In this episode, R discusses EMF’s with Nat Niddam on her Biohacking Superhuman Performance podcast. There are many forms of EMF, the kind we are talking about are non-ionizing forms of EMF – referred to as radio frequency or microwave, used for wireless communication. These kinds of EMFs are over 1 trillion times higher in a city than what is found in nature. While EMFs help us to advance greatly in the world of technology and communication it comes at a cost. There are several known health risks associated with the levels of EMF that we are exposed to in our homes, cities, schools, and jobs.
Thankfully there are things we can do in our daily routine to help mitigate some of the health risks and there are products that we can use to help us use technology in a safer way.
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Nat Niddam 0:09
Welcome to the biohacking superhuman performance podcast. My name is Natalie Neto. I’m a nutritionist, a human potential and epigenetic coach. And I created this podcast to bring you the latest ways to take control of your health and longevity. We cover it all, from new technology to ancestral health practices, personalized interventions, and a very special interest of mine. peptides. Enjoy the show.
Folks, welcome back to the show. Today’s episode is all about non native EMFs the effect on your health and more importantly, what you can do about it. There’s no doubt that we’re increasingly under fire from in more and more sources of non native electromagnetic frequencies that are disruptive to our biology. And my guest today, R blank is an expert in this area. R blank is an entrepreneur. He’s a technologist, he’s an author, and he is also the CEO of shield your body, which creates products that make it easy and affordable for people to reduce their exposure to wireless radiation from devices like cell phones and laptops. And before you say, Oh, he’s just, you know, this guy peddling his gadgets because he wants to sell them, I encourage you to listen to the episode R blank is a heart centered entrepreneur. He started out here, basically co authoring a book with his father, Dr. Martin Blanc, which is a called overpowered, and is widely regarded as one of the best books written on the science of the health effects of EMF radiation. And he’s also the host of his own podcast called The healthier tech podcast. So ours is on a mission to help us to basically live with the technology that we just can’t live without anymore. So if you are looking to connect with R himself R blank, then you can do so through his website, which is shield your body.com. And once you’re on the website, I encourage you to go poking around because they have some amazing products there. I just myself was on that website a little while ago, and I ended up buying this really neat device called the heart device that we do talk about in the podcast, and allows you to use your very own headphones, your favorite headphones or earbuds. And it helps to mitigate the EMF radiation that would otherwise get to your head through those through the wiring. And I also got one of those cool pads that you put your laptop on. Because you know, we all love to sit on the couch or in an armchair working on our computers. Meanwhile, computers heating up your lap, it’s shooting radiation down into your body. So this kind of blocks it. Anyway, those are two of the things that buyers really wanted to get. If you decide that you’re going to head over to the website and you want to do some shopping, then you can save 15% on your purchase with discount code longevity. So shield your body.com discount code longevity. If you get value from this podcast, and this episode, please make sure that you share it with your friends, your family, anybody who you think would get value from this, and make sure that you leave us a review, because it’s those reviews that allow the podcast to rise up the ranks allows us to reach more people and ultimately allows us to get more amazing guests for you guys. So thank you so much for being here. I so appreciate you and enjoy the episode, folks. Just a little bit of housekeeping before we launch into the episode. Please remember that all of the information provided in these podcasts is for information purposes only. We are never offering treatments, cures whatever for any kind of disease or medical condition. Anything you hear about here is going to be intriguing. There’s some research around it. But make sure that you check with your medical provider before you go off and do any of this stuff for yourself. Alright, enjoy the episode. And also, if you’re looking to connect with me for any reason, with your comments, questions, whatever it may be, you can reach me through my website, which is not nitnem.com. Or you can find me on Facebook in the optimizing superhuman performance group, or on me we’re in the biohacking superhuman performance group. And of course, you can also follow me on Instagram which is at Natalie Nitnem. Natalie is with an H between the T and the a the secondary. So thank you so much for being here. Appreciate you guys enjoy the episode. Welcome to the show R blank. You have to write your name. Because I keep I keep thinking are Am I using your initial like what’s the story? So first of all, welcome to the podcast. It’s such a pleasure to have you here today.
R Blank 4:49
Thank you so much that I really appreciate the opportunity. Yeah, well, I
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Nat Niddam 4:52
think this is going to be a great conversation because it’s a topic that I think is I mean if it’s not on your radar Probably should be in some way, shape or form. And it’s certainly on the radar of so many people in the health optimization and biohacking worlds. I think it’s amazing when you find someone who’s just been out there kind of flying the flag for a while, which I think, and especially given your background, because as an engineer, like, I’m always amazed that people, it’s not that I’m amazed. It’s I just think it’s so interesting that people coming out of the engineering world are the ones quite often who are sounding the alarm here, which lends so much credibility to it. And yet, there’s so much conflict about it. But before we get into that, what I love to start my podcasts was really a little bit about my guest and have them tell, tell us a little bit about themselves? And what brought them to do what they’re doing today?
R Blank 5:46
Sure. So Well, thank you again, for having me, I’ll try to keep this part as brief as possible. How, who am I? And how did I end up where I am? So I was in, as you mentioned, for about 20 years, I was a software engineer. And I was working in that I had a an H, a software development firm in Los Angeles, I was on the faculty of the engineering faculty at University of Southern California. And then in about 2012. My father, Dr. Martin blank, was working on a book. And so for those who don’t know, my father was one of the leading EMF scientists, and that is in terms of the health effects of EMF. And but and he, in the course of his career, he’d written an awful lot, but never for the general public. And so he had a contract to write a book for, let’s call them normal human beings. And he wanted some help to communicate that. And as I said, at that point, I was teaching at college, not doctoral students at Columbia, like my father did. And I’d written a book and I’d done a lot of public speaking. So I have a lot more experience on that side of things. So he asked me for some help. And I jumped in and CO wrote what became overpowered with him. And, you know, it was a great experience to have with my father while he was still alive. And at the same time, it was a tremendous learning experience. Obviously, I grew up it around my father, and I knew the work that he did. But I didn’t really get into the depths of it. So for instance, when I find first got a phone, a cell phone, that was in 1998, after I got out of college, I knew never to hold it up to my head, you know, and I knew, well, you know, I don’t need a microwave oven in my house. And I knew the basics, but I didn’t get into the details until the experience of writing overpower with my father. And in the course of that I really, the realization was significant, just how much science there is into this question, and how broad ranging the demonstrated negative health effects are from that science. But then when you start to think about it, you know, EMF is not like other pollutants. It’s not like CFCs, where you could change spray bottles and repair the ozone layer in a pretty short period of time. It’s not like and the reason it’s not like that is because it’s an it’s an inevitable, but you can’t have Wi Fi or cell phones. Without EMF, there’s no replacement for it. That’s how stuff communicates wirelessly. It’s not like tobacco, where you can just regulated out of existence and have no replacements for it. And the reason for that is because the stuff that emits these pollutants, it forms the entire infrastructure, the entire underpinning of, of modern society. I mean, yes, the economy. But even more than that, it’s the entire society, everything that we think of as normal, from how we make money to how we spend our free time to how we collect and store and prepare our meals, everything relies on EMF emitting technology. So there’s no way of getting rid of this stuff. So I started thinking there has to be safer ways to use it. And for to to be around all of this technology. And that’s where the idea for what became shield your body started. And again, that was in 2012, I launched my first product in 2013. And then, in 2016, I, I sold my half of my software company and decided to go full time into si B. And that’s been my my sole focus since since then. So just heading up right now about six
Nat Niddam 9:45
years. Wow, that’s amazing. You sold your software company for this. So you’re pretty committed to the cause. i i Take it.
R Blank 9:52
Yeah, well, I like I totally believe in this and I believe that that I bring a unique voice in terms of my ability to compete. To indicate these issues to regular people, and the way that they can think about these risks and the ways in which that they can practically address them.
Nat Niddam 10:09
I think there’s so much talk about the negative aspects and very little information in terms of what the heck do we do about it, because let’s face it at this point, it’s like, you know, cats out of the bag with trains left the station, industries not going to change, they’re not going to change the way they deliver. And to your point, this is the way our world works. I mean, we can choose, I think, to have fewer wireless devices in our home, like I choose not to buy a fridge that works wirelessly, I choose not to have a washing machine and a dryer that operate with wireless signals like these things they get offered to you, when you go to the store. Oh, this is amazing. You can start the machine when you’re like halfway across town. And I’m like, I don’t need to do that. I don’t know why I want that. I don’t want that in beside, it’s just another electronic gizmo that can go wrong with something that I just all I want my fridge to do is keep my, my food cold. That’s it. Yeah, I don’t need it to talk to me, I don’t need it to tell me what the weather is, I just need to know that my food is gonna be cold, and not go bad. In the few days, it takes me to consume it. So I think there’s a certain degree of decisions we can make. But to your point, the whole issue around cell phones, even smart TVs, it’s going to get to the point where there’s nothing you can do about that TV, you don’t have to buy a smart TV. Our cars emit EMFs as well. So but maybe what what would be a great idea is for you to define for the listeners I you know, even though most people probably have a sense of this electromagnetic frequencies is something that are actually naturally occurring in nature. And but what we’re talking here are about non native EMFs. And we’re talking about a particular maybe particular band that so maybe we can explain to people the differences in the different EMFs that were exposed to like when we’re standing on the earth, in bare feet, or we’re looking at the sun or whatever the case may be, there’s a certain amount of EMF we’re exposed to. But now there’s all this other stuff. So can you maybe help us to tease that out a little bit?
R Blank 12:15
Sure. Yeah. So as you say, EMF stands for electromagnetic fields. And as the name suggests, it’s formed by a combination of electrical and magnetic forces. So it’s a form of energy created by a mixture of electricity and magnetism. There are many, many, many different kinds of EMF, as you say. So they exist on what we call the spectrum, the EM spectrum, or electromagnetic spectrum, right at the middle of the spectrum, is visible light, like we get from the sun. And for for almost all of history of life on Earth, we’re talking about billions and billions and billions of years, life on Earth evolved to deal with sunlight, that was essentially the only form of EMF to which not only humanity, but all life on Earth was exposed. In addition to that, as you pointed out, there’s a small magnetic field from the Earth itself. And then also some from from lightning. But the vast, vast majority was visible light. And that was the only form to which humanity and all life on Earth was was exposed. Now there are certain types of EMF with more energy than visible light. Those are called ionizing and they include things like X rays, and gamma rays. And everyone knows and fully agrees that that stuff is super harmful, even in very, very low doses. Which is why when you go to the dentist, and they take an x ray of you, they put on a thick lead coat on you. And they leave the room. Yeah, happening
Nat Niddam 13:52
right away. I think they’re wearing led code to.
R Blank 13:57
So that stuff, ionizing EMF, everyone knows is long been accepted is super harmful, even in very, very low doses. Now, there’s a whole spectrum below visible light with less energy. These are called non ionizing forms of EMF. And it was long thought that these were benign, that these did not harm living things. But But But recent decades. And when I say recent, actually, the science now goes back about 100 years when when science started showing this stuff, but in recent decades, it’s grown quite a bit has shown that that longtime assumption that that this stuff was benign, that this was safe this it had no effect. That was wrong. And just to give people an example, when my father went to medical school, he was taught this was safe. When he was teaching at Columbia medical school. In the initial decades of his career, he was teaching that this was safe. So that’s how recent This was considered to be just common knowledge this stuff is safe, but as I say, recent science shows But that assumption was wrong. So within their, the the non ionizing portion of the EM spectrum, you have a few different kinds. So you have what’s often referred to as radio frequency, or microwave, they’re kind of used interchangeably. Those are the frequencies used for wireless communication. So that includes cordless phones, cell phones, Wi Fi, Bluetooth, all of these wireless technologies use radio frequency, or microwave to transmit their information, then with even less energy than that, you have something called elf or extremely low frequency. And this comes off of anything like power lines, or your appliances. Anything that runs off of electricity is a source of elf. So those are the two conduent, when when you will your listeners listen to me or other EMF health advocates, those are the types of EMF that we are talking about that is radio frequency, or microwave, and ELF or extremely low frequency. And these are the segments of the EM spectrum to which we are increasingly exposed. And to which life on Earth was essentially completely unexposed until the late 19th century. So since the invention of the light bulb, that was really the first practical source of of human made emf in our lives, then you had a power grid to power the light bulb. Then once the power grid was in place, companies started making all sorts of new appliances to take advantage of that network. So those became sources of EMF. Eventually, they realized, well, we can send radio. And that’s when the first wireless signals really came into play, then they realized television. And then as we know, cordless phones, cell phones, Wi Fi, the amount keeps increasing every year. And to give people some kind of benchmark on this. There, it is estimated that the ambient level of EMF, just when you’re walking down a street in a city is and this is I want to emphasize that I am citing a conservative estimate here, there are plenty more dramatic estimates. The amount of EMF that is ambient in the environment, not not you holding up a phone, you’re just walking down the street is over 1 trillion times higher than what is found in nature. So when people say, well, EMF is naturally occurring, so it must be safe. That is a it is such a distortion of the actual facts on the ground that it is it’s just not a relevant comparison. Because yes, a certain amount of a specific type of EMF is naturally occurring, but nothing close to the amounts and types of EMF to which we are all exposed on a daily basis. From our modern technology.
Nat Niddam 17:51
Wow. Okay, a trillion. That’s a lot. Um, that’s, that’s, that’s really a lot. And I guess that I mean, like, I live in a big city. So definitely, I’m in that world, frankly, even when you look at, you know, we, some of us talk about turning our Wi Fi off at night. Awesome, except that I can see at least seven other networks in my house. So yeah, I mean, it’s all fine and good to turn my Wi Fi off, which has become a next to impossible exercise. By the way, I don’t know what it is about these wireless these companies. But they’re now making modems that you can’t turn them off. Like even when you pull the plug on the thing. There’s backup battery power, like Oh, my God, sitting with a hammer going, Die already, like shut down. Anyway, so I’ll let you
R Blank 18:45
go No. So I totally understand and appreciate your frustration on a couple of points with your last comment. So first is the number of well, when it comes to turning off Wi Fi, I understand the frustration that can be when when you live in close proximity to neighbors and you turn off your Wi Fi and they’re still all these other networks. I want to emphasize to people it still matters that you turned off your Wi Fi. Okay, one because you’re reducing your load just by doing that EMF exposure, what the science shows us is that there is a dose response relationship. And the more of it you are exposed to, the more likely you are to experience the negative health outcomes. So reducing it even if you’re not eliminating it is help helpful. But the other thing I wanted to take take this time to point out is that EMF diminishes in power exponentially with distance. So what that means is if you let’s say you’re you have you here, well, no people aren’t seeing this. They’re listening to this. But let’s say
Nat Niddam 19:49
there’s there is a YouTube version of this. Okay, some people will see this not as many as well here. But
R Blank 19:55
so let’s say you’re here and your phone is now an inch away from you. Okay, And then you take that phone for an inch away from you to two inches away from you, the power of that exposure has just dropped by 75%. Wow. So the Wi Fi router in your home or apartment is likely much closer to you than the Wi Fi routers in your neighboring apartments or homes. So by turning off yours, you’re not just reducing it, you’re probably you’re reducing what’s probably the biggest source of your Wi Fi exposure, even though these other networks are still in play. But the other side of that, that I that your comment brought up in my head is the frustration with the design of certain modern products. So for instance, just last year, I bought a new elliptical. And it is literally impossible to disable the Bluetooth on this elliptical, I don’t use it connects with this. This fitness platform called I fit, I don’t make use of that I just use the elliptical, but I cannot disable Bluetooth on the elliptical, it is not possible. In my car, I have a very low tech car, it came with this radio that had Bluetooth in it. And there was no way of turning off the Bluetooth. And in fact, what happened that random side story my car was broken into, and the radio was stolen. And we just decided not to replace it. So we we have a big hall where the radio used to be. But that was the only real source of human made emf in that low tech car. But, and when it comes to smart TVs I’ve heard I haven’t experienced this myself. But with some smart TVs, right? They allow you to disable the Wi Fi and plug in Ethernet. But I’ve heard that disabling the Wi Fi doesn’t actually stop it from transmitting it just it’s kind of like a user interface feature that you think you’ve turned it off, because you’re not using it using the Ethernet, but it doesn’t stop it from transmitting. So there’s a whole bunch of modern technology that is that is let me say it this way, where you see they could have made different design choices, that would have led to less EMF exposure, but minimizing people’s EMF exposure is not a business priority. And it is not a regulatory priority. And so these companies make these design choices that lead to more EMF exposure, then we need just to use the product.
Nat Niddam 22:26
Yeah, no, it’s it’s pretty weird. And you know, with cars, it’s an interesting thing, right? Like I It drove the message got driven home to me once. And it’s not just your radio. I mean, if you think about all of the things in modern cars that work with EMF, your key fob, which is the thing that gets you in the car, the thing that start that allows the car to start is itself a wireless device. So I am I have from a friend of mine, I have this Faraday pouch. And you know, you’re supposed to put your phone in it. I was disorganized that day. My phone was in my purse, I too many things in my hands, I threw my keys in the Faraday pouch. And I have a car where I don’t need to use the key. As long as the key is on my body, I can unlock the car. So I get to the car and I go to unlock it. I won’t unlock like, Oh my God, what’s going on? Like, did I forget that? Usually that’s because I forgot my key in the house. Because if you don’t have you can’t, and I thought well, I couldn’t I couldn’t have forgotten the key in the house. And you know, I’m juggling 27 things. I’m couldn’t have possibly forgotten the key in the house because I lock the door. And it suddenly hits me that my my key fob is inside this Faraday pouch. And so it can’t transmit. That’s, that’s great. But then I get in the car and I keep it in the thing. And I put it back in the in the pouch. And I’m like, well, the car start the car wouldn’t start. So I mean, again, this is just to highlight how insidious This is. But taking it to this next level and going to and I don’t know if you want to talk about this, because we didn’t talk about this beforehand. Electric vehicles like is that now just yet another kind of tsunami of, of EMFs coming our way in a big way. Because I can imagine like a Tesla has got to be not not to pick on Tesla. But Tesla and other electric vehicles have got it’s just got to be like a super Nair.
R Blank 24:23
Yeah, it is. And the thing that if any of your listeners actually take the time to go research this, they’ll realize it’s another example of a product type where it is virtually impossible to figure out what the actual EMF emissions are. So like Google it, you won’t find an answer, right? Because they’re not. So when it comes to a product like cell phones, the company and there’s lots of problems with the way cell phones are regulated. That which if you wanted we could talk about, but unless they have to measure them, and say how much they’re emitting, and it’s in the Manual, and it’s on the product website. But if you, for instance, have a smart meter put on your house, and you want to know how much EMF that’s emitting called the utility and you know, tell your boss, you’re not coming into work for the next five days, because you’ll just be passed around from operator to operator, they’ll think you’re crazy. And they won’t have any of the information. Even if they wanted to share that with you. They will not. They sorry, they don’t have it to share with you. And so there’s a whole segment of, of products that are sources of EMF, but we have no idea how much and regulators have no idea how much now to answer your specific question. Yeah, so electric cars are a bigger source of EMF than traditional combustion engines. At the same time, there’s plenty of modern cars with traditional engines that have a ton of computers and wireless connectivity integrated in them. So those are significant as well. And actually, if you’re just thinking about the electric engine components, as as a source of EMF hybrid cars are actually a bigger source of EMF, yes, when you Yeah, because when you anytime you have an inverter, you are going to be creating high levels of EMF. So when you change one kind of power to another, you are you are going to create high levels of EMF. This is the same reason why solar power systems are often significant sources of EMF because of the presence of these power inverter, like so. Yeah. So I and this is where it gets a little difficult because I’m a big believer in, for instance, solar energy, or any of these alternative, and it’s not just solar, it’s wind and water. They all require the use of these inverters that introduce these dirty electrical fields. I’m a big supporter of those. And at the same time, I’m very wary of how much EMF they are creating for people. And I wish that there were some type of drive to pressure manufacturers, engineers and designers to compel them to create safer products, because again, you’re not going to get rid of EMF from our environment. But there are lots and lots of things that these companies could be doing to make it easier for us to have less of this exposure. And it’s just not being done.
Nat Niddam 27:27
Yeah. No, that’s. That’s, that’s daunting. So let’s Well, I mean, you know, I think it’s just that we’re talking about such big industries here. And we’re ultimately talking about how are government’s which ultimately, should be the governing body, as it were, that would stand between us and these industries. They’re not buying this, right, or they’ve been bought by the I mean, whatever it is, you choose to believe, whether you believe that they’ve been paid off by the industry, I don’t even believe that I just don’t think that they think that this is an issue, possibly, because industry is such a big part of government. But, you know, we can leave that little cesspool off to the side somewhere. But the net result is that the regulatory bodies that you would hope would be there in place to watch these things, monitor these things, measure these things, and then possibly in you know, give industry the impetus to manage them differently. Don’t have their eye on the ball. So okay, well, the good news is people don’t don’t leave, do you don’t have to go crawl into a cave somewhere, because there’s probably a match there to just stay with us there are there will be solutions, at least some solutions down the pipe free ones, not free ones, we’re going to talk about lots of different things you could do. But before we do that, can you talk a little bit about how these EMFs are affecting the human body or how we think that they’re affecting the human body? And what how can people tell if maybe they’re being affected?
R Blank 29:06
Okay, so that’s a great question. And it’s one without a quick and easy answer, but I’ll do my best to
Nat Niddam 29:14
broadcast. Yes, this is a podcast and not a Twitter.
R Blank 29:18
Yeah. So, what the science that the picture that science has been drawing for us over the past several decades, is that there there are effects of EMF exposure in essentially every system that is measured. So what I mean by that is EMF exposure impacts almost every biological system in your body. So obviously, you know, people are concerned about brain tumors that and you know, because that is a that’s one that that’s, it’s just that that type of issue is so severe, that it scares a lot of people. And so it’s natural for it to work. attracts a lot of attention. And it is a concerning health effect. But brain tumors are just one. There are multiple types of tumors throughout the body that so for instance, colorectal cancer, thyroid cancer. lymphoma, multiple types of tumors and cancers have been linked to EMF exposure and for different different types of EMF exposure. But of course, it goes beyond I said, it’s every biological system. So we see it in turn, there’s science in terms of melatonin suppression. So that in turn impacts your sleep cycle, which is it’s insidious, because when you are getting worse sleep, your body has a less of an opportunity to repair itself. We see it in anxiety and depression, there are science showing that EMF exposures linked is linked to higher incidence of anxiety and depression, we see there’s very strong science and this is sort of linked to the tumors in the cancer. But there’s very strong science showing that EMF exposure can lead to the destruction of DNA, right, so DNA has two strands. So EMF exposure, like from a cell phone, leads to higher incidence of single and double strand breaks. So when a single strand breaks, the, the cell can make a copy of the other strand. But when it makes that copy, mutations can occur. Sure, and so mistakes can happen. That’s what we call a mutation that then leads to biological damage over time, a double strand break means both strands have been destroyed, the cell cannot does not have sufficient information in order to repair the genetic information. And so the cell enters apoptosis. Another word for killing itself. Right? We see issues in terms of cognitive impairment and memory, we see issues it with tinnitus. So there’s this this science actually goes back to the 60s at the time, it was called the fray effect. But EMF exposure can lead to tinnitus, or these sounds happening in your ear that that can drive some people kind of nuts, because they’re there and you’re hearing something all the time, it’s not a pleasant sound. We see it and before we get into the sensitivity levels, we see it not just in humans, right, so I mentioned it impacts every biological system that’s been measured. You know, we see impacts in trees, where you they’ve done studies, where in forests near big transmission towers, and you see the impacted growth in the trees that are nearby. You see it in seeds for plants, not just trees, with their science showing that being placed in your Wi Fi router.
Prevents watercress seeds from from sprouting and becoming full grown plants. You see it in bees, and any living thing that uses Magneto ception, that is the Earth’s magnetic field to navigate. So bees, and birds and whales and turtles, their navigational systems are completely thrown off. And bats and with bees, that is one of the suspected potential causes for Colony Collapse Disorder there. So you see, and that was just kind of a I mean, there’s one I’ll just start in before concluding this point because it tends to get the attention of a lot of men, right. We, for long have known that EMF exposure can contribute to infertility and sub fertility. But more recently, there is science showing that it can contribute to erectile dysfunction. And you really see this in basically every system that is measured now. Why? You know, science doesn’t have a perfect answer for that yet. One thing I will say is that all living things are based around DNA. And what I’ve said is that there is very strong science showing, I mean, repeat it’s high quality peer reviewed, has been replicated multiple times by independent researchers, showing that the type of radiation that you get from a cell phone can damage and irreparably destroy DNA. If that’s in every cell in every living thing, then you can see how every system can be impacted when it comes to Magneto ception using the Earth’s magnetic field to to navigate. EMF is a that’s a form of EMF so the human made EMF interferes with those signals. It makes perfect sense. There is science more recent by Dr. Martin Paul showing that EMF leads to an alteration. And I always mispronounce this so I apologize but voltage gated calcium channels. Yeah. And that then leads to more calcium entering the cells, which leads to, through through a chain of events to increased oxidative stress, which has, I’m sure you’re very familiar with this right has many negative health impacts. So that you you are seeing these, you know, I know how it can sound to someone who’s new to this, which is, there’s this thing that’s all around you, and it can harm every biological system, you know, and oh, my god,
Nat Niddam 35:29
we’re done. Yeah, we’re done. But
R Blank 35:33
Well, fortunately, we’re not done. But, but I do understand how that can sound to some but like, when, when you’re talking about other pollutants, it tends to manifest in a few specific different ways. You know, for instance, lead in water leads to lead poisoning, it doesn’t need to, well, it could be a brain tumor, it could be erectile dysfunction, it could be birth defects in your children, it could all these different things. And I know that that it’s the first real pollutant like this, with this kind of documentation behind it, that that really manifests in so many different ways. But I assure your listeners that that is what the science is, is showing.
Nat Niddam 36:18
Okay, and so to look at that science, so part of that is in obviously, your dad’s book, The overcharge the science is overpowered. Sorry. And then, and then I think your website is an incredible repository of information as well. I mean, I was on there for a little while, I was like, wow, I need to set aside a few days. Thank you. Yeah, there’s a lot of really good information there. But, you know, to the skeptics out there, because, you know, we talk about how I mean, the bees, clearly there’s something going on, there’s also the nicotinic pesticides that are being used. I mean, these are talking about being under assault and bats as well. But this idea that these these electromagnetic, these EMFs could be messing up migratory birds, they’re still finding their way, though. So it’s not, it’s not critical yet, maybe. But I guess what you’re saying is it creates more noise, and just maybe they it just makes it harder for them to do what they need to do and, and get to where they’re going. But the the concept around the voltage gated channels and the increased oxidative stress, like I hear that, and, you know, we are essentially electrical beings. And anybody who doesn’t get that I, you know, think about the last TV show you watched, where do they have to re animate somebody who’s hard stop, they use electricity to do that. They don’t yeah, you know, they might use a drug, but really, they need the electrical charge to get that heart going. So the idea that electricity or any kind of electricity around us, we’re going to be impervious to I think, is probably somewhat of a flawed concept. And, you know, I think what’s also an interesting point that you made is that we evolved, we and all other living creatures evolved on Earth, adapted to a certain degree of magnetic fields. And there are people who believe that we will eventually adapt to these magnetic fields as well. But the point I think needs to be made, is the speed and scale at which we’ve accelerated our exposure is beyond anything that our bodies can really adapt to in the short term, I mean, maybe generations down the
R Blank 38:41
road. Exactly right. And even if, you know, you and I had somehow miraculously evolved to cope with the level of EMF that was in our environment, when you and I were born, the level of EMF in our environment today is actually orders of magnitude greater. And the same is true at the current rate. The same is true for the children being born today. They’re they’re being exposed at birth to levels much, much higher than we were exposed to at birth. And by the time they are our age, the levels will be much, much higher. So no, that I mean, yes, let me Yes, you are correct that no, we are not capable of evolving at that pace. Where where the, the levels are just increasing exponentially every year or a couple of years. And we haven’t even caught up to where things were. That’s not the speed at which evolution occurs.
Nat Niddam 39:39
Yeah, no, and that’s, yeah, that’s quite something. So we use there was an I had a note here to for us to talk about EMF and immunity. And, again, if it’s affecting every system in our body, then clearly the immune system may be taking a hit here and just don’t curiosity and you know, intuitively, I feel like maybe, uh, not to get too far down the COVID-19 path, because we don’t want to go too far down that rabbit hole. But would you based on what you’ve seen? And I don’t even know if you looked at it, would you? Do you think that there might be a different pattern of how devastating this virus has been, depending on major cities versus more rural areas? Does anybody looked at that? Do you know?
R Blank 40:28
Yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s definitely outside of my area of expertise. I haven’t I haven’t seen any compelling data. No,
Nat Niddam 40:35
I don’t know that anybody’s done that work. I think it would be such an interesting exercise to take a look and see. And maybe there isn’t a difference. I’m not saying that there is. But it would be such an interesting exercise to see I have have different areas. And the truth is, you can do your point, you can’t really get away from them completely anymore. I was camping, I was camping with my husband and my son a couple of summers ago, in one of the biggest national parks in Algonquin Park in Ontario. And you’re not supposed to have reception in Algonquin Park. And you know what the bad news is, you can get reception, you pretty much get reception. There very, very few places, you can’t get reception for yourself in anymore, which tells us now is the density of EMF in a place like that. Less than it would be some in in my house in a major urban city. Absolutely. Yes. Plus, there may be things of present for me available for me by my exposure to nature that might help to mitigate those effects. But before we get into that, because I think that I want to get into the mitigation discussion very badly, because I don’t want people to leave this podcast and just go hide under the bed praying that it’s not metal. Like it exacerbating the situation even more. What are the so other than tumors? Which, you know, so not everybody gets a tumor? It seems to me and I don’t know if it’s because we talk about the more or another thing, but it seems to me that when I was coming up through university and studying physiology, the word then was that brain tumors were extremely, extremely rare. Fast forward a few decades, because it’s been a while since I was in university. It seems to me there’s a whole lot more brain tumors around than there used to be like, it’s, it’s, it’s i So is it that we just hear about it more? Or I don’t know if you know this, or are there actually more incidences because it makes sense to me that somebody I’ve actually seen women with their phone. And this is, you know, women who are sometimes cleaning, cleaning hotel rooms or cleaning houses, I’ve literally seen people with their phone stuck inside a hat and like kind of stuck to their head, or they’ll keep it in their bra. Which I think is just, to me, it’s just like, did you put that on airplane mode? I’m pretty sure you don’t want that. Um, is there any? Is there anything out there that speaks to that at
R Blank 43:13
all. So I don’t have that data handy. My recollection is that there is starting to be a set of data showing that incidence of certain types of brain tumors is actually starting to increase. The thing to remember is, and as you well know, but for the thing for your listeners to remember is that the period of time in which it takes to form a tumor is significant. And so you know, it’s now just, I mean, I don’t know how long it’s been since your listeners have been using a cell phone, but it’s probably around or certain not greater than about 20 years, which is really when you start to see the tumors form. And for a lot of people, they wouldn’t have been using it even those 20 years. And for those people, when even if they were using it 20 years ago, you know, maybe at the time they were you but they didn’t have Wi Fi at home until a few years later. And they didn’t have their Bluetooth headset until 2010 or 2012, or whatever it was. And so, it is my belief that you are going to start seeing a lot of this on the tumor side because I mean, like I say, you know, infertility that you can see, you can see that and you can measure it effectively in a day.
Nat Niddam 44:35
The impedance tanking. We know we know it’s tanking,
R Blank 44:39
so that if you but in terms of this, an individual patient, right, who starts carrying their phone in their pocket, they can see declined levels of sperm motility and viability within 24 hours. And if they move the phone, they can start seeing regeneration within 24 hours. So what I’m trying to say, as you know, for certain health effects, you can see and feel the impact very, very rapidly. For something like tumors, that is going to take in many, many cases, it’s going to take decades to form. And we’re just now hitting that threshold in time where this technology was becoming widespread about two decades ago,
Nat Niddam 45:21
right. And I remember reading not that long ago, particularly for kids, that the research that the little bit of research that was done on the safety of holding a cell phone to your head was done on adults, or assuming an adult skull. But with little kids, their skull is much thinner, the brain is much closer to you know, they’re just they’re much more vulnerable. And nobody, none of that none of those studies were done assuming a child like child like structure to their brain. And that’s
R Blank 45:53
one of the issues one of the issues with with, for instance, cell phone radiation regulations, because they’re all based on a 220 pound male, and and how much radiation. Man that’s that word, dummy, emulating a man that size will absorb. But when a that’s bigger than 95% of the world’s population be it’s much bigger than a child. So as you know, their skulls are thinner, the skull has a natural protective shield against EMF. So when the skull is thinner, more of the radiation gets through, their brains are smaller. So if the radiation penetrates an inch into our brain that’ll that’ll that’ll penetrate you know, that’ll impact a certain amount of our brain. Yeah, if it penetrates that same inch into a child, it’s a much bigger percentage of their brain. Right? So those are just two examples. But yes, the regulations do not account for children. It’s just mathematically they just don’t. It’s not it’s not about an ad, a health advocate like me saying, it’s not safe for children, it’s that the regulations literally don’t account for children.
Nat Niddam 47:03
That’s crazy. So is there anything that cellphone companies could be doing? Like, is there anything? Is there anything that industry could do to make it somehow better? Like I’ve heard, I’ve heard that there’s different frequencies that they could use that might be less harmful to I know that around 5g especially, there’s a lot of talk around the specific frequency that was chosen, that many people believe is particularly harmful to human physiology. And that may be an I don’t And again, I’m not an engineer, I don’t know, I’m a complete ignoramus at this stuff. So I’m putting it out there. Is it possible that a different frequency might have worked and could have been less harmful is mean, I can’t imagine they change it now. But is there anything that can be done still, even given how far down this road? We are that picture? So
R Blank 47:58
I would say that it is certainly possible that specific frequencies could be less damaging than others? I have not seen any science, demonstrating that. My intuition is that that wouldn’t be the case. Because really, what you see is that at every set of frequencies, there are these negative health effects. That’s why you’ve seen the health effects off of power lines, which which emit at one frequency. That’s why you’ve seen these health effects at 3g and 4g. That’s why you’ve seen these health effects from Wi Fi and Bluetooth, which are kind of a real close but different frequency from from 3g and 4g. That’s why you’ve seen different sets of health effects from FM radio and radar. Again, we’re so there hasn’t yet been an EMF emitting technology that has shown it just it doesn’t have health effects. Are these I should be clear these negative health effects. So when it comes to making this technology safer, yes, there are things that could be done. And my guess is there are some that would require a significant overhaul of infrastructure. But I believe it, though, there are plenty that could be done without that. So let me give you an example. There is a baby monitor. It is not available for sale in the United States, unfortunately. or Canada, for that matter. But there is a baby monitor, I believe it was called the baby safe or safer baby. It was made in China. And the thing with baby monitors is they are constantly transmitting EMF radiation, and they have to be close to your baby, right in order for them to work. So you’re putting this I mean, it’s important for the health and safety of the baby that for a monitor to exist, but at the same time you’re exposing babies who are the most vulnerable of all to EMF exposure, you’re exposing them to 24/7 radiation So what this company did is they made it transmit only when they heard the baby crying. And so when there was silence, it’s not just the baby crying whenever there was noise for him to detect. So when there’s silence in the room, the baby monitor was not transmitting. And so was not a source of EMF. As soon as it picked up sounds it started transmitting. And it then it yes, there is EMF, but it was obviously sending you something you wanted to know, that is an example of a design element that significantly reduces the baby’s exposure to EMF radiation, without significantly impacting the value of the product itself. Thanks, when it when it comes to things like cell phones, they emit in in F, they emit the same level of radiation in every single direction. Right. So why is it that they admit when if you hold it up to your head, which you should never do? But technically, that is what they’re designed for? If you hold it up to your head? Why is it sending as much radiation into your brain as it is in the other direction? Why it doesn’t have to, they could design it not to Okay, when it comes to something like the elliptical machine, I brought up at the start of this interview, why is there no way of disabling Bluetooth, there shouldn’t be a way of disabling Bluetooth. And then I could cut out that source. There are all sorts of ways that design can be integrated into these products without changing the nature of the technology without impacting negatively impacting the consumer value generated by that technology. And without requiring re engineering of the digital infrastructure that powers these. There are tons there are literally endless ways that this could be done. And the thing is, is there is no there is no regulatory pressure, incentivizing those changes. And so but the answer to your question is yes, basically, all technology could be made safer, in one way or another. But it is not happening,
Nat Niddam 52:08
folks. Just a quick second to thank our sponsor for this episode, Oxford healthspan, who make Primatene the only spermidine supplement that I personally use and recommend to my clients and family spermidine has earned a permanent spot on my longevity stack, it has been shown to positively effect six of the nine hallmarks of aging, including protection of DNA, as well as proper folding of proteins, that’s just two of the six in terms of visible results that people can expect to see after just one to three months. Many users report better sleep, better hair, as well as better skin and nails. I choose Primatene because it is the only spermidine supplement on the market that is free of any additives or excipients. While including a prebiotic to feed your own gut bacteria to make more of your own spermidine. To try Primatene for yourself, just go to primatene.com and use discount code bio net 15 to save 15% off your purchase. And now let’s get back to the episode. I think in addition to the lack of regulatory impetus, there’s lack of like the consumers could be driving this Yes, right. Once I think that enough people are educated enough people believe in this consumers can vote with I mean, they can we can have a massive impact on both regulation and the products that we that are available to us like that baby monitor. People start asking for baby monitors like this, they seek it out, they buy it, the other guys will eventually get with the program like they will realize there is a product niche available for them. And they will start to produce baby monitors that operate on the same premise or who knows something even better. It I think that as consumers we and we know that we wield a ton of power. The problem here is critical, critical mass and getting over the disbelief that how is it possible that something that is so insidious in our environment could possibly be so bad, our government wouldn’t allow this to happen? And I just think that it’s not that that I take the malice out of it, because I don’t I think it’s ignorance. And I think it’s you know, governments have a gajillion things they need to worry about. This is not going to rank for them unless we as the consumers, and you as the advocates become loud enough and large enough groups that they start to pay attention so fully. You know, I really believe that’s why I mean, that’s why I’ve thought this podcast would be such a great idea. I mean, it’s not the first podcast I’ve recorded on EMF and it won’t be the last because there’s not there’s multiple people going at this in many different ways. Like I had another guy who went who, who makes clothing that helps to shield the body from EMF. And that’s a new field and I’m sure it’s as good as it is. Right now it may be will be better down the road. But these are these tiny steps along with all of the products on your website that can help people to at least buy themselves some protection and peace of mind. So with that said, what are the some of the things that people can do? First of all, let’s start with the free stuff like what can people do for free and like, I keep giggling every time you talk about that elliptical, because I can only imagine as an engineer how frustrated you must have been trying to disable the Wi Fi, the Bluetooth on that thing and realizing it’s like me with my module. I mean, I like my my Wi Fi router. I mean, I expect to be foiled by electronics. I’ve no expectations that I’m going to be able to figure this stuff out on my own. But I was pretty frustrated. I can only imagine you given your background and what you know how you must have been sitting there and disbelief going come on. You cannot be serious that this now all
R Blank 55:57
they needed was a menu item. And yeah, they they didn’t consider design priority.
Nat Niddam 56:02
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Anyway, so let’s get to the free stuff. Okay, that won’t make people lose their minds completely and take all their electronics,
R Blank 56:11
the free stuff is the most important, right? Because I am someone and you indicated you already, you had another guy like me on selling, making EMF protection apparel. I am someone who makes EMF protection products. And even as well. So I hope that this has a little bit more important when I say this, the best EMF protection is the free stuff that you can do. Okay? No, no EMF protection products are 100% effective. And so the best way to reduce your exposure to EMF is to reduce your exposure in the first place. And those come down to the two key rules. One is minimize and two is maximize. Minimize means minimizing your use of EMF generating technologies. So what are examples of ways you can do that? Well, one is, like you said, turning off your Wi Fi at night, that is a huge one. Even though you may see 20 other networks on your computer when you turn it on, right, as I said at the top of the show, the every difference every bit of difference, your reduction that you can make makes a difference for you. And the one in your apartment is probably exposing you to more radiation than the ones further away. So turning off your Wi Fi router at night is an example of minimizing your use of technology of EMF emitting technology. Number two is maximize. And when I say maximize, I’m talking about maximizing distance. So when you maximize the distance again, as I said earlier in the show, every time the the power of EMF radiation diminishes exponentially with distance. So every time you double the distance between your body and the technology, when it’s in use, you’re cutting the power of that exposure by 75%. So that means again, going back to the example of your Wi Fi, put it as far away from where you and your family spend your time as possible. Another example of that is never to carry your phone in your pocket, or your bra, B or if you do to put it in airplane mode. But if you’re if it’s on, you never want to carry it in your pocket or your bra. And you never want to hold it up against your head. And the reason is, the cell phones are very, very powerful. I mean, they are designed to send signals, you know, miles if they have to. And when it’s right up against your body, you are getting a maximal possible dose out of that device. So when you create distance between your body and the technology, you are reducing your exposure to the radiation from that source. And so and by the way, I would just underscore not carrying your phone in your pocket or your bra and never holding it up and using it against your head. Those are those are the number one tip I would tell people, because when you are when you’re holding it right up against your head, it is actively transmitting, which means it is sending out a lot of signal consistently and it’s right next to your brain. And when it’s in your pocket. Again, you are getting a maximal dose from this thing, but it’s right up against your body and it’s for extended periods of time. So even the reason I’m highlighting all that is because even as we have all of these sources of EMF in our environment. For most people, it is my belief that cutting out those two behaviors will reduce their overall EMF exposure very significantly, because of what I did the factors that I just said about the phone, how powerful it is and using it right up against your body so not carrying your phone in your pocket, not carrying it in your bra and not using it up against your head?
Nat Niddam 1:00:02
Um, I have a question about that, though. So people will say, okay, great, I got these really cool wireless earbuds, my phone is never near my head, or I wear those earbuds that I plug into my phone. Or the one that actually this one drives me a bit nutty is the one that people wear around their neck that sits right on their thyroid at the thyroid gland. Which is transmitted, you know, they either have earbuds stuck into them. So what are your thoughts on that? Because my understanding is that the wireless earbuds will fry your brain, they’re inside your ear, and even the wired ones, and I’m, I’m, I believe you might have a solution to this. Even the wired earbuds that you plug into your phone that go into your ears are also it’s not as bad I don’t think I don’t think those are as bad as having the phone against your head, but still delivering EMFs to the brain is that? Sure.
R Blank 1:00:56
So let’s, those are two separate questions. So I’ll start the wireless headphones or earbuds which have been around by the way for a long time, but have have become very popular. Since Apple introduced the air pods. Yeah, those use, they rely on something called Bluetooth, which is the same frequency as Wi Fi. So it’s another form of this EMF, it is lower powered than a cell phone. Okay. But you balance that out with the fact that it’s, it’s right again, it’s right in your ear canal,
Nat Niddam 1:01:29
inside your your head. And the ear
R Blank 1:01:33
canal is not only very close to your brain, obviously. And by the way, your optic your optic nerve and auditory nerves, which are very sensitive to this type of radiation. But it’s right up against your head and apart where there’s no skull, because the ear canal, right, there’s a hole in the skull. So a it’s a source of EMF be it’s right up against some very sensitive bits that you probably don’t want to be exposing. And then see it is there. People wear these for extended periods of time. Yeah, they don’t just put it in for a call and then take it off, even back in the day before air pods. But people were using these Bluetooth headsets. I remember stand up comedians have whole sets about guys walking around with their Bluetooth headsets on and how stupid they looked. Yeah.
Nat Niddam 1:02:20
Yeah, like they like, like, aliens with the thing. Yeah,
R Blank 1:02:24
Robin Williams had a thing about, you know, homeless people being upset at the people in Bluetooth, because it made them look like they were talking to themselves. So they’d stolen the homeless people’s bet. I don’t do it justice. But the point is, they they The point is, is they wouldn’t just wear it when they’re on their call, they would wear it all the time for hours at a time. So you are getting very extended doses of this stuff. Do not use wireless headsets. In fact, I don’t, I don’t advocate actively against almost any technology. Instead, I focus on saying, you know, be mindful of how much you’re using it be mindful, aware of what it’s doing to you, at least be enter into these decisions, knowing the facts and then use it as little as possible and as safely as possible. But when it comes to wireless headsets, I am I strongly advocate against their use, there’s almost no reason that you need one of those as opposed to speakerphone or just regular headsets. Now to answer your other question. Regular headsets can be another source of EMF, right. So when I’m talking when we’re talking about regular headsets, talking about like something wired that you would plug into your phone, and then hold it up to your ears, those I before getting into the potential danger there, I want to emphasize to people that that is so much safer than holding a phone up to your head or using a wireless headset. So if all you have is a wired headset, use the wired headset it is so much safer than either of the other two options. That said because it is wire, it can conduct EMF. So what can happen is it will conduct EMF from the phone into your ear canal. This is much much lower level, then a Bluetooth headset for instance. But it can happen. And so that’s where anti radiation headsets come into play. So at si B we have two kinds. One is called air tubes, which people might have seen because we’re not the only company that makes air tubes. And what happens with air tubes is partway through so out of the phone, right the headset is a wire coming out of the phone, but then partway along, there’s these little speakers that that convert the audio signal from wire into air. So they can they’re conducted the rest of the way to your brain to your ear close to your brain through a hollow air tube. And because it’s a hollow air tube without wire, it is not conducting the EMF any longer. And so that is what an air tube is The other product that we have, which is more unique, we’re really the only store where you can find this, we call the hard headset anti radiation device. And what that is, is you plug, and, oh, I never remembered to put my products next to me before an interview. And then when we’re talking about him, I don’t have them handy. But this one, I do this. And so with this, right, and if you’re
Nat Niddam 1:05:25
if you’re listening to this on iTunes, guys, you’re gonna have to head over to YouTube to see what he’s talking about.
R Blank 1:05:30
So with this, right, you plug it into your phone, or any device, your laptop, your tablet, your Kindle, well, Kindles don’t have it, but your Nintendo Switch any any device with a USBC or a 3.5. Jack? Yeah. And then, and then I can’t unplug my headset right now. But you would plug the other, you would plug the other side into here. Now what that does is this, this box, this case right here contains a pack of dielectric gel that is laboratory proven to absorb that excess, or the stray EMF, the EMF that would be conducted along your headset. Yes, is filtered out by the heart and then converted into a tiny amount of heat which dissipates off with the product. It’s so little No kidding. And cool. And it has. So there’s two two things about that. One is regular air tubes, which I advocate using, and I use all the time. And they’re on that table over there. So I can’t reach them. But I haven’t I use them all the time to listen to podcasts or take phone calls. But regular air tubes, any any kind of air tube that you could find or buy, you’re going to notice that the sound quality is not as good as regular headset. And that is because when you’re converting to air, you’re losing the audio for
Nat Niddam 1:06:53
sure. I also found that they they come apart more easily. Like I’ve I’ve owned a number of air tubes. Yes. Which I love. But I invariably get caught on something and the tube comes out and then yeah, and then I’m sad because I don’t have them anymore. And I love that hard thing though. Yes. So this is the other thing. This allows
R Blank 1:07:12
you to use any of your favorite headsets. So you can you know, you could have a $300 Bose headphone headset and use this. And so not only are you getting the higher quality of the Bose headset, what you are also getting is because the heart is filtering out that that stray radiation, you’re actually improving the sound Yeah, because you’re filtering out the interference. And in fact, that’s what this product, this product was first developed as an audio quality product, it was developed specifically to make audio higher quality. That it was it did that by filtering out the EMF and so now we we mark it and sell it as EMF protection, but it actually makes the sound sound better.
Nat Niddam 1:08:00
Okay, I’m adding that to my shopping list. I’m doing my wired headset which I had to go to because I destroyed my last air tubes. And I haven’t had a chance to get a new pair is that when they’re static? I get electric shocks in my ears.
R Blank 1:08:18
Oh, that’s not good.
Nat Niddam 1:08:20
That’s crazy. Right? So I noticed that the other day and I was like okay, really? This can’t be good. And here we are talking about the new solution. I love it. Thank you. Yeah, that’s that’s really innovative. Okay, cool. So let’s keep going. So number one, reduce your exposure by your behavior so you can’t reduce your exposure to everything but there are things with that are within your control for me I also talked to people and you know we actually got a landline put back into our house because we turn our our cell phones off at night like this has been law in my house for years and years and years. Nobody sleeps and you know under pain of losing their cell phone when they were small but now they’re big so they don’t listen to me anymore but you don’t keep your cell phone on next year head at night ever wrecked. But you know, that makes us unreachable, which is which is no but you know when you have family that lives away and the whole nine yards it’s not like they can send a courier carrier pigeon with a with a message in the middle of the night if something’s needed. And so we brought a landline back into our house just for that reason. It only lives in our bedroom. It’s the old kind with the with the air piece that is wired to the phone. It’s not a wireless phone. And it’s like the emergency phone that that people can use because turning off that Wi Fi at night. Turning off your phone at night even if you’ve turned off your Wi Fi is another big piece. Yes of the equation.
R Blank 1:09:57
Yeah so sleeping with your phone in Another room, you’re putting turning it off or putting it into airplane mode. When you if it is closer to you, yeah, those are big. But that is another big way to cut your exposure,
Nat Niddam 1:10:11
right. And then another thing I was just staying in an Airbnb, and I don’t think they did this on purpose, but interestingly enough, so they put a TV in the bedroom, which number one is the starting point I would, I would encourage people to forego the TV in the bedroom if they can at all do that. And you have people who are attached those bloody TVs in their bedroom as they are to their children, I just don’t get it. But whatever. That’s if the TV has to be there. And anyway, so first night in the Airbnb, and in addition to the intoxicating smell of tide and bounce coming off the sheets, which are things that I don’t use anymore, and I’m not picking on Titan bounce, just any heavily fragranced product, like when you’re used to not using that stuff anymore, and becomes really overwhelming. There was this blue light shining from the TV all night long. And it even though I had my eye mask with me the whole nine yards. Even just knowing I was there, it was making me not to and you could say a command that like you got to take a pill. To me, it was like why would you want something in your room that’s emitting that kind of light. Plus, it was a smart TV. So there’s a reasonable chance it was pushing out whatever else he was pushing out, what these guys did is they actually had a switch on the wall, which I found out by accident, when you turn the switch off, it cut the power to the TV circuit, and had cut the power to a couple of the outlets, which is a problem because your cell phone. But it didn’t cut power to the overhead fan. So anyway, to say that there are people who will go to further degrees of of engagement here. And they will have switches that turn the power off in their bedrooms at night. Is that talk about as well?
R Blank 1:11:53
Yes, it’s something we talk about. We don’t, we don’t make a product like that. But yes, we definitely talk about it. There because there are certain things. So for instance, you don’t sleep with your phone, you keep a TV out of your room, there are certain things you can do just pretty easily. But there are some people who have high levels of, of EMF emissions coming from their walls, because of the way in which the electrical circuitry in their house is wired, or because of other factors in their neighborhood. Because EMF can be this, these dirty electrical fields can transmit over the grid from one home to another. Right. So there are some people who have very high levels of EMF coming from their walls. And it’s not something like Oh, let me just take my wiring out and throw it into the kitchen while I go to sleep. So the only real way to deal with that is by dis depowering the entire bedroom. And so that’s where something like kill switches come into play, before people invest in a kill switch, an easy way to test that is to go to your circuit breaker at night, before you go to bed and power down the circuits that are powering your bedroom and see what kind of impact that might have on your sleep quality or on your mood when you wake up. Now, that’s a great test, you don’t want to do it over and over again, because circuit breakers aren’t designed to be turned on and off every day. So it’s a good test. And then if you find that it works, than investing in a kill switch, which you make sure is installed correctly by you know, a proper electrician. Yeah, then you can do you can go to that step and it is a great step depowering. The entire room is a fantastic move. And we I mean, a lot of our customers do go to those sorts of steps.
Nat Niddam 1:13:41
Right? And that actually brings me to well, so two other things. One is how people feel within without how can they tell that the EMFs are affecting them? Because I think we’ve I don’t know if we really talked about there are people who would say they are extremely sensitive to EMFs. And Megan, and these people like I, my heart goes out to them because these are people who really suffer on a day to day basis. So what is their experience? And how do you know if you’re one of those people because you might be someone who just thinks, you know, like either you’re being told you’re a hypochondriac or there’s just always something wrong with you. And this just isn’t an avenue that you’ve explored. And so how people go about that.
R Blank 1:14:26
So there’s so the condition you’re talking about is often called electro hypersensitivity syndrome or EHS, it goes by other names as well like electromagnetic illness, sometimes Wi Fi allergies, and these are people who have increased sensitivity to emf in their environment in the same way that someone with a peanut allergy has increased sensitive sensitivity to peanuts. These people have increased sensitivity to EMF levels of EMF in their environment. So if you and I walk into a room and we don’t feel Anything, someone with EHS may walk into that same room and start feeling these symptoms, there are a wide range of symptoms ranging from just discomfort, confusion, all the way up to rashes, audio hallucinations, and actually, in some cases, severe pain. And so it is a wide range of symptoms that manifest to my knowledge, if you have multiple chemical sensitivity, or you have heavy metal toxicity, the odds that you are EHS are increased, and vice versa. Now, again, what you know, some people ask, well, if some people have this, why don’t why don’t why doesn’t everybody have it? And the answer is the same as like most some people have peanut allergies, why doesn’t everybody have been on? It is my belief that more and more and more people will start to realize they have VHS, because the levels in our environment are just increasing all of the time. So more and more people will find themselves at that threshold, that trigger threshold of feeling these impacts is further my belief that more people have VHS, then realize it, because a lot of these symptoms are ones that maybe you know, they’re annoying, but you put at the back of your head, like I’ve really high anxiety, or I am not getting any sleep, or all of these types of symptoms that are impacting your quality of life. But again, you know, they’re not disabling you from pursuing your life. Or even maybe if they are, it never even occurred to you, that EMF could be a triggering factor. And instead, you’re like, maybe I should change my laundry detergent, or maybe I need to change my diet or maybe what whatever X Y and Z cause could be. So it is my belief that more people have this condition that it then no it and it is further my belief that the number of people who will who are experiencing it will continue to grow every year because the levels are growing every year. Yeah. So how how does someone know if they are exposed? If they are suffering from EHS? That is a fantastic question. It is one I get often through my website. And so what I do is I point people to what are lists of certain established symptoms, many of which I just told you about, then I say, you know, certainly I am not a doctor, be even if i were i couldn’t diagnose you over email. Just because you have some of these symptoms does not mean that you’re EHS so the best way to go about a next step is to try if you can afford to, to try to go to a low EMF environment for let’s say, at least a period of three days. So camping or a bed and breakfast out in the woods or you know, some type of low, you know, a low EMF environment, and you go and you see if the symptoms start to abate. If they do then that is certainly a sign that your your toxicity could be to EMF. And so once if someone wants to pursue treatment for that, there are actually a few institutions. I don’t remember all of them offhand. But I want to always stick to my head. It’s the Women’s College in Toronto has a diagnosis and treatment regimen for EHS. There’s multiple other institutions around North America and the world recognize and offer treatment for EHS. There are other types of I work with building biologists who help customers their customers
deal with and can heal from EHS. And so there are things that you can do once you know that that is the case. Another thing I recommend that people do, by the way, when they’re coming to me, asking is this EHS is AI strong and I strongly advocate that they purchase a decent EMF meter. This is something I recommend for a lot of people, right? who are interested in minimizing their EMF exposure is get a good meter, because unless you have a good meter, and when I say good, I’m talking about good consumer grade not like 10s of 1000s laboratory grade, you know you for like 160 bucks, quality, excellent, you get a decent quality meter, and you learn how to use it. And then you start taking measurements. And you can see am I feeling worse when the levels are higher, or I am feeling worse? Let me see if the levels are higher, or if there’s been a change in my environment. Sometimes, you know, in the same living room, you could have significant differences in levels of EMF, you know, sitting on that chair versus that chair because it just happens to be that out of that wall. There’s a huge magnetic field coming that you never would have known about. So you can move your chair or move where you’re sitting in that room without making huge lifestyle changes and you’ve made a big difference in your EMF exposure and you actually it’s big enough that you start to feel the outcome, the result of that. So I strongly advocate that people purchase meters. And I strongly advocate that if they really think that they might have EHS to try to go to a low EMF environment for a period of at least three days, and see if the effects start to mitigate.
Nat Niddam 1:20:19
Yeah, well, that’s a great suggestion. You know, quite by accident, I started off saying I’ve never considered myself someone who has any response TMS and last fall, and I’ve been camping a few times. And of course, like, so many biohackers I, you know, I wear a bio strap, I wear my aura ring. And definitely my sleep metrics seem to be great when I’m camping. But last fall, I was asked to speak at a at an event that was at a campsite. Literally, we were in tents. And I’ve told the story a couple times that the first night was this wicked wind and rainstorm. And so we were not comfortable. It was not the best sleep I’ve ever had. But I wake up in the morning, and my recovery scores were off the charts. Oh, right. The next night, it was for reason, like we literally went to sleep, wearing all the clothes that we had in the sleeping bag with as many things as you could think to pile on. Because we were not in a place where we expect it to be cold. And again, the next morning, my my recovery scores were off the charts and good thinking about it. This was a place where there was no reception. You could not get a cell phone reception in this place for love or money. There was no reception, there were very, we were in the middle of like an abandoned field. Well, not an abandoned field. But we’re in the middle of a field, I get it in the middle of nature. And all of a sudden, I was like, holy jump in your body does recognize the difference in environment, I still don’t consider myself particularly sensitive. But even someone who is not sensitive, if you can, and and I will say again, it is harder and harder to find places like this where you can’t actually get reception, but they’re out there. It is quite something to see that your how your physiology responds to that difference in environment.
R Blank 1:22:16
Yeah, I don’t consider myself particularly EMF sensitive. But in the past few years, I learned, you know, I grew up right outside of New York City. I lived in New York City in Manhattan for seven years. You know, I felt okay, at least I thought I did. Now when I go to Manhattan, I feel wired nonstop. And I feel like I can’t shut off. And I attribute that to EMF. I mean, there’s all sorts of causes, it could be. But again, I grew up around Manhattan, I lived in Manhattan for seven years when I was younger. Now at my age, I go back. So it’s not like the noise is surprising to me. And I’m you know, but the levels of EMF in New York City right now are way higher than when I grew up in when I lived in Manhattan. And so that is really the only big difference. And again, yeah, the way it manifests to me is it’s just this, it’s like I’m being wired 24/7 that I feel that I feel. I mean, electrified in that sense, is a metaphor, but that’s how it makes me feel it makes me feel electrified. And that I cannot shut down at night. I mean, I still get sleep, but it doesn’t feel like sleep. And so that is how I and I only feel that in big cities. Now. But other than and I think again, I think a lot of people have that. They just don’t know that it should be attributed to their EMF exposure.
Nat Niddam 1:23:44
Yeah. And what I was gonna say is, you know, even even in the fields that I work in, people normalize, right? We normalize feeling bloated, we normalize a certain degree of indigestion we normalize a certain degree of aches and pains, or, you know, we’ve been told, Oh, well, you’re getting older, you need to expect that your knees are gonna get creaky and you might be sore, you might have aches and pains. So we tend to just assimilate that we normalize it. And that’s just our way of being. And it’s not unless that’s why I love your suggestion that people remove themselves from it, because it’s not unless you’ve taken away those drivers and you experience what it do you feel any different in a different environment, that you will really be able to understand how much it might be affecting you. So we’re getting we’re, we’re going along here. So I just I want I mean, we could clearly keep talking for a really long time. If I bring up dirty electrical fields that you talked about dirty electricity in the house. Is that going to send us down another 20 minute rabbit hole? Do we have to record a separate podcast for that? It could
R Blank 1:24:45
Yeah, I would love to come on a separate podcast for that if you’re interested. I’ll just be I’ll give you the short short answer. Okay. Yes, there is. There there is a much bigger one. So electricity click 30 Electric He gets his name in contrast to clean electricity. So if you look at a at the sine wave of electric of what electricity should like, it should be clean, it should look like a clean sine wave. So if you put one of those meters in the wall, you plug it in, you measure what the electricity looks like, it should be clean, that is it should be a smooth line. And what dirty electricity the way it gets its name is because that line isn’t so clean, it gets all these peaks and jumps in it and starts looking like someone who’s having a heart attack, instead of like a nice clean sine wave. That’s what it looks like. And that’s how it gets its name. So where does this come from? It comes from all of it, there’s a few different sources, but really, motors, anything that’s motorized, that’s plugged into the grid. Remember, the whole grid basically is connected to the whole grid. So something that happens in your neighbor’s house, or if it’s happening in a lot of houses, you know, three towns over, but they’re on the same local grid, right? If something is like, this is half, so you’re turning on and off, you know, hundreds or 1000s of motors, like a blender, or a dishwasher, or all of these different motors on this power grid. Each time these these are being turned on, they’re running and they’re being turned off, it’s introducing these these transient spikes into the power grid that makes the dirty like that makes the electricity look dirty. That’s where dirty electricity comes from. That’s
Nat Niddam 1:26:34
and wouldn’t all electricity be dirty? It is to
R Blank 1:26:37
one degree or another. But the answer is no. I mean, if you’re just generating clean, clean is such a misnomer. And that’s because clean energy means something else. But smooth, let’s call it smooth energy. No, it is entirely possible to have smooth energy. It depends on like I say a lot of variables and it is possible to filter dirty electricity not easy, but it is possible to filter dirty electricity. And dirty electricity has been linked to numerous negative health outcomes as well there. In fact, there’s a rather than going through all of them, I will point people in this case to a specific book, where dirty electricity got its name. The book is called Dirty electricity. It is by Dr. Sam Milam and it is it’s, it’s decades old at this point, but it is a fantastic work that goes into that. And the answer it is possible to protect yourself against dirty electricity. It is not like all other forms of EMF that is you don’t use shielding, like you like with the phone pouch that I sell, or the laptop pad or the bed canopy. Those are all forms of shielding. You don’t use that against dirty electricity use filtering to get it out of your wiring. And if this this episode is airing in March, they actually have Yeah, they have a new product available. It is called the NCB or nuisance current blocker. And what what it allows you to do is to ground your ground. And it’s one of the benefits that allows one one of the features of this NCB product is it allows you to plug your grounding product, right. So some people have grounding mats, or grounding yoga mats or things like that. It allows you to ground into an outlet without, but while still protecting yourself from dirty electricity coming from the outlet to your grounding device. So we now have a new product specifically on that topic, which again, if you want to get into to further depth on that, I would love to come back. But there is a lot that it is not as easy to protect against dirty electricity, as it is other forms of EMF. But it is possible and there are things that you can do. Okay, great. Thank you for that. That’s Oh, and by the way, if you do install the kill switch in your bedroom, like you mentioned earlier, that will kill the dirty electricity.
Nat Niddam 1:29:02
And sure, because it’s going to shut everything down. Yeah. So we talked about the free stuff, the removal, removal of yourself removal of things that omit EMFs. So you mentioned a couple of products. Now let’s Why don’t we talk about a couple of your Why don’t you just tell people about a couple of the products that you have in your store that they may want to look for. And then the last thing was you referred to building biologists so these are people these are people who will come into your home and assess the home is that am I correct about that in terms of EMFs and dirty electricity and problem areas and maybe help you to develop strategies to mitigate some of this issue. Right? So yes, is there something on your website that points people to those people or how do you find a building biologist?
R Blank 1:29:44
Oh, so the the building biology so when I talk about building biologists I’m talking about people who are certified by the building Biology Institute, okay. And so you go to the building Biology Institute website building biology institute.org. Okay, and you can go there and find Next, there’s a button at the top saying find an expert. Anyone that they point you to as an expert will be certified by them. And they can you can search for what’s in your state. Now to answer the other part of that question, we do have a building biologist who works for si B. And you can book time with her for remote consultations through our website. So you go to shield your body calm, and you click on consulting and the nav, and then you can book a time with her. Her name is Cathy cook. She’s a certified building biologist, a certified electromagnetic radiation specialist, and a certified holistic nutritionist. And so she works with our customers to help answer the kinds of questions that can be addressed remotely over zoom. And then people can actually get the recording of their session as well, for future reference.
Nat Niddam 1:30:46
Amazing, I love that, okay, and then the gizmos and gadgets.
R Blank 1:30:51
So just as a starting point, I want to click because if your listeners go out online, and type in EMF protection, right, they’re gonna see a lot of different stuff. Well, yeah, and not all of it is based in science. And so I want to underscore that all of my products are based in science. That means most of them are based on EMF shielding, the vast majority are based on the mesh shielding, which is not only scientifically demonstrable, but we actually have laboratory tests to demonstrate the efficacy of all of our products. So if you’re going out online, people always ask me, why don’t you sell a little sticker that I can put on my phone and and make it safe? And the answer is, because that technology doesn’t actually exist right? There you so the products, all of the type of EMF protection I’m talking about are shielding products. They’re based in real science with laboratory data to support the product claims. So I mentioned one is a phone pouch, this is still our number one selling product, it makes it safer to carry your phone, I mentioned not carrying your phone in your pocket or putting it into airplane mode, if you do, right is very important for people. But some people either can’t or are not willing to do that. So what we have is a phone pouch that makes it safer to carry your phone, you put your phone in the pouch, and then you put the pouch on your belt or in your pocket. The rear of the pouch is lined with the shielding material the front is not so that deflects radiation away from your body while still allowing your phone to work right. Unlike your Faraday pouch that you put your key in which was fully shielded. Yeah, this is intentionally designed to bounce the radiation away from your body while still allowing your phone to work. Okay, we already mentioned the air tubes and the hard. We do have a few apparel products. We have a neck gaiter or neck tube, which I don’t know if your all your listeners know but it’s it’s kind of like a just a cylindrical scarf that you can wear as a scarf, you can wear it as a hat, you can wear it as bandana. It’s 90 90% Silver 10% spandex. It works for a lot of different uses to protect, provide protection for your head and neck and thyroid. We also have bandana. So we have apparel products. And then the final one that I would highlight is our bed canopies. We have actually three bed canopies. And those, I decided to create those and add them to our catalog. Because there are increasingly sources in our environment, but outside of our immediate control, so nearby cell towers, your neighbor’s Wi Fi networks that you talked about all these things that you you can’t just power down because they’re not yours to power down. If you’re impacting you while you sleep. And actually shielding your whole bedroom is very expensive and very complicated and difficult. So we created the canopy. So you can just install the canopy around your bed and then you get full 360 by 360 protection from all of these different sources all night long. So you get it protects you while you sleep, which is a big chunk of your life but be a big chunk of your life where your body is supposed to be healing and rejuvenating. Yeah, so that’s why we have the canopy. So though we have right now we have a couple dozen products, we have more on the way but those are some that I would just highlight for people and again underscore that my products are based on real science and all of them are laboratory tested to do what I say they do.
Nat Niddam 1:34:23
Yeah, no amazing and you know, with the canopy it’s an easy test right? If you sit under that canopy and your cell phone works then
R Blank 1:34:30
that’s Yeah. Interesting. So that isn’t a not a good test. That’s not Well, I just know it can be a useful test but it’s not a perfect test. And I have a I can explain to people I can show them videos to explain why. But the thing is, is as you This is this and this is also why we don’t make a product that fully shields your phone because as your your phone experiences interference It will boost It’s the power of its output to compensate for that interference. So as the canopy cuts the phone off from the signal, the phone will emit more and more and more power until the little bit of it that gets through actually connects with a signal on the outside.
Nat Niddam 1:35:18
So do not use your phone under. Yeah, never.
R Blank 1:35:23
Yeah, never use any wireless device with inside a canopy. But yeah, no. So that is how phones work. And I know it’s a little unintuitive. But that’s why using a meter is really the only way to know what your exposure is. And it’s the only way to really know how much your EMF protection product is working for you.
Nat Niddam 1:35:42
Okay, love it. Well, thank you. This has been amazing. This is we’ve been going at it for a while. So assuming everybody’s still with us. Thank you for staying with us. And thank you are for oh, I never asked you about your name. Why do you have an initial as a first name?
R Blank 1:36:00
The short answer is my father really liked crossword puzzles.
Nat Niddam 1:36:04
Okay. Okay, I’ll leave it at that. We’ll leave it to the second episode. Thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate it. Why don’t you? Uh, you’ve said it a few times. But why don’t you tell people again, how they can find you where they can find your website. And I think you’ve also we’ve got a discount code for a discount code for people, which is longevity, which is my kind of jam. That will be I don’t know if it’s active yet, but it will be active by the time this episode is live, that people can use to save a little bit of money when they’re buying products on your site, because you generously offered to give them a discount. So yeah.
R Blank 1:36:45
So yeah, my website is shield your body calm that shield, your body, all one word.com. And there, you can find all of our products. But as you indicated earlier, we also have a ton of free educational information. We have hundreds of articles, we have educational videos, we have ebooks that people can download, all for free to help educate people on the issues of EMF and health. We’re also shield your body on all the major social platforms. Again, particularly I’d point people to YouTube, because we have some really great content up there. As you said, the discount code longevity is good for 15% off your order, from SI B so. And then finally, I would also say to people, if they’re interested to join me on the healthier tech podcast, where we tackle all sorts of issues related to helping people build a healthier relationship with modern technology. Love it. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for this. This has been great. Thank you, Matt. I really appreciate the opportunity. Thank you.
Nat Niddam 1:37:52
My pleasure. Thanks so much for joining me on this episode of The biohacking superhuman performance podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please remember to leave us a five star review on iTunes, because that’s what helps us to be heard and to be seen. If you’d like to connect with me directly, or if you’d like to leave any comments or if you have any questions about this episode, please reach out to me directly through my website, Matt mitem.com. And of course, if you’re not already a member of the biohacking superhuman performance community on Facebook, that’s where you’ll find me every day. It’s a short application, just answered a couple of questions and you’re in and interfacing with other amazing biohackers thanks again, and we’ll look forward to seeing you on the next episode.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
