Marla Miller: 0:35

Hello everyone, welcome to the show. My guest today is R Blank. R is the CEO of Shield your Body, whose mission is to make technology safer. R creates products that make it easy and affordable for people to reduce their exposure to wireless radiation from devices like cell phones and laptops. This follows a career in software development for blue chip firms including Apple, nbc, disney, microsoft, the NFL, ikea and Mattel. With hundreds of thousands of customers in over 30 countries and having been interviewed on platforms ranging from ABC to Electric Sense, r is an internationally followed expert on issues of EMF health and safety. He was inspired to create Shield your Body when he co-authored the bestselling book called Overpowered, with his father, dr Martin Blank, one of the world's leading EMF scientists. R has degrees from Columbia University and UCLA and now hosts the Healthier Tech podcast. Welcome, mar, how are you Good?

R Blank: 1:42

thanks, hi. It's very nice to be here, marla.

Marla Miller: 1:44

Well, we have an interesting conversation ahead of us, I think, about EMF radiation. I know it's a topic that some people know a lot about and others, I think, are unsure whether it's a factor or not in their lives. They're still, I guess, not fully educated about the topic at this point, so I'm hoping that you'll be able to clear up a lot of information, maybe answer questions that people in general probably have about how to stay healthy around all of this EMF radiation and 5G technology that seems to be a lot more prevalent now coming into the society around us. So do you want to start with, rather than just hearing that it's bad for us, is there science which backs that theory?

R Blank: 2:37

Yeah, well, there's a lot of that science and maybe, as a starting point, just a quick explainer for people. Emf is a form of radiation. It stands for electromagnetic field and it is emitted by everything that communicates wirelessly. That includes cell phones, laptops, wi-fi, bluetooth and everything that runs on electric power. That includes power lines and appliances and, you know, refrigerators and blenders. So it is just from that quick definition. It's obvious. This is all around us and it's obvious that the amount of it is growing every year, because the amount of this technology is growing every year and the networks that are being deployed to support this technology are increasing every year.

R Blank: 3:26

Now getting to your question about the science, and this is part of what really hit me when I was working with my father at Wright Overpowered, because obviously you know he'd been my father my whole life.

R Blank: 3:40

That wasn't new and so I kind of knew the work he did. But in the process of writing Overpowered, it was really very made a big impression on me just how strong the science is on this question, and that was 10 years ago. So the science is even stronger now, um, and so when I say the science is strong, I'm talking about thousands of studies into this question, um, of whether emf is harmful, um, but both to humans as well as to all other living things, and what we see is from the science is that really, you are seeing negative impacts in virtually every biological mechanism where they are investigated, Right, so you see it, and just to give some quick examples. You see it in rates of fertility, infertility, subfertility in men, right in the reproductive organs. You see it on the leakage of the blood-brain barrier, which helps protect our brain from viruses and other foreign objects from entering.

R Blank: 4:51

You see it in the endocrine system, particularly in melatonin production, which helps regulate our sleep cycles. You see it in all of these different systems, and so it really. The science is not only strong, but it paints this picture where EMF impacts life at a very fundamental level, and that's why, not only do we see this in humans, we see it in birds and in bees, and in trees and in plants. The impacts are incredibly wide-ranging.

Marla Miller: 5:25

Yeah, that's incredible when you think about it affecting every living thing on the planet. I mean humans and animals. So what are some specific ways it might affect our immune system?

R Blank: 5:41

So the immune system is an interesting one, because there are studies out there that shows that it triggers immunosuppression, right, so that it weakens the immune system system.

R Blank: 6:01

But there's also studies out there that shows that in other people it can trigger autoimmune disease, which means that the immune system is overacting. It's overreacting to these, what it interprets as threats to your body, and then it goes into overdrive. And so what we see is and you know, in different people, emf can have different outcomes, because everyone's physiology is quite different and their backgrounds, their health backgrounds, are quite different. So I'll give you a specific example of this right, there's a population of people that are often referred to as electrohypersensitive or EHS. People that are often referred to as electrohypersensitive or EHS, and they will have for lack of a better term what are effectively allergic reactions to exposures to EMF at levels where you know you and I might walk into a room and feel fine, and these people will have significant symptoms, rashes, pain, anxiety, and what we are seeing is there is a correlation between people who are EHS and people who are.

R Blank: 7:05

MCS and MCS is multiple chemical sensitivity. So things that are in normal cleaning products that a lot of people use will trigger these types of reactions of people who are MCS. And again, I mention that because there is a cross-acceptability when someone has MCS they're more likely to have BEHS and vice versa. We see the same thing with Lyme disease. When people have Lyme disease they are more likely to have both of those conditions EHS and MCS. So when it comes back and getting back to your question on the immune system, there are studies showing that it can weaken the immune system and there are studies showing that it can send the immune system into overdrive. And this is again illustrative of just how wide-ranging a set of impacts this stuff has.

Marla Miller: 7:54

Well, that's interesting that it might trigger autoimmune, because that's already something that seems to be on the rise and so many people deal with. So then, if you add this extra trigger, that's everywhere in your world. I can't imagine what that will look like in the future.

R Blank: 8:12

And one reason I just want to point right, because one reason this is it can be really hard to hone in on these things, and the reason is like if you're studying what EMF does to DNA, right, you can do that in the lab and then you can see what happened to the DNA and there's some pretty disturbing studies on that specific question.

R Blank: 8:30

But when we're talking about things like autoimmune disease or even bigger questions like cancer, you can't study that in a lab. You can't stick a bunch of people in a lab for 10, 20, 30 years to see you know which ones use cell phones and they got cancer, right. So what we do is we turn to a type of science called epidemiology, which is the study of incidence of disease in populations. The problem with that, with this particular question, is that for any type of study like this, you need a control group. And what a control group is? It's a group of people that aren't exposed to whatever it is you're trying to study and, when you think about it and again, the number of sources of this stuff in our environment, there are virtually no unexposed populations.

R Blank: 9:15

And so it makes this type of research incredibly difficult. Now there is some very powerful research on this and there's one in particular that I'll bring up. There is a book and it's called dirty electricity. It's by dr sam millen and what he did I remember. Earlier I said one of the sources of emf is electricity power lines. Power lines didn't used to exist. They were added right and they weren't added to the. They were added right and they weren't added to the whole country all at once. They were deployed in this area, then they were deployed in this area, then they were deployed in this area.

Marla Miller: 9:47

What Dr Millen?

R Blank: 9:48

did is. He went around the country and he investigated death records from before electrification process happened and then after the electrification process happened, and what he found is that there is a whole set of diseases what he calls diseases of civilization that did not exist until the introduction of the electric grid, and they didn't exist in a particular place until the introduction of the electrical grid in that place. So these include things like childhood leukemia, which is the incidence of leukemia in children three to four years old. That did not happen before the introduction of the electrical grid.

Marla Miller: 10:27

ALS or Lou.

R Blank: 10:28

Gehrig's disease did not happen until the electrification process happened and you still find there are some populations with much less exposure to these forces, like the Amish, and you still don't find these diseases of civilization among those populations. So it is possible to do that type of research that I was just talking about, and that is a very powerful example of that type of research and the story that it's portraying.

Marla Miller: 10:56

Yeah, that is so interesting to think about trying to find that clinical group of people that has not been exposed to something, and there's no way around it at this point. What about any effects, specifically on children?

R Blank: 11:21

all living things, and so children are included in that. The difference is that children it's not just children, right? The younger you are, the more vulnerable you are to this type to damage from this force, right? So that means teens are more vulnerable than adults. Children are more vulnerable than teens, babies are more vulnerable than children, and fetuses are most vulnerable of all vulnerable than children, and fetuses are most vulnerable of all.

R Blank: 11:42

Now, there's several reasons for that. One is just that they are smaller, right. So if you, you know, hold a phone up to your head and the radiation from that phone penetrates an inch into your head, and then a child holds that up to his head or her head and goes in an inch, that inch in the child is going to constitute a much bigger percentage of that child's brain. So more of their brain is being radiated. Also, the younger you are, you know, particularly, you know, below a certain age, certain things are less well developed. So that would include, for instance, the thickness of the skull.

R Blank: 12:14

The skull provides a degree of natural shielding. When it is thinner there's less of that shielding there. But then there's other physiological differences. So one is the rate at which they grow. So if you damage a set of cells in an adult right that will replicate at a certain rate, which is much slower than if you damage a set of cells in a child, whose cellular division replication process is very rapid, and the younger you are, the more rapid it is. That means any damage spreads more rapidly, more widely, and then of course they theoretically have longer to live, and so any damage has more time to actually take effect, and so these are just some examples of why the younger you are, the more vulnerable you are to this type of damage.

R Blank: 13:02

And there's some pretty concerning research out there about, for instance, rates of miscarriage correlating to EMF exposure in utero. But there's other research out there which I personally find both concerning but also very interesting. Also very interesting when children are exposed to greater levels of EMF in utero, you can see not just higher rates of miscarriage, of birth defects, you can see diseases manifest at greater rates once they are older, right. So there's research showing that with mothers who have higher rates of levels of EMF exposure of their fetus in utero, that by the time the child is 13, there's much greater incidence of asthma in those children. And so you see these really concerning patterns play out again and again that's what I was trying to say earlier, right In basically every kind of biological system in which you execute these investigations biological system in which you execute these investigations, you find very concerning outcomes.

Marla Miller: 14:03

Yeah, that is concerning, especially since it's so prevalent, especially with kids. You know. Now, having cell phones at such an early age and the constant exposure, yeah, that is pretty scary. Well, before we get into some solutions, which I hope you have for us so we're not overwhelmed, I have two questions. One is where do you see the regulatory process going with all this new 5G technology? I know that it's been prevented, I think at the airports, because it was causing a problem, right?

R Blank: 14:39

I believe yeah, I believe that was just a delay and not an actual ban. There was concern that it would interfere with flight instrumentation. I think they got the wireless companies got what they wanted on that one, but it may there may still be a delay on that, but it is only a delay and it has nothing to do with public health, except insofar as you don't want planes crashing.

Marla Miller: 15:01

Yeah, yeah.

R Blank: 15:04

So to answer the question on the regulatory side of things and we actually did an episode on this on the Healthier Tech podcast. We brought in who's actually my cousin but he's a policy director in New Hampshire state legislature but also previously in the US Congress. Public is pretty bleak on the regulatory side for a lot of reasons that we get into in depth in that episode.

R Blank: 15:35

But there's no clear owner of who is in charge of human safety when it comes to EMF Right. So when it comes to cell phones, theoretically that's the Federal Communication Commission. When it comes to cars Right, who does that? No one. To cars right who does that? No one. Another really concerning example of this is power lines, which, from a regulatory perspective, are also very complicated because they cross state lines. They impact responsibilities from multiple different federal departments. This is another example where there are no regulations about how much EMF a power line can emit. Now, there are some for occupational workers, but for all of us out in the real world there's absolutely zero regulation, and so what you end up with is this kind of messy hodgepodge where, like again, I give the example of cell phones Cell phones, at least, are theoretically regulated.

R Blank: 16:19

At least there are certain radiation limits they are supposed to be under, but then there's whole sets of exposures that are not regulated at all and in terms of the prospect of that changing, I think it is pretty bleak because of all A, getting anything done in Washington right now and probably for the foreseeable future is almost impossible, as we see in issue after issue after issue. And then B, there is a lot of in terms of revolving door you hear referred to as the revolving door, where people go from industry into government and back and forth, and so the people in charge of regulating the cell phone industry have come from the cell phone industry.

R Blank: 16:59

And there's other reasons too more specific to EMF in terms of how complicated this could be and how poorly understood by a lot of people it is. So the amount of public pressure is notably less than it would be maybe for other talks like lead and water pipes. So for all of these reasons, the prospect of any of this changing, I'd say, in the foreseeable future is quite bleak. Now there are some bright spots. So recently a group had sued the FCC specifically on their 5G regulations because the FCC had ruled that they can regulate 5G the exact same way. Cell phone EMF had been regulated since the 1996 telecom bill. So for the last 25 years the FCC just came out and said we're going to regulate 5G the same way. And a group sued them and the group won and a judge ruled that the FCC had been reckless in terms of the way in which they'd handled this whole process.

R Blank: 17:56

Now does that mean the FCC is going to change 5G regulations? All they have to do is go back and come up with a justification for how they acted. But there is progress being made and increasingly there's some progress being made at the local level. So you can see, you know, in certain schools they are banning cell phones, they are hardwiring computers. People are having some success in terms of placement of cell phone towers and not having them put up near a school, for instance. So there are these examples of limited successes that are happening at the local level, and it is at the local level where the change can happen, because that is where people get involved and you are not dealing with the quagmire that is politics in Washington DC these days.

Marla Miller: 18:44

Yeah, I think that's going to be the make it or break it, as far as making a big change for our health will be when more and more people really get educated about this and determine that they want their health to be better, and they will demand it. But I think that's probably a long way off, because you have a lot of people that want things faster and quicker and want that 5G technology and what it has to offer, without considering all the health implications. And also, as time goes on and you start to see more and more actual results down the road of how it impacted, say, the younger generation that started off with the phones and then, 30 years down the road, what is that going to look like for them? Once we have that information too, I think people will be more compelled to demand action.

R Blank: 19:36

Yeah, I mean, and that's a really good point this technology is deployed with not only virtually absent any regulation, deployed with not only apps and virtually apps and any regulation, but apps and any long-term testing, right? So let's take Bluetooth headsets as an example, which are increasingly popular. Bluetooth is essentially the same thing as Wi-Fi, and when you're carrying these headsets right, you're putting it right near your brain and your eyes and several important nerves in your head, and generally for hours at a time, every day, or almost every day. That's a really concerning set of exposures. But you know, can I say that you know what are the odds that will increase your risk of brain tumor? I can't, and the reason I can't say that is because, in order to perform those studies, that would have to take 10, 15, 20 years, and this stuff is deployed without that.

R Blank: 20:29

So all of this technology is being deployed and we are the lab test subjects and it only becomes apparent, particularly because a lot of these conditions I mean, not all of them are cancer, but a lot of them are cancer and those tend to be really concerning outcomes for people, for obvious reasons. And these cancers take 5, 10, 20, maybe even 30 years to form, and so you're not going to get that data until you know AirPods turn 30. And that's when we start to see it. And by then who knows really what caused the tumors? Because maybe they were wearing the Facebook glasses as well and maybe they had all these other new technologies introduced into their homes and into their lives and possibly implanted into their bodies, which other companies were working to try to accomplish at this point. So it becomes difficult to tease it out. The technology becomes integrated into the fabric of society. So even if you wanted to replace it, that is incredibly difficult and expensive.

R Blank: 21:31

So an increasing amount of science has recently been documenting the incidence of early onset Alzheimer's, that's, alzheimer's in people who are, you know, 30 and 40 years old. That never used to happen and it is postulated, it is hypothesized, that that is linked to the amount of cell phone use and other wireless technologies. Now I think I'm being clear that I believe, and many believe, EMF is a toxin, but I also want to be clear that there are a lot of toxins in this world. Even as lifespans expand, our toxic loads are expanding. Emf is a big and important toxin that I want people to be aware of, but our health is being impacted by just the level of toxicity in our environments, and EMF is an important one, but there are plenty of others that are contributing to these health outcomes that we are seeing.

Marla Miller: 22:25

But there are plenty of others that are contributing to these health outcomes that we are seeing. Yeah, yeah, the more you can be aware and the more you can detox your body on a regular basis you know, as a lifestyle because, like you said, there are so many different toxins bombarding us.

Marla Miller: 22:38

So, just to keep our heads above water. We should always be working on that, I think in general. We should always be working on that, I think in general. So what are some perhaps uplifting things that we can do? You know, how can we protect ourselves? Because I don't think it's going to change anytime soon. I think it's going to continue to surround us and get more powerful. So what are some things we could do in our own homes or, you know, when we go out or with our phones, that'll be protective.

R Blank: 23:09

Sure. So, when it comes to this, what people can do and I'm glad you asked this because A once you start to get exposed to this information and you start realizing it and people who are listening to this don't have to take my word for it they can go do some research online A great place to start is the BioInitiative Report bioinitiativeorg. That was a group of scientists, including my father, who reviewed thousands of studies. I know when you start to hear that this science exists and then you start realizing these forces what it comes from is everywhere. It can feel overwhelming, it can feel depressing and it can make you feel powerless, and so one of the key lessons I messages I try to get across is to to help people understand just how much power they have in this equation. And there's one key reason for that, and that is that the power of EMF radiation diminishes exponentially with distance. So if you take a phone and it's an inch away from the body and then you move it two inches away from the body, you've cut the power of that exposure by 75%, and so the further away you keep this stuff, it can make a really big difference. So this is why I believe you know a lot of people carry cell phones in their pockets and their bras and I believe, despite how much EMF there is out in the world and how it is continually growing, for a lot of people the people who carry their phones regularly in their pockets and their bras that is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, sources of their own personal exposure, because these devices are really high powered devices. They are designed to communicate over miles and that's just the cell phone connection right. There's also Bluetooth and Wi-Fi and NFC, all of these wireless parts built into these things. So keeping the tech that you use as far away from your body as possible is really important. It can make a huge difference in your exposure. It means not sleeping with your phone. It means keeping the Wi-Fi router as far away from where you and your family spend your time in your house as possible. These are never holding the phone up to your head to talk. Always use speakerphone or a headset. And once you start thinking about it right, you'll start to realize in your own life some of the other things that like never use your life. If you're one of these people that uses a laptop in your lap, never do that, even if it's not in your lap but it's on the desk. If you plug in an external keyboard and mouse, you keep it even further away, and that's another way that you can start cutting down your exposure. So there's all these ways. With any source of EMF, the further away it is from your body, you can make a really big difference in that exposure. So that's one way, right, maximizing the distance. The other is minimizing the use, right.

R Blank: 25:56

So very few people are just going to go out and give up cell phones. They've become fully integrated into our lives. I don't give up. I mean, I just held up my cell phone on camera, right, I have a cell phone. But there's other technologies that aren't vital, that haven't become fully integrated into our lives, that really, when you think about it, they don't add any real value at all. And those are the ones where you just want to not use them, right, don't invest the money. So an example I give is smart refrigerators. I have yet to see a compelling use case that makes me think, oh, I really could get value out of a smart refrigerator. They sound pointless to me, but when you get one, you're putting another you know Wi-Fi transmitter into your kitchen. There's other, more ludicrous examples, in my opinion. There is a smart kitty litter box, there is a smart airbrush, there is a smart tampon. Ladies don't yeah don't.

R Blank: 27:00

I can't even imagine.

R Blank: 27:01

Yeah, that's a very sensitive area and, again, extended exposures. Right so, but it comes down also to entertainment devices like wireless headphones. You know, don't use them. Or you know, if you do, because you really need them at the gym, then just use them at the gym and don't use them just as a way of life, Don't walk around with this stuff. With all of these things, individual purchasing and usage decisions that you make can have a really big impact on your personal exposure. So you want to minimize your use of EMF emitting technology and you want to maximize the distance between that tech and your body when it is in use.

R Blank: 27:37

Now to that I'll add a third thing. You mentioned detox and increasingly I've been talking about grounding. What grounding is and you probably know, but for any listeners who don't know, grounding, or sometimes called earthing, that is, putting your body into contact and when I say your body, I mean, like your bare feet, not your shoes into contact with the earth. So park grass, sand the ocean, but the earth itself, not pavement. It's really important that it's your bare feet and it's the earth itself. I know you hear people sometimes say, oh, you'll feel better, You're becoming one with the earth.

R Blank: 28:15

What I want to underscore is there's actual science, not only that this is healthy for you, but that it helps undo some of the specific types of damage that EMF exposure can cause, right? So when you are grounding your body to the earth, you are discharging positive ionization that can result from EMF exposure. You are reducing levels of free radicals in your body that can result from EMF exposure. You are reducing levels of free radicals in your body that can result from EMF exposure. That, in turn, can reduce inflammation again, which can result from EMF exposure. So, while it is not a panacea, while it doesn't cure you of all the damage that EMF can cause, grounding can actually help quite a bit in terms of relieving some of the physical and biological stresses of EMF exposure. It is, I think, a wonderful practice. I try to go walking on the beach at least once a week because of how good it makes me feel.

R Blank: 29:12

So those are the three things that I would say my normal two key rules, which is minimize use and maximize distance, and then also grounding for detox. And then you know, of course, the healthier you are overall, the more resilient your body will be to damage from EMF, just like any other toxin. So that means exercise, that means diet. These things make a big difference when it comes to your body coping with this type of stress.

Marla Miller: 29:38

Yeah, yeah, you don't want to overload your immune system. I think that's the bottom line. Whether it's EMF or it's heavy metals or whatever it is, you, it's like, stay on top of it, trying to eliminate what you can. And also as far as the grounding it is, I mean, who wouldn't enjoy a walk on the beach anyway? Or a trail through the forest? Like, yeah, there's only benefit that comes from doing that. So those are all very good suggestions. And well, I know you have different products on your website. I had also read about like you could call the electric company and have them stop, and now I forget what it's called.

R Blank: 30:15

Are you talking about smart meters? Yeah, you could have them basically turn Now I forget what it's called Smart meters.

Marla Miller: 30:19

You're talking about smart meters. Yeah, you could have them basically turn off that smart meter, where? So instead they have to come out to the house and actually do the reading. It's not doing a constant reading.

R Blank: 30:27

Yeah, unfortunately, not everyone has that right Because it'll depend on the laws in your state and the policies of your electrical utility. When it is possible, they will generally charge you an additional monthly fee. If you have a smart meter on your home, it is worth calling the utility to see if you can get it removed.

R Blank: 30:44

This is another example of technology that is essentially unregulated from an EMF emissions perspective. The utilities are under no obligation whatsoever to tell you how much radiation you're being exposed to from that device or to meet a threshold of maximum exposure. This stuff just doesn't exist. So it's another great example of these huge gaps in regulatory frameworks.

Marla Miller: 31:09

Yeah, I think it would pay to at least call and see. I know I was in California so I was able to do that, and it was just $5 extra a month at the time, so not a big deal. Well, so you do have some other products.

R Blank: 31:25

I do have EMF protection products and people can find them at shieldyourbodycom.

R Blank: 31:31

And if your listeners are hearing this and they've never investigated this topic before and they go out and Google for EMF protection, they're going to find a lot of different things. I'm not just talking about other companies that do what I do. I'm talking about a lot of different things, like little stickers that you can put on your phone that they claim make it safe, crystals that you can wear, things that claim to harmonize the radiation, and, without going into details about those types of solutions, I will say that you know, in contrast, the products that I make and sell at ShieldYourBodycom are all based on EMF shielding technology. So this is universally accepted technology. It's universally accepted science for almost 200 years since Michael Faraday created the first Faraday cage, and what he showed was that if you weave conductive metals into certain patterns, you can deflect radiation in the other direction, much like a window shade deflects sunlight, and so all of my products are made based on this technology and they all are laboratory tested and we have the data posted on the website.

R Blank: 32:38

And it is possible for anyone to test my product claims for themselves using a decent quality consumer grade meter. So using about 150, $106 meter, you can actually see for yourself that my products are working and you can measure the benefit that they have. So without going through my whole catalog, I think I'm up to two dozen products now.

R Blank: 33:02

You know, I'll just say my most popular one is my phone pouch, and what that is is it's a pouch that you can put your phone in, and the back of the pouch has this radiation shielding and the front doesn't, and that is designed that way, specifically so that you can carry your phone in your pocket or on your belt or in your purse and deflect radiation away from your body while still allowing your phone to work to send and receive.

R Blank: 33:28

So you know, how I said earlier, one of the biggest things I tell people is don't carry your phone in your pocket or your bra, or to put it into airplane mode if you do, and that is my number one recommendation that I tell everybody. But at the end of the day, there are certain people who don't want to listen to that advice or who can't listen to that advice. For instance, for their job, right, they need their phone on and they have nowhere else to carry it. And so that's why I created the phone pouch, and that's the market that it serves is people who want to carry their phone more safely without having to go into airplane mode, and so that is my number one product. Right now it's about $30. So it's pretty reasonably priced and people can find that and the rest of my catalog at shieldyourbodycom.

Marla Miller: 34:09

All right, perfect, shieldyourbodycom. Perfect, so they can go on there. They can find all your products, as well as information. I'm guessing.

R Blank: 34:19

Yeah, we have tons of it. In fact, that's one of the things we're trying to do now is maybe reorganize it a little so it's more accessible. But right there at the top of the homepage people can download my quick start guide, which has the five best free changes people can make to reduce their exposure and why those five are the most important. And that's a free guide that people just go to shieldyourbodycom and it's right there at the top and you just download it and that's a great way to get started.

Marla Miller: 34:46

Oh, perfect. So is your house all set up with all your products, do you? I know, yeah, I'm not in my house right now.

R Blank: 34:57

My house is in a very low EMF area, so I use some. I'll tell you, the product that I use the most these days, which I really love, is my sling bag, and so that's kind of like the pouch in turn, except it's bigger, right, and so you can. You can fit not just your phone but your glasses and your wallet and your tablet and stuff like that, and I find that such a convenient way. So when I'm out and about I will throw my phone into my sling bag. That's the one I'm using all the time.

Marla Miller: 35:27

What about power lines that are above ground versus underground?

R Blank: 35:30

Yeah, the safer thing would be for them to be below ground, and that's not just from an EMF perspective, that's also from a resilience perspective. They're much more resilient against damage from natural disasters, which we know are increasingly common, including storms and hurricanes, high wind but, yes, power lines that are buried are generally sources of less radiation to which you're actually exposed, because the ground creates a form of a barrier.

Marla Miller: 36:01

Okay, so maybe when people are looking for houses they can also check that out. Yes, I strongly recommend?

R Blank: 36:09

I mean, if EMF is a priority for you, like it is for me, getting one of these meters and you're in the market, you're in the real estate market, either to buy or to rent, bringing one of these meters along with you and taking measurements, because you know you can see, like if you're looking at a place, an apartment or a house, and you can see there's 20 cell phone towers outside. Okay, you know that. But there's also going to be a lot of sources that you're just not going to immediately see, and it can come down to the way that the wiring was done inside the drywall and you would have no idea. So getting one of these meters and learning how to use it is, I think, really important when you're evaluating real estate decisions.

Marla Miller: 36:52

Okay, and if someone wanted someone else to do that work for them, can you hire a person? That, yes, you can.

R Blank: 37:01

So there's a group of people known as building biologists and they have certifications from an institute called the Building Biology Institute that we do some work with, and among their certifications is an electromagnetic radiation specialty and you can go on their website and find people who have gone through the program and are certified in electromagnetic radiation and measuring it and mitigating it, and so that is a great resource and it's buildingbiologyinstituteorg. But also, for those who don't have one of those experts near them, we offer consulting with those experts through our website. So if you just go to, if you go to shieldyourbodycom and you click on consulting, you can book time with someone over Zoom who can coach you into how to do this stuff yourself.

R Blank: 37:49

Okay, perfect, it's impossible to live in this world without EMF exposure. It's just impossible. That's a ridiculous goal. It's pointless, right? So you're always going to have this exposure. The goal is to reduce it, and there are a lot of ways in which you are empowered to do that, and you know, I just would encourage people to start. You know it's easy stopping to carry your phone in your pocket. It's actually a lot easier than it sounds. Not sleeping with your phone is another really important one, and that one yields benefits that go beyond reducing your EMF exposure. There's a growing body of science that just having your phone near you, even if it's off, will lead to increased distraction during sleep and lower sleep quality because of the psychological relationship that you have with these devices. So there's a lot that you can do and I just encourage people to get started and you know, see that it'll work for you.

Marla Miller: 38:47

Yeah, that's good. Well, yeah, I think the first thing is educate yourself and they can look on your website to start doing that and then pick and choose some products. Like you said, that one seems very simple, the pocket for your phone and not expensive. Also, you know when you put your phone on airplane mode. Maybe explain what that's doing?

R Blank: 39:06

Yeah, when you put your phone on airplane mode, you are effectively disabling all the wireless cards in the device, right, because I mentioned earlier your cell phone.

R Blank: 39:15

It has a cell network card, right, so it can communicate with the cell network. It has a wireless card. It has a Bluetooth chip. It has an NFC. That's used for things like Google Pay and Apple Pay, right, that's how it uses a technology called NFC. So there's multiple wireless devices in your phone and those are the major sources of EMF from your phone. So when you put your phone into airplane mode, you're turning those off and essentially eliminating all EMF off of your phone. There's still going to be a tiny tiny tiny bit because of the battery, but you're essentially knocking out all the EMF.

R Blank: 39:50

Now, another thing that people should know about airplane mode is it's not an all or nothing proposition. So increasingly, on these devices I mentioned, there's all these different cards that communicate wirelessly. So let's say you want to reduce the EMF from your phone, but you still need to be able to get a call, right, so you can turn off all the wireless connections you're not using and just keep the one that you are. So you know when, in fact. A good example when I am a home, my phone only has Wi-Fi enabled, and that's because, with a lot of phones. Wi-fi calling means you still get phone calls, you still get texts, but I have the cell phone card off, I have the Bluetooth off and so by disabling all these other connections, even though my phone is still has Wi-Fi enabled, I've really reduced the amount of EMF coming off of that device. So ideally you disable all of the wireless communication with airplane mode, but even if you need to use one or two of these connections, disable the others and you'll still be making a big reduction in your exposure.

Marla Miller: 40:58

So how do you disable the others and keep the Wi-Fi only on?

R Blank: 41:02

So I don't actually know what it's called. There's a lot of phones now, both iPhone and Android. When you just swipe down on the phone, you get all these little icons that give you options and you can set that up so that next to the airplane mode there's one for the Wi-Fi signal and you can set that up. So you know, next to the airplane mode there's one that for the wifi signal and one for the Bluetooth signal, and so you can. You can you and one for cell phone data and you can just enable and disable them just there in that screen. But if it's not there for you, it'll be under settings and then under wireless connections and again you can do the same thing. You just toggle the ones on and off. But I like putting them on that quick access screen, which, again, I don't know the name of, but it's that quick drawer that you can get on Android and Apple, and I like putting them there so that they're all really easy access.

Marla Miller: 41:51

Yeah, perfect. Well, thank you for all this information. It's definitely eye-opening and I'm sure if people delve into the research they'll start to not only do the simple things they can in their own homes, but will also gain momentum as far as a collective voice against all of this increasing radiation and demanding that it's more regulated so that we don't suffer the consequences of it.

R Blank: 42:21

Yeah, no and I really appreciate the opportunity to come chat with you and educate your audience on this topic, because you know, I know, it can be intimidating and it can be complicated and it can be sometimes frightening. And the more people that we can reach, the more people who are just making smarter decisions about their own personal relationships with technology and you can really make a big difference. So thank you very much for having me.

Marla Miller: 42:47

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, smarter decisions about smart technology, that's what we need. Thank you so much.

R Blank: 42:55

Thank you.