Maintain A Healthy Relationship With Your Phone

R Blank

Thank you. Thank you so much, Dr. Stills. It is great to be here.

Sharon Stills, ND

Yes. So as I was just saying in your introduction, and I would love if you could just share, like how did this become your jam? How did this become what you focus on and what you are passionate about?

R Blank

Sure. Yes.  Another great place to start. Also, just before we do, I want to thank you for pointing out that the whole purpose of this is action-based and somewhat optimistic. it is meant to empower people. it is not meant to tear them down or just make them feel hopeless about the world around them, because there’s certainly enough of that. So I appreciate you focusing on that, because that is what we are going to get to. But in terms of how I got to where I am, my father was Dr. Martin Blank; he was one of the leading researchers and, towards the end, activists and advocates into issues of EMF and, in his particular case, human health, but health in general. It was now 11 years ago, he had a contract to write a book. This book, which is what became Overpowered which is still one of the leading books on this topic and is available on Amazon and at bookstores everywhere. Unlike what he had traditionally written for, this book was meant for regular people, not other know-it-alls. Not other doctors like you, but for regular people to understand what my father had learned in his 30-plus years of doing this research and working with other people. So he asked me, because of the audience; he asked me to help him write the book. At the time, I was a software engineer at a software engineering firm. But I had written a couple of books, and I had been teaching on the faculty at the University of Southern California, undergrad. Again, not know-it-all grad students. I had a lot more of that kind of experience. So I jumped in and I co-wrote what ended up becoming Overpowered with him and it was in the course of writing that book with him that I learned so much about this topic. It was also in the course of writing that book that I came up with the idea for what became Shield Your Body, which is my current company.

Sharon Stills, ND

I love it. I love that you did it with your father. And I know, I see that you have degrees from Columbia and UCLA yourself. So a little humble. Are we? So, let us just dive in. This came because you had me on your podcast and we were talking about how I am always like, We need to divorce our phones. We need to have some kind of relationship or experience with our phone, if that is not so codependent and guilty, too. So no judgments here. We were talking about just this relationship. I just have to say this: like a week ago, my phone screen died, so I could hear my calls coming in, I could hear my texts coming in, but I could not do anything about it because the screen was totally black and it was such and I was going somewhere and I did not have my phone. I could not GPS it; I did not know where I was. it is just that this is real; it just made me think of it that we are going to talk about this. It was this real experience of like, Oh my God, I am pretty lost without my phone. I depend on my phone for everything.

R Blank

Yes. 

Sharon Stills, ND

Then, when I got to the Apple store, they were like, Well, what’s your Apple ID password? And I was like, I do not know. it is written in my notes on my phone. And then I tried to log in to my iCloud, and it was like, Oh, we are going to send you the code to your phone so you can, so it is really so we are not here to say that like, Oh, you need to get rid of your phone, because I know this experience really showed me that like, I need my phone, and I could not answer questions or emails from my assistant. It was like a lost day. And of course, I was at the Apple iPhone store for 17 hours. So it is really about, though, what I want to talk to you about is: How do we have a better relationship where we are not 100% dependent on it? How do we protect ourselves? Because this friendly phone has a lot of negative EMFs coming out of it. 

R Blank

Yes. I appreciate that introduction to this topic because, as you alluded to, Well, first off, phones have become not only incredibly important just incredibly useful. I mean, when you think about what you do on your phone every day or at least once a week and you compare it to what that same thing took ten years ago or 20 years ago, some of it you could not even do; some of it took a lot more time; it took a full computer to go to talk to other people, and now you can just do it instantly. I remember when I moved to Los Angeles back in 2000, the first thing you had to buy when you moved to Los Angeles at the time was something called a Thomas Guide. So anyone who lived in L.A. before the era of cell phones or smartphones will know this. This is because L.A. is this huge, sprawling city, and it is like this thick book, and it is all maps. And any time you had to go anywhere, you had to look in the Thomas Guide for where you were going and then plan your route, and I am not exaggerating. Everyone had a Thomas Guide because L.A. is such a crazy big city. Now, you just pull out your phone, and you can just go. You told me about a trip you are planning soon to a foreign destination. You can get to that destination now and just load up your phone and know exactly where you are going. In most cities, you could even just order an Uber using the same app that you would use at home. You can access all of your banks if you need to transfer money, or you can do all your email. Just like when you land in a foreign city, like when you traveled 20 years ago.

Sharon Stills, ND

Right. 

R Blank

Yes. It was a completely different experience. So these are incredibly valuable tools. It is very important, that people; that is why I appreciate the way you introduced this. That people understand that I am not advocating that people ditch their phones. I do not know anyone who is seriously advocating that, but also, as you touched on, there are a lot of problems with these phones. They are very powerful devices. The devices themselves are largely engineered to facilitate addiction. And then the experiences that are written to run on these devices are often explicitly designed to foster addiction among people of all ages, but particularly the younger you are. That is what these notification pings are. That is what gamification where you feel like you need to log back in to get your points back or to keep your streak going. I have this on an app. I have an app where it summarizes bestselling books in 15 minutes. And I thought that was a personal improvement. I mean, I still view it as a personal improvement app, but it kind of penalizes you if you do not log in every day to keep your streak going of learning these bestsellers. Fortunately, I do not care. But that is just, again, an example of the way it tries to foster these deeper and deeper and relationships that consume more and more of your awareness. Now, there are a lot of these issues, and it is because these devices are so powerful because of the way they’re engineered and also because of how quickly they have become interwoven into our daily lives and into reality. If you think back ten years ago, this was not an issue, and now it is. And it takes time for us as individuals and for us collectively as a society to learn how to use these things to balance our relationships with them and to have a healthier relationship with the technology. So there are a lot of these issues, which are the types of issues that I like covering on the podcast that that you kindly appeared on recently, the Healthier Tech Podcast. But as you also pointed out today, I am here to speak specifically about the EMF radiation side of this, right? So, as I just said, there are a lot of public health and personal health issues stemming from our relationships with phones. But one of them, the one on which I have focused the most effort over the past ten years, is the impact of being exposed to electromagnetic radiation from these devices. And just very quickly, for those who may not know what that is, it is electromagnetic radiation, also sometimes called EMF or electromagnetic fields. It is a type of energy; that is created by the combined forces of electricity and magnetism.

So anything that runs on power, like a light bulb or like your refrigerator, or like the blender in your kitchen, these all emits EMF, and anything that communicates wirelessly. So that would include cell phones, cordless phones, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. That is also EMF. And just based off of that description, right? Anything that runs on power and anything that communicates wirelessly—you can tell that there’s a heck of a lot of this stuff around us now and more and more and more of it every year. For a long time, we’ve known about EMF for hundreds of years, but it is really only within the last hundred years. And then, in particular within the last, let’s say, 40 years, where we’ve really started to see strong evidence that this stuff is harmful to human health and, in fact, to the health of all living things, including birds, bees, plants, and trees. When we are now just to get back to sort of a focused point here, right? As I said, there’s a lot of this stuff in the environment. There’s more and more of it every year.

When people like it because I have a lot of experience communicating these issues to people, when people start to learn about this, they can get sort of, well, there are two reactions. One is that they can just ignore it and say, No, that is not true. I do not refuse to accept it. The other is, Oh, that sounds like there’s something serious there. Let me freak out, because it is everywhere. And that is obviously not a practical approach. It is not healthy. And so what I like to try to help people to do is to realize that it is actually their relationship with the phone that is a huge source of people’s individual exposure to EMF radiation. And that is because these phones have so much power, and we can get into some of the reasons why that is. But they have so much power. They’re designed to communicate over miles and miles, and we are holding them in our pockets, and it is, pardon me. So it is because they have so much power the way in which we use them and the fact that they are with us all of the time. So even though, when you turn on your laptop in your apartment, you might see there’s 20 Wi-Fi networks that you can see, and when you look out the window, you see there’s five cell towers that I can see, even given all of that, it is often the way in which people are relating to and using their phones. That is a huge source of their EMF radiation, and it is one over which we tend to exert the most control. There’s nothing I can do about that cell tower, that is three blocks away. But there is a lot that I can do with how I use my phone.

Sharon Stills, ND

But let’s jump into it. So we talk about what you should not do, and then what you should do. However you want to approach it. But, for me, I cringe every time I see someone with their phone up to their ear. I am like, I just want to walk up to strangers and be like, Stop it, stop it. It is bad for you.

R Blank

Yes. I can get right into the solutions, and then we can talk about why this is so important, but because the solutions are so simple. Like you said, never hold these phones up to your head. In fact, a lot of people might be surprised to learn and to realize that you are not supposed to hold these devices directly against your head. A lot of them. At any rate, if you read the manuals, for instance, the iPhone manual, there’s fine print in there saying that there needs to be a minimum distance of separation between the device and your body, such that the phone does not exceed federal radiation emissions exposure regulations.

Sharon Stills, ND

Wait, wait a second. Wait a second. Because first of all, who reads their iPhone pamphlet? I just toss it out as I am. But are you saying that they’re saying if you put your phone to your ear, you are exceeding what they say is safe?

R Blank

Yes. What they say is legal. Let’s just make this a little more surreal. Let me just restate what you are saying, which is R: are they saying that if you use the device the way it is designed to be used, that it will exceed or cannot exceed legal limits? And the answer is yes. So they designed this device to be held right up against your head. But if you hold it up against your head, you are actually doing what the manual says not to do. There are actually more extreme examples. I mean, we are talking about cell phones here, but there’s a Dell laptop manual, again, laptop that says you need to maintain eight inches of distance between the laptop and your lap in order to stay under these federal radiation exposure limits. Now, also, let’s be clear: these limits are vastly inadequate to protect our human health. That is, the government says, you are allowed to be exposed to a certain amount of radiation from a cell phone. And science says yes, but exposures even much lower than that are harmful to your health. So these limit, when I point out these limits, it is because of the absurdity of the whole thing that they’re designing these devices that they cannot even say that if you use them the way they’re designed to be used, you cannot even stay within federal limits. But also, to be clear, these federal limits are vastly insufficient to protect our health. So getting back to the solutions here, and by the way, everything I am saying you can find documented online and on my website.

Sharon Stills, ND

I’m just like, I just need a minute.

R Blank

Yes.

Sharon Stills, ND

Because I did not know that and that is, mind blowing like that just seems so criminal to me. And no one reads the manuals. I tossed that right into the recycling as well.

R Blank

It gets worse than that, right? Because when I said, , Apple says if you hold it right up against your head, you can get more of this radiation than the government says should be allowed. Now, who actually tests the iPhone to make sure that Apple is telling the truth? And the answer is Apple, right? All of these when people hear that, in the United States, it is a little different. Agencies in different countries do this right. But in the United States, it is an entity called the FCC, or Federal Communications Commission. And that is who determines these radiation regulations. When people hear that there’s a government agency that regulates cell phone radiation, they sort of they do not think it through, but they implicitly imagine, Well, that means the government is testing this stuff, and it is not right. The way the laws are written, it is up to these manufacturers to test these devices themselves and then report the results to the government. And so that ends up in the United States. It is rarely second-guessed, but a few years back there, the government actually did test about in France about 300 cell phone models, and 90% of them emitted more radiation than the manufacturers claim they did. And several models actually exceeded the radiation limits and had to be recalled from the market.

With all of these things, just caveat emptor: it is the whole gist here; the regulations are written to a level that barely exists; it is good that those limits exist. Do not get me wrong; the fact that these federal radiation regulations exist at all is definitely good. But those limits are insufficient to protect us. And then there’s no one. It is the fox guarding the hen house. All of these manufacturers get to test this stuff for themselves and then kind of self-report. It is all on the honor system. So with all of it and even given all of that, you have companies saying, Well, do not hold it right against your head or do not put it right in your pocket, because if you do, you are going to exceed these rather conservative radiation regulations anyway. So the first thing we talked about was not holding the phone directly against your head. The second, for the same exact reason, is never to carry your phone in your pocket or your bra, which I see many women doing, particularly seems particularly to happen at the gym, but not only at the gym. And it is the same reason that when you are holding it against your head, it is a little bit worse because, A: there’s some important stuff up there. And so you do not want to, that stuff that you do want to protect more than maybe some other parts of your body, but two, also because when you are holding it up against your head, odds are you are actively on a call. And when you are actively on a call, your phone is generally emitting more radiation than when it is more or less on standby when it is waiting for a call. 

Sharon Stills, ND

So can we just. I just want to stop you for a second. No, because we haven’t really talked about it. And I know we are talking about solutions which are important, but we haven’t talked about for the ladies. Like, why this? What is it doing? Because you are talking about menopause, and there’s a reason we are having this conversation. So could you. Because I think it is sometimes shocking all the implications that EMFs have on the health front.

R Blank

I appreciate you wrangling that in a bit. Yes. So this is how, before I speak directly to your audience, this is how I tend to explain this when asked a question like this, which is the picture that science is painting for us is that EMF exposure, that is, exposure to the type of radiation from a cell phone, even at levels far below that, what are legally allowed, appears to impact almost every single biological system or mechanism where we investigate. So what that means is we see, I mean, what gets a lot of coverage because it is, understandably, because it is terrifying is brain tumors, but it is not just, Oh, by the way, a lot of people do not realize this in Italy. It is now a legal precedent upheld by multiple courts that cell phones cause brain tumors. And we are seeing it move through the courts in other countries as well. But it is not just right brain tumors. It is any kind of tumor.

We see growing data for thyroid cancer. There’s lymphoma, leukemia, increasing signs of links to colorectal cancer, which is particularly relevant when we are talking about carrying your phone in your pocket. But it is, again, not just tumors. It also gets into endocrine system function, which is something I do want to talk to you and your audience about. But one that is very well examined at this point is melatonin production, which impacts our circadian rhythm, which impacts our sleep quality, which then has cascading effects throughout our health. We see it with neural links to neurodegenerative diseases and neurological disorders, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. We see increasing links to anxiety and depression. We see links to formation of birth defects, which when people hear birth defects, it conjures certain images. But I am talking about even in rates of asthma in teens who were exposed in utero when their mothers were pregnant with them.

Again, these are just some of the examples I am kind of cherry-picking to show how wide-ranging the impacts are that science is demonstrating. But again, I do not want to focus on this one part too much. But just to reiterate, everything I just said was with humans, right? We see similar sorts of outcomes and impacts when we are looking at impacts on wildlife, including birds and insects. There are strong indications of links to colony collapse disorder among bees. Any species that uses magnetoception for navigation, that is, relies on the Earth’s own magnetic field in order to know how to navigate, is quite significantly disrupted by these forces. We see just on seed germination and the ability for seeds to be able to grow into adult plants is impacted by exposure to radiation from a Wi-Fi router. So we see all of these and more impacts on human health now when it comes to the proximity, and I want to be clear: what I was just talking about is all sorts of EMF. So that would be cell phones, wi-fi, power lines, and microwave ovens. It would be all of this sort of EMF. And we are talking about the dangers of cell phones in particular. There are certain areas of disease that I prefer to focus on. So one of them, like I just mentioned, was melatonin production. Again, because sleep is, well, a because this is very well studied at this point. In fact, blue light is a form of EMF, and it is essentially universally accepted now that blue light exposure disrupts your circadian rhythm. And the reason that this is so damaging is you need to sleep just for your body to deal with the world as it is. It needs to regenerate; you need to re-energize; you need to revitalize. You need to have good sleep in order to have a chance at decent health. And these exposures are negatively impacting our sleep. And there is what is increasingly recognized as an epidemic of poor sleep in our society. But I also wanted to mention that because that is just one example of EMFs impact on the endocrine system, which I believe is very relevant to the message of your summit and to the interests of your audience. Because the endocrine system is what produces and regulates hormone levels in the body, and it is responsible for things.

I mean, I feel a little silly telling you any of this, but, , for our metabolism and for our anxiety and depression levels and for our sexual health and for so many other things. And we are seeing links between EMF exposure and multiple functions of the endocrine system and thus multiple hormonal levels of hormones, different types of hormones in our body and, and the EMF is, is, is just throwing a lot of this stuff off. And again, when there’s one area of one aspect of EMF, which I talk about a lot, but I did not talk about here. But I do want to say quickly, the reason that that phone in your pocket or the phone against your head is so important to worry about as opposed toI mean, I feel a little silly telling you any of this, but for our metabolism, for our anxiety and depression levels, for our sexual health, and for so many other things. We are seeing links between EMF exposure and multiple functions of the endocrine system and thus multiple hormonal levels of hormones, different types of hormones in our body, and the EMF is just throwing a lot of this stuff off. And again, when there’s one area of one aspect of EMF, which I talk about a lot but did not talk about here. But I do want to say quickly that the reason that that phone in your pocket or the phone against your head is so important to worry about as opposed to that cell tower down the block or a mile away or your neighbor’s WIFI is because the power of EMF radiation diminishes exponentially with distance. 

What that means is that if you have a phone like I have here and you have it one inch away from your body and then you double that, right now it is two inches away from your body. The power of your exposure to that radiation has been cut by 75%. Then, if you go to four inches, you cut it by another 75%, and so on and so on. Now, conversely, when it is right up against your body, as it would be when you are holding it against your head, in your pocket, or in your bra, you are getting the maximum possible dose of radiation that this device can possibly give you. That is why the phone in the pocket, the bra, or against the head. That is an area where it is like the number one thing that I tell people is to keep the phones away from you as far away from you as possible, but definitely not on your not on your person. that cell tower down the block or a mile away or your neighbors. WI fi is because the power of EMF radiation diminishes exponentially with distance. And so what that means is if you have a phone like I have here and you have it one inch away from your body, and then you double that right now it is two inches away from your body. The power of your exposure to that radiation has been cut by 75%. And then if you go to four inches, you cut it by another 75% and so on and so on. Now, conversely, when it is right up against your body as it would be when you are holding it against your head or it is in your pocket or in your bra, you are getting the maximum possible dose of radiation that this device can possibly give you. And that is why it is the phone in the pocket, the bra or against the head. That is an area where it is like the number one thing that I tell people is, is keep the phones away from you as far away from you as possible, but definitely not on your not on your person. 

That was hormones. Another one that might be of interest to your audience, and I am going to guess that you might not know this either; I did not know this until recently. We did not cover it in Overpowered, but I was being interviewed on a podcast recently by a women’s health physical trainer, and she asked if I knew anything about EMF cell phones and bone density, and I said, No, actually I did not. So I went out afterwards. I went in and did a little research on it, and got back in touch with her. It turns out that there are some pretty strong connections between EMF exposure and bone density. On the one hand, there are certain physical therapies that use EMF in order to stimulate bone density. There are these Pulsed PEMF treatments that are also used in other forms of physical therapy. But there are certain ones that are calibrated very precisely that have been shown to result in increased bone density or improved bone density. So you might be thinking, Well, I do want to improve bone density. Maybe I should carry the phone in my pocket. But the catch there is that those are very precisely calibrated doses. 

What that shows is that there is definitely a cause-and-effect relationship between EMF and bone density because you cannot have the PEMF treatment work if there’s no correlation there. So what happens if you do not have a precisely calibrated dose but have water that is effectively erratic with randomized doses? Could that harm bone density? And there are multiple studies now that show that, in fact, yes, these calibrated EMF exposures can have a significant, statistically significant negative impact on bone density. So right off the bat, before you even get to things like, Well, brain tumors really worry me, and there’s all these other things that are just said to kind of worry me before we even get to that whole kind of hot a whole collection of health concerns around EMF. There are those two right hormones, endocrine system function, and hormone levels and bone density, which are, I think, directly relevant to the subject matter of the summit that you are running.

Sharon Stills, ND

Yes. The whole idea, ladies, is just that this is a time to kind of take stock of everything. Our hormones are affected not only by what we eat or how we poop or do not poop, but they’re affected by a lot of unseen forces and EMFs, which we love. EMF, that is a very good therapy. But EMFs are, and I always talk about them as we are talking about our toxic loads, and we talk about mercury and pesticides, but there’s the unseen. And so, EMFs—we do not see them. We just see our phone with beautiful pictures of our family or Facebook feeds. We do not see the EMFs that are coming at us. And as you just heard our say, they’re they’re doing damage from bones to melatonin imbalances to the endocrine system as a whole towards I mean, if you are putting your phone in your breasts, which are filled with lymphatic tissue, and what’s happening there, you are stowing down the flow, you could potentially be contributing to tumor development. There are just so many factors, and we are giving you a little sampling of them. If you just want to take from this and say, Okay, I need to know what I need to do and take it at that, that’s great. You could go off and do a ton of research. You can look at our podcast and stuff and read the book and really dove in and blow your mind even more so. So I think we’ve clearly made the connection, specifically about the phone, and that is kind of crazy, as you are saying, that I am like pushing my phone back, that I am like, Get away, I get away. So, where do you carry your phone? Talk about airplane mode; talk about best practices. How can we best interact with our cell phones? 

R Blank

So, where do I carry my phone? Well, okay. If I am just talking to somebody and I say, Do not carry your phone in your pocket or your bra, they say, Well, where am I going to carry it? Then I say, Okay, well, then put it into airplane mode. If you are going to carry, right? So when you put your phone into airplane mode, as long as you are fully putting it into airplane mode, because your phone and this is also a little bit in the weeds, but it is important for everyone to understand that your phone is not just one source of EMF; your phone is multiple sources of EMF. There’s the cell phone, there’s the Wi-Fi, there’s the Bluetooth, and there’s the NFC near-field communication. That is what they use for Apple Pay and Google Pay. There are some, and depending on your phone, there might be others. And so, for instance, it is possible to turn off the phone but keep Wi-Fi on, where it is possible to turn off Wi-Fi but have Bluetooth on. But if you turn it fully into airplane mode, then it effectively eliminates all of the EMF emissions from the device. And I am very careful to say effectively because there’s still going to be some very, very small levels coming just from the fact that the battery is running. 

But it is so minuscule compared to what we are talking about from the cell phone connection or from the wifi card, or any of this stuff. So put it into airplane mode. Now, that means you will not be able to get calls or texts, or any of those other notifications, but there are things that will still work. For instance, if you have an alarm set, those will work. If you have calendar reminders, those will still work. If you have podcasts downloaded to your phone, you can still play those. There are a whole bunch of things that will still work, but you will not be able to get calls or messages while you are in airplane mode. Similarly, never hold the phone up against your head. So what do you do instead? You either use a speaker phone or you use a wired headset. Not these AirPods or similar Bluetooth headphones, because those are effectively the same as WiFi radiation and are right in both ear canals, right near the brain. If you ask me how I carry my phone, I use my own products. So now, a lot of the time, I’ll use airplane mode. But there are times where, and a lot of my customers are the same way where they cannot just keep their phone in airplane mode all day because they need to be able to get the call or whatever other dependents they have. And so that is where my pouches and bags come into play. So I have the phone pouch, the pouch deluxe, and the sling bag, and actually there’s a whole bunch; I do not need to name them all. My favorite is the sling bag, but there are a whole bunch of products that I make that are designed to make it safer to carry your phone. And with these uses—EMF, radiation shielding, and the back of and I guess I forgot I always forget to have one. It is in the other room. I always forget to have my visual aids when I am being interviewed. 

But the back of the product, the part that sits between you and your phone that has radiation shielding, but the front doesn’t. I put my phone in the sling bag, I throw the sling bag around my back, and I just start walking. And so because the part between the phone and my body is shielded, it is deflecting radiation away from my body. But because the other side is not shielded, the phone can still send and receive signals. Now, I want to be clear. The best solution is not is to keep it in airplane mode or just not have it anywhere near your body. And my products kind of fill in that gap for, Yes, we know that is the best solution. But I still need to carry my phone. It still needs to be on. So that is where products like mine come into play.

Sharon Stills, ND

So when you are talking on your phone, if you have it on speaker, how far away for?

R Blank

Well, with all of these things, you want to be as far away as possible. But as I was pointing out, as I was.

Sharon Stills, ND

If I have my phone on speaker, I am like, is that far enough away or is that still.

R Blank

So at this point, you are getting a little bit into a theological debate, and it really depends on who you ask. My answer to these types of questions is that holding it here is way better than holding it here, which is way better than holding it here. So, the further you are you can do it and the further you are comfortable holding it, the better off you’ll be. But even getting it to here is way better than here. As I was telling you before, if you move from one inch to two inches, the difference you are making is massive. They say, for instance, that we did not get into this because we are limited on time. But another thing that I advise people is not to sleep with their phones in their bedrooms. 

Sharon Stills, ND

About on airplane mode?

R Blank

Well, airplane mode, yes. So airplane mode is fine. But then people ask me, Well, what do I need to keep my phone on at night for work or for whatever emergency calls? How far away should I keep it? And to my understanding, the sort of consensus answer to that is at least six feet away from your body. When it comes to sleeping at night, you want to keep it at least six feet away from your body. But my approach to this, when I am kind of advocating, when I am making these suggestions to people, is to just create more distance. So whatever you are comfortable doing as long as it is further away, right? So create as much distance as you are comfortable doing for your lifestyle, and you’ll be doing yourself a favor. Do not stress, like, Oh, it is only five and a half feet away, not six feet away. At that point, you are not doing yourself any favors. So the more distance you are comfortable creating, the lower your exposure will be, and thus the lower your cumulative health risk will be from all of these sources. Keeping in mind that you are not going to hit, there is no way to hit a zero EMF lifestyle. Just like if you are participating in society, there’s essentially no way to avoid air pollution, and there’s increasingly no way to avoid microplastics. And increasingly, we are avoiding all of these things that we know are toxic and that we should avoid. The goal is not to get to zero EMF. The goal is to have less EMF. And it is your relationship with your phone that is one where you can have the biggest impact because of how much radiation you are exposed to from it and because of how much you control that relationship. Even though maybe Apple and Facebook do not want you to realize that.

Sharon Stills, ND

So I know we are running out of time and I am like, shoot, I need to talk to you for like 8 hours.

R Blank

Yes.

Sharon Stills, ND

I do. So, all right. So quit your phone. Hopefully, I put my phone in airplane mode every night. So it is on my nightstand. But it is an airplane mode because I figure,  what, if I am sleeping, then I do not need to know who’s calling or texting or.

R Blank

Exactly right.

Sharon Stills, ND

I’ll find out when I wake up. But so and then speaking with it on speaker.

R Blank

Or wired headset.

Sharon Stills, ND

Wired headset use. What do you mean by wired headset. Is that something.

R Blank

That. Yes, it is another thing I should have had here handy. So buy a wired headset. I am talking about any like a headset that you plug into your phone like it works off of wires. Not the wireless headsets like the AirPods, but, these actually when iPhones first came out, these were standard, right? They came with every.

Sharon Stills, ND

But don’t those kind of  give you too?

R Blank

So, okay. Yes, they do. But it is so much less than by holding the phone up to your head that I still encourage people to use them. But in response to your point, that is why we make anti-radiation headsets, often called Air Tubes. And so shield your body has air tubes, and those are those cut off the radiation from flowing from your phone to your head. But even if you do not invest in air tubes, SYP Air Tubes, or anything like it, it is still way safer to use a wired headset than to hold a phone up to your head or to use Bluetooth headsets.

Sharon Stills, ND

Well, I am going to say you have to invest in the air tubes or use it on speakers, because personally, I used to only wear headsets. I just knew I shouldn’t be holding this thing up to my head. But I would. And I am on my phone a lot with work and so forth. And I used to have this chronic swelling, lymphatic congestion, and ear pain. And one day I was in the shower, and I just got this intuitive hit: Oh my God, this is from your headset. So I took off the headset, and within 48 hours, it all went away and it never came back. 

R Blank

Wow. That is definitely a strong indicator. Yes. 

Sharon Stills, ND

So, Air Tube or Air Luge fan of speakers, and now I am going to play with how far away I can have my phone? And still, people hear me, and I hear them. Yes, maybe, like the air tubes. So when I go into a store, if I am talking to someone, I am like, got to go. I am in the store. I do not want to be rude. Call you later because I will not put the phone to my head. But maybe if I had a pair of those tubes, I could try that. But I want to ask because another big place, we have a relationship with our phone is in our car. And if you could just speak to some best practices there, because it is my unfortunate understanding that you are getting like super duper radiated when you are talking in your car,

R Blank

Yes, well, unfortunately, it is not just when you are talking. And I mean, it all depends on what kind of car you have. So there are a few issues there. One is whenever you are moving late, so let’s say you are not in a car, you are in a bus, or you are in a train, your phone is going to be emitting more radiation just to maintain the signal because it is constantly having to find new towers to communicate with. So whenever you are moving, and I do not mean walking, but whenever you are moving in a vehicle, your phone to maintain a connection would be emitting more radiation. There are a whole lot of reasons why you shouldn’t be on your phone in your car. This is just one of them. Now, when you start talking about actual EMF exposure considerations in cars, I do not have very positive or uplifting news for you. This is one of because this is one of those areas of life that is essentially and entirely unregulated from an EMF perspective.

So I challenge you or any of your listeners to go out and find me the law that tells me; how much radiation I am allowed to be exposed to by my new Tesla. Because, as far as I have been able to tell from years of looking into it, that law does not exist. And increasingly with with these cars and, Tesla’s, in some sense, is an easy punching bag because of just how much technology is in that car. But I rented a Buick last year, not an electric Buick. The levels were crazy. And it is because it has Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and all of these things going off the sides, too, for collision detection. And this to me was very enlightening because I was like, Well, I’ve never had this kind of experience in a car before. I am going to try this Bluetooth connection and see if it helps me because that was a rental. I was in a foreign city. I was like, Let me navigate with it, and so forth. And it forced the wifi on my phone just as I was connecting over Bluetooth, and it took control of my phone and activated Wi-Fi. I looked into it because it gets better performance if it has both Bluetooth and Wi-Fi working. But it did not ask me. It just did it. 

And so this is increasingly how this stuff is engineered. Now, there’s almost no way that you can protect yourself from those sources because the shielding without going to just take with it because the explanation would take a very long time. Just take my unfortunately, take my word for it, which is that it is very, almost impossible to actually protect yourself against EMF exposure from a car that is exposing you to this stuff. And so the solution there, at least from my perspective, is to get as low-tech a car as you can and to not use your phone while you are driving. And I know that that is maybe not quite as satisfactory as some of the useful, actionable tips I had on the cell should be.

Sharon Stills, ND

And it should even be an airplane mode, right? Like it shouldn’t be on. It should be in airplane mode when you are driving.

R Blank

Yes. I mean, the only reason I would say it shouldn’t be is if you are actually using it for navigation. And I’ll do that too. I’ll try. I’ll keep the phone on the passenger seat, or whatever it is, and just have it speak directions at me because I have a super low-tech car. I do not have it. It cannot touch me because I do not have navigation. And it is not an old car. I just got a really low-tech car, and in fact, it had a Bluetooth radio. It was broken into, and someone stole the radio. And I just did not replace it because it was the one piece of EMF.

Sharon Stills, ND

Yes, keep it. So this is where I so, moment of truth from the doctor here. That is where I have to work on it because I am like, I get in my phone, my car, and I am like, Oh, let me catch up with friends. And I call, and I am always on the phone in my car. And so that is my next step, because we cannot always do everything all at once. We forget it. Sometimes change.

R Blank

Yes, exactly.

Sharon Stills, ND

Do little and keep doing it. And so, .

R Blank

that is the right approach.

Sharon Stills, ND

Airplane, now I am like, Okay, I’ve got to stop talking to people while I am driving.  Well, I could talk to you all day about this, but we are way out of time. So we will bring more to you, because this conversation is just beginning. And it is a really important one. We are laughing and giggling a little, but it is a really important one. It is something that I am really passionate about that as you are going through your hormonal journey, and as we know, menopause is just this transition, not a disease. And it is the second sacred act. And I plan on you having a third one, too. So we’ve got a lot of life left in us, and we want to do all that we can. Just like R said, we are not going to get rid of every single exposure while we are alive. And so it is a matter of learning how to dance, how to relate, how to reduce what we cannot control, say, what’s going on in our neighbor’s house, but what can we control in our own? What can we reduce, and how? So even if I start by , if I take a half-hour drive every day and I only talk for 10 minutes and the other 20, I can wean myself down, but what can we do that we have control over? So I really appreciate you and all that you offer. Where can people learn more and find out about these wonderful products?

R Blank

Yes, thank you. So the website is shieldyourbody.com, that shield your body all one word. And we also have a guide that I wrote that your summit attendees can download right through the summit portal, and it is all about the topic we were talking about today, which is carrying your phone and the science behind it. And a lot of these studies, which, as I say in passing, oh, it is linked to this, it is linked to that. The guide not only explains all of this, but it also has links to the citations and studies, and so forth. And it includes a coupon. Good for my entire catalog. So get the guide. Where do you carry your phone guide and visit us at shieldyourbody.com.

Sharon Stills, ND

Awesome. That was like selfish for me. I am like, I want to read the guide. Yes, make that guide. We are like, I am going to be reading it with you ladies because this is really important stuff. And it is something I think when we read it and we see a study and then it sticks with us rather than, Oh, here’s their bad, and then we really need some more details around this. So I appreciate you. I appreciate the work you are doing.

R Blank

Same. Thank you so much. It’s my pleasure, yes.

Sharon Stills, ND

Yes. Our connection from you. And thank you so much for being a part of the summit because part of why I host the Menopause Summit is to bring in all these pieces. No one says, Oh, I am going through menopause. What am I ever going to do about my EMF exposure? But that is the conversation I want to be having.

R Blank

So I really appreciate you making the space for that. I really do. that is super important.

Sharon Stills, ND

Important thing to be thinking about. So thanks everyone for being here. So pick one thing, one thing and commit to it. Now that we talked about and that alone is going to just start you on your journey of reducing your EMF. So thank you for being here and to be continued and we’ll be back soon.