as free of EMF as possible and also very dark as the body needs darkness to create melatonin: Nighttime is when your body’s cells regenerate, rejuvenate and detoxify. Studies show EMF exposures at night can severely curtail these processes. Night time is also when your body produces melatonin. Melatonin has been called ‘nature’s age-reversing, disease-fighting, sex-enhancing hormone’. Sounds far-fetched? We do know that melatonin has an important role to play in the function of the immune system, cancer prevention and brain function. Studies show EMF exposures at night inhibit the production of melatonin.

Turn off everything at night using the switch on the wall sockets, not just on an individual device, especially around your bed, but in other rooms too, because so-called ‘dirty electricity’ is also harmful.

Get rid of the microwave oven!

I am sensitive to my computer even though I use an ethernet cable (called ‘hardwiring’) so I encase myself in a very expensive ‘sleeping bag’ made of special fabric with woven meshes of stainless steel and silver, which actually shields my body from EMF very well. I also wear a special hat made of similar fabric. I use both these items when watching TV. Still, I can only use both devices for a relatively short space of time without them affecting me. You can buy especially-made shields for your computer and TV screen but all this stuff is hellishly expensive. It has been developed mostly for the military and hospitals etc where radiation is used – and these people have big budgets.

Lastly, so-called pendants, spots, salt-lamps and other special stones don’t protect you against EMF! Don’t waste your money on them. EMF are what I call ‘hardcore’ technology and nice-sounding natural solutions cannot combat the very high-tech RF radiation waves. You have to combat high-tech devices with similar high-tech devices.

A quick way to measure WiFi in your home is to look on Settings/WLAN on your phone. How many routers does your phone show and how many bars are there on the WiFi icon? 3 to 5 bars are too strong; 1 to 2 is OK. If you are seriously concerned, invest in a radiation meter and check for yourself how much your devices are emitting.

My two criteria to know if I am protected from an EMF source are 1) What does my radiation meter show? and 2) is my body being affected?

Neighbours

Ah, here is a bigger problem. It is no good minimising EMF in your own home when your neighbour’s WiFi router is blasting RF radiation into your apartment! In an apartment block (or terrace housing) you can have many different WiFi’s coming into your home which is even more difficult for your body to cope with. A WiFi router is designed to send the frequencies upwards to reach to a second floor where you may have 3 teenage children all using tablets, etc. So WiFi coming from a neighbour below you is particularly potent. 99% of your neighbours will think you are mad to worry about EMF so they present a very real problem. They generally will not even listen to a request to turn their router off at night. So, what to do?

Obviously, the ideal situation is to move to a detached house outside a city.

Industrial insulation bonded on one side with aluminium foil which blocks EMF

Plugs with copper wiring for floor shielding

In an apartment, you can only minimise the neighbours’ EMF. I have shielded the whole floor of my apartment but I could not afford the really good shielding stuff; hence I used building material with a kind of aluminium foil on one side. It works a bit but not enough. Painting with a special paint is also an option and, I have heard, effective, but again that was too expensive for me. Special wallpaper for the walls is also an option yet also very expensive. By the way, this special paint is black in colour! Synchronicity with Osho’s idea?

But finally, after 6 years of suffering, I found something that works – but unfortunately only if you have a kind neighbour and a single EMF source. My solution is a WiFi router guard or shield based on the Faraday Cage developed by Michael Faraday, one of the most influential scientists in history. It was through his research on the magnetic field around a conductor carrying a direct current that he established the basis for the concept of the electromagnetic field in physics. As far as I can see there is only one company producing this little box, in the U.S.A. My kind neighbour agreed to try it so I bought it and put her router into it. It works and it does not stop her WiFi!

Finally, after 6 years, I can be in my living space without shrivelling up like a worm as the RF radiation waves hit me.

You might like to try this in your own home but I still think hardwiring is better.

Let me explain… although I know my explanation might not be very technologically acceptable. But you can get the general idea and too often the technological explanations can’t be understood because they are too complicated. WiFi frequencies are made up of many different electronic waves and it is the radiofrequency radiation waves that are harmful. It is literally uncontrolled radiation. When someone receives radiation therapy for cancer, the person’s age, weight, and physical condition is taken into account and the dosage is carefully controlled accordingly. With EMF now prevalent everywhere, you have radiation hitting small children, adults, pregnant women, fragile old people all in the same way. Very concerning. I am particularly apprehensive for children because statistics show an increase of 18.7% or more in child cancer over the last 10 years. (2018 WHO report which also published an increase of 22% in dementia during the same time.)

The wireless part of the waves is not so harmful – we have been using wirelesses for many years without harmful effects. But the radiofrequency radiation waves do harm, although the harmful effects from home devices like a WiFi router decrease quite rapidly – the further away you are from the source, e.g. by 20 metres, they no longer have a strong effect. The Faraday box blocks the RF radiation waves but not the wireless waves so my neighbour is happy using her WiFi for her tablet and I am happy finally being able to be comfortable in my own living space. For more detailed explanation please see this link for a Router guard and a video showing a product review for a WiFi router guard.

Lastly there are bed canopies and/or special sheets, also grounding mats, available to be bought online which are OK but not ideal. Also, rather expensive. For these kinds of products and also clothing for travelling, the European company Yshield is fairly reliable; there are many other sites, especially in the USA.

Hopefully I have managed to explain a few things which might be helpful for you to implement if you are concerned. In addition, I suggest you sign every petition going around just to irritate governments and other organisations in the hope that eventually someone will take notice. Even if it is acknowledged that more research must be done on the dangers of EMF, it is a step in the right direction. One voice can be ignored, a million can’t.