EMFs, Electrosmog & How Wireless Radiation Impacts Your Health

R Blank [00:00:00]:
Just because something doesn’t kill you instantly doesn’t mean it’s not doing harm.

Nick Urban [00:00:05]:
You’re listening to High Performance Longevity. The show exploring a better path to optimal health for those daring to live as an outlier in a world of averages. I’m your host, Nick Urban, bioharmonizer, performance coach, and lifelong student of both modern science and ancestral wisdom. Each week we decode the tools, tactics, and timeless principles to help you optimize your mind, body and performance span. Things you won’t find on Google or in your AI tool of choice. From cutting edge biohacks to grounded lifestyle practices, you’ll walk away with actionable insights to look, feel and perform at your best across all of life’s domains. R welcome back to the podcast.

R Blank [00:00:56]:
Hey, man, great to talk to you again. It’s been a minute.

Nick Urban [00:00:59]:
Yeah, it’s been a couple years. You were here back on episode 62. So if you guys want to go back and check out the original episode we recorded together, I think it was the first time I ever mentioned electro smog or non native electromagnetic fields on the podcast, and you were the perfect person to break it down.

R Blank [00:01:17]:
Thank you. I appreciate it. And I appreciate the opportunity to come back and talk about it more.

Nick Urban [00:01:22]:
Yeah. So let’s dig right in to that very point. For people who didn’t tune into episode number 62. What are electromagnetic fields?

R Blank [00:01:33]:
So, electromagnetic fields. So a lot of your listeners have probably heard the term emf, which stands for electromagnetic fields. It’s also sometimes called EMR or electromagnetic radiation. And it’s a form of energy that’s created by a combination of electrical and magnetic forces. And there’s different types of emf. And what makes them different is their frequency or how quickly they vibrate. And the kind that everyone is familiar with, and it’s the kind that all life on Earth was exposed to for billions of years is natural light. Right.

R Blank [00:02:14]:
So all visible light is a form of emf. And it is the only form of EMF that humans can see. Now, there’s forms of EMF with more energy than visible light, and they have so much energy that they can knock electrons loose from the cells in your body. And that’s super, super harmful stuff, even in really, really low doses. And because they can knock electrons loose, they’re called ionizing forms of emf. And they include things like X rays and gamma rays. And because they’re so damaging, that’s why when you get a dental X ray, they cover you in lead and leave the room. Right.

R Blank [00:02:52]:
Because it serves a purpose. We Want X rays, if we need X rays, but you want to minimize your exposure to that stuff as much as possible. Then there’s forms of EMF with less energy than visible light. And because they have less energy, they don’t ionize your cells. So these are called non ionizing forms of EMF radiation. And when we’re talking about the EMF issue, we’re talking about non ionizing forms of emf, things like radio frequency and microwave and ELF or extremely low frequency. And these are the kinds that, that come from human made technology. And for many, many, many, many years it was assumed that these forms of EMF radiation were biologically inert.

R Blank [00:03:44]:
That is, they didn’t impact life. And what now over a century, literally over 100 years of documented, scientific, peer reviewed research is showing is that that assumption was very, very wrong. And that these types of human made electromagnetic fields do impact negatively biological life, even at very, very, very low levels of power.

Nick Urban [00:04:16]:
How is it that we got the science so wrong if for a while it was assumed that these have no biological effects? But then again now we’re seeing in a lot of research that they do.

R Blank [00:04:28]:
Yeah, well, because a lot of the. Well first off, there was a lot less of this stuff in the atmosphere. Right. I mean, so when we talk about these forms of emf, it’s where do they come from? They come from anything communicating wirelessly. So that includes radio, television, radar, but now also obviously cell phones, cordless phones, WI fi, Bluetooth. This stuff wasn’t prevalent in the environment really until the past quarter century, maybe 30 years. Even when radio was taking off, it just wasn’t that prevalent. And then the other source is what I mentioned before, ELF or extremely low frequency, that comes off of anything that runs on power.

R Blank [00:05:17]:
So that comes off of power lines and appliances and the types of effects. Right. So when you get too much ionizing radiation, you can die very, very quickly and the mechanisms are immediately visible and obvious. A lot of what we’re talking about when it comes to these non ionizing exposures either are the types of diseases that take decades to form and manifest, or the types of biological responses that are in the short term subtle and you have to really look for them in order to find them.

Nick Urban [00:05:59]:
Yeah. One of the misconceptions that I think you clarified last time is that just because some of these conditions take years or decades to manifest, it doesn’t mean that these exposures are not having negative impacts in the short term. Still.

R Blank [00:06:13]:
Yes, that’s exactly right. Yeah. So just because something doesn’t kill you instantly doesn’t mean it’s not doing harm.

Nick Urban [00:06:19]:
What are some of the examples of like the things that, like the consequences of short term exposure? For example, like would I have impaired blood glucose, like fluctuations throughout the day or a greater blood glucose deviations? Would I have more brain fog? Like, what would I notice if I was looking for it?

R Blank [00:06:36]:
Well, let me start before I get into the symptoms, which I think that was a great question. We can talk about the biological mechanisms that we do now know about from short term exposures. One of the ones that I consider most stark is a set of findings originally demonstrated by doctors Lai and Singh in the 1990s, but which have since been replicated many, many, many times at different labs around the world. And what they showed, because it’s the 90s, they were talking about cordless phones, but very similar to cell phones, is that even short term exposures, we’re talking like an hour in that range, led to significant increase in DNA strand breaks. Right. So when DNA is formed up of, you know, two strands and of information that that’s how your body knows what your body is, is all the information on those strands. And so when those break, that’s pretty bad. If both of them break, the cell will kill itself.

R Blank [00:07:44]:
But if only one of them breaks, the cell will attempt to recreate that missing strand from the mirror image in the other strand. And that is a process by which mutations occur. And mutations occur are the mechanism by which diseases form because those mutations then spread right as the cell divides and replicates. And it’s the mutations spread throughout your body.

Nick Urban [00:08:12]:
And so yeah, the ionizing radiation from say an X ray that would cause a double stranded break where it’s actually completely destroying the DNA. And then in labs, I think they actually even use non ionizing radiation to cause that single strand break so that they can get mutations and study what happens as those mutations occur.

R Blank [00:08:33]:
I, oh, I, I wasn’t aware of that, but I. It makes sense because we know that that happens as a result.

Nick Urban [00:08:41]:
Then also when you activate the DNA repair mechanisms like the PARP enzymes, you’re also depleting resources from other places in the body, such as you’re bringing NAD levels down. So if anyone’s interested in the longevity field, NAD plus is considered like a really important vital coenzyme in the body for energy, longevity, all types of things. One of the first places to start, which dovetails nicely into the recommendations in your awesome book that I have right here in front of me, is behavior change. Can you fix the leaks? The things that are consuming unnecessary resources and then your NAD levels stay higher and your body works better.

R Blank [00:09:17]:
And just one more other thing that I wanted to note about that research is they showed that the elevated rates of strand breaks continued for hours after the exposure. So not only did the exposure itself lead to this type of genetic damage, that that increased rate of damage continued for hours following the exposure. A second set of studies I’d like to highlight directly influence oxidative stress. So it has been increasingly well documented that exposure to these types of electromagnetic fields alters the way that the voltage gated calcium channels in the cell function and this leads to calcium buildup in the cells, which leads directly to measurable oxidative increased levels of oxidative stress in the body when once again, oxidative stress being a key mechanism by which many, many forms of negative health effects are known to emerge. So those are two examples of the types of mechanisms from short term exposure to these non ionizing forms of EMF that are demonstrable, measurable, repeatable and widely accepted. Now, now getting to your, the, the initial question, how do these symptoms manifest? They can manifest in a variety of ways and part of the reason why that’s true is because. Right. The things we just talked about, right, DNA and oxidative stress in the cells, these are mechanisms that impact virtually every cell in your body, which means they impact every biological system in your body.

R Blank [00:11:08]:
So it depends on what your exposure was, what part of your body it was in, how long was it, how’s your health overall? How resilient are you to these types of forces to begin with? Because the healthier you are, I mean literally the healthier you are, so you’ll be more resilient to damage from, from these forces. But yes, brain fog is a common one. A very well documented one is tinnitus or tinnitus. I never know how to say that. But ringing in the earth. That was first demonstrated by US scientists in the 1960s who were working for the Navy who were documenting these symptoms in radar operators. And it’s called the fray effect. But it was also demonstrated by Soviet military studies going back even further in time into World War II.

R Blank [00:12:01]:
And the military did a lot of this research back in the 1940s and 50s when these technologies were being initially deployed there. There are a class of people who, who categorize themselves as electrically sensitive. In the book I refer to them as having electro hypersensitivity or ehs, but it goes by other terms. Wi fi sickness. You might have seen it in the news, referred to as Havana Syndrome. There’s a lot of names by which this, this, this set of, of symptoms go by, but they definitely include tinnitus, brain fog, skin rashes, joint pain, and it, it really can manifest across the spectrum other symptoms that people can notice in the short term and sometimes it’s hard to notice them. Sometimes the way you need to notice them is by detoxing, right? So going to a place with really low levels of EMF and seeing what in your body changes. But anxiety, depression and sleep deprivation or sleep disruption are three areas where these short term exposures can definitely manifest.

R Blank [00:13:24]:
And again, there’s a wide variety of these types of symptoms that emerge from these immediate and short term exposures to these forces, which a lot of people just won’t necessarily link to an EMF exposure. I mean, just as an example, rates of anxiety are very, very high in society. And a lot of people who have anxiety aren’t going to think it’s because I carry my phone in my pocket. There’s one more, by the way, this is really stark. A lot of people maybe don’t care quite so much about this, but is sperm motility count and mobility, right? So sperm health. And this is because in, in biological males, the gonads are outside of the body. So there’s literally no protective shielding that your body is created for these things. Plus they only have one strand of DNA, Right? Sperm only has one strand of DNA, so if you’re breaking it, it’s gonna die.

R Blank [00:14:31]:
There’s no backup strand there. And so men who carry their phones in their pockets or who use their laptops in their laps have basically immediately demonstrable drops in sperm quantity and quality. And that is because of the things we just talked about, but also because sperm is generated every, every day. You’re regenerating it totally every 24 hours. And so not only can you measure the impact of carrying your phone in your pocket in your sperm count, you can literally measure the impact of stopping carrying your phone in your pocket the next day. And so again, this is high quality, peer reviewed research. Some of this work that I remember offhand is out of Kaiser Permanente, very well respected research laboratory. So this is, this is all documented, peer reviewed, high quality published science that I’m referring to when I’m talking about these types of symptoms.

Nick Urban [00:15:35]:
Years ago, I remember reading that exposure to these EMFs can increase the permeability of certain barriers throughout the body. Yeah, such as the blood brain barrier, the blood testes barrier, the blood gut barrier, a bunch of different barriers. Have you come across that.

R Blank [00:15:50]:
Yeah. So the one I’m most familiar with is the leakage of the blood brain barrier, but actually was just last week someone was telling me that it was also the leakage of the blood gut barrier, which I’d never actually known or heard before. I mean, there’s. So it. This stuff really impact. It sounds extreme to say it. This stuff impacts essentially every biological system where we look for those impacts. And so it’s really, really basically impossible to keep a comprehensive list of everything that has been documented in my head, especially the older I get and the more EMF I’m exposed to.

R Blank [00:16:29]:
But the, the science on the leakage of the blood brain barrier goes back decades and again, high quality, peer reviewed, replicated, published. And that is important. And many of your listeners may know this because of the types of people they are and what they’re interested in. I had to learn it when I was being introduced to this. When the blood brain barrier becomes more porous, that creates opportunities for things to get in your brain that should not be in your brain, such as viruses and bacteria. And so exposure to these types. And when I say these types of forces in general, I’m talking about things like cell phone radiation and WI fi radiation, although there are other sets of studies that specifically talk about the extremely low frequency stuff, the stuff that comes off of power lines and appliances. But when we’re talking like, oh, these forces generally, I’m referring to the radio frequency and microwave.

Nick Urban [00:17:34]:
Yeah. And it’s also not just viruses and bacteria, but it’s also heavy metals. And in certain circumstances, like other molecules and substances, like there are some technologies and things people do to temporarily make the blood brain barrier more permeable. So you can get drugs into the brain.

R Blank [00:17:49]:
Yeah, right.

Nick Urban [00:17:49]:
There’s probably other ways of accomplishing something similar.

R Blank [00:17:52]:
Yeah, no, that’s exactly right. It’s part of certain treatment regimens, specifically because you do want some foreign entity to get access to your brain. But again, that’s an example, and there’s a chapter in Empowered about how EMF technologies are actually used in medicine. And there are specific things. Right. If you really, if you have a specific goal and you understand the biological mechanism and you can finely tune the dose, you can accomplish some pretty amazing things, but by using these forces in medicine. But the types of exposures we’re talking about and that we get in daily life are not finely tuned. They are not precisely dosed.

R Blank [00:18:37]:
They are all over the place. And so they are having all of these unpredictable and largely undesirable biological impacts.

Nick Urban [00:18:45]:
Well, when you mention some of the symptoms people experience, the neurological symptoms, anxiety, that kind of thing, it makes me think that that could be solely due to the increased calcium influx into cells because that’s gonna make the brain and neurons more excitable and have a harder time like quieting down, so to speak. And that’s only one of the mechanisms that we currently are pretty well aware of. There’s probably a bunch out there that we haven’t even fully elucidated yet.

R Blank [00:19:12]:
Yeah, and I’ll also say to, to, to broaden it a little bit. Right, well, actually, let me step back this. Because there’s a broader point here, which is it can be really challenging to do detailed epidemiological studies on this stuff. Right. So, because, so, right. A lot of what I’ve just been talking about is laboratory science, right? You can measure sperm count in a lab, you can measure voltage gated calcium channel performance in a lab, you can measure DNA strand breaks in a lab. You can do that kind of stuff in a lab. But if you’re asking, you know, how much is cell phone use going to increase my chance of dying from a brain tumor? You can’t do that in a lab.

R Blank [00:20:00]:
And that’s where the epidemio, Epidemiological science comes in. And one of the, the real problems here, I mean, any type of epidemiology costs a lot of money, so you need funding for it. But that’s not the real problem here. The real problem is that there are no unexposed populations. Right. So if you want to figure out how. What’s my increased chance of getting a brain tumor from a cell phone? You need to compare people who use cell phones to people who don’t use cell phones and who doesn’t use a cell phone. And then you’re still only looking at the cell phone radiation exposure.

R Blank [00:20:37]:
Meanwhile, they’re walking around, they, they see 20 Wi Fi networks from their neighbors, there’s their near power lines, and so on and so forth. And so essentially there are no unexposed populations that you can use effectively. For the most insightful epidemiological research. There is one book that I would highlight for people because I think they’ll find it very interesting. And this goes back to the extremely low frequency stuff from power lines. There’s a researcher, he’s still alive, Dr. Sam Milam. He’s the one who’s accredited with creating the term dirty electricity.

R Blank [00:21:19]:
What he did is he went around the United States and he analyzed death records. And what he did was, because different parts of the United States were electrified at different periods of time. Right. It’s not like one day America didn’t have electricity, and the next day it did. Right. It took time. It was a process. And so there were periods of time, as this stuff was rolling out, where you could see what people were dying from at one time in one area, and then what they were dying from after the electricity, the electrical grid, was installed there.

R Blank [00:21:59]:
And he documented significant rises in what he terms diseases of civilization. And these include serious neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s and Lou Gehrig’s. They include forms of cancer. A lot of these diseases. The reason he calls it. Calls them diseases of civilization is because they occur in. In modern society at rates we did not see before modern society. And using this really, really insightful form of epidemiological research, he was able to link it directly to the rollout of the power grid and thus the significant increase in exposure of EMF levels in the general population.

R Blank [00:22:48]:
And that book is called Dirty Electricity. I cite it in Empowered. I cite it in Overpowered, which is the book I wrote with my father. It’s very highly regarded, still available, if people are interested in reading that. I think it’s a really powerful illustration.

Nick Urban [00:23:03]:
Interesting. Yeah. In your book, you mentioned that some of the other neurological consequences of exposure can include things like a weakening of the myelin sheath in the brain, which basically slows down impulses going through, and I guess, could slow down thinking and perhaps contribute to some of what we’re seeing there, or also neuronal damage and overall cognitive impairment. So it makes sense to see that, like, degeneration becomes more prevalent with the increased rollout of EMFs.

R Blank [00:23:33]:
Yeah. And I thank you for bringing that up. This. So just for context, for people who maybe didn’t hear our first conversation together in that interview, we talked a lot more about Overpowered, which is the book I wrote with my father. I think it came out in 2013, so a dozen years ago. And my father was Dr. Martin Blank, and he was one of the world’s leading researchers in this area. And so Overpowered was really a deep dive into the science of what we know about EMF health effects and also how that science is manipulated by corporate forces.

R Blank [00:24:10]:
And so that book covers a lot. Empowered is much more aimed at helping people reduce their exposure. And so it. While the entire book is based in science, it is not about the science. But that said, I felt it was important if this happens to be the only book that somebody picks up on this topic to give every Reader, just an appreciation of the scale and scope of negative biological impacts that, that are, that that are being documented by science. And so that’s chapter two of the book. And I think if, if this topic is new to you, you will find it shocking just how even one chapter and one book that is not an in depth deep dive into the science. How many different maladies, diseases and biological effects are, are being documented by the science.

R Blank [00:25:10]:
And you just named a couple of them that. I mean, you know that, that often fall through the cracks in the conversations because when you talk to people, they want to know about brain tumors, they want to know about fertility, they want to know about sleep, but they, they don’t necessarily want to know about the myelin sheath.

Nick Urban [00:25:26]:
Yeah. There’s also other longevity impacts which I learned a long time ago, but I totally forgot about, such as decreased bone density and decrease increased bone loss, DNA damage, like increased incidence of chronic disease. And when I look at like all the different things going on in the body as a result of increased exposure, it seems that like the like increasing levels of oxidative stress are really central to all that. There’s even a theory of aging that has specifically to do with oxidative stress because it’s really straining the body’s resource and causing it to break down and needing to upregulate defense pathways just to compensate. And if you don’t have that, don’t have as much of that, you tend not to age as quickly.

R Blank [00:26:09]:
Yeah. And I thank you also for bringing up chronic disease because this made it into a late edit of the book. So someone goes and buys it on Amazon now they’ll see it. It’s not in the copy that you have because it was feedback that one of my science reviewers gave me and, and she told me about a study commissioned and published by the United States Navy in 1971 that predicted the rise in incidence of chronic disease in the US population based on rates of growth of EMF emitting technology. So they, the, the United States Navy predicted massive growth in incidence of chronic disease 50 plus years ago based on what they were seeing in the EMF science and the rollout of this technology.

Nick Urban [00:27:02]:
Wow.

R Blank [00:27:03]:
And I think after this interview I don’t have at hand, but I can get you that if that study.

Nick Urban [00:27:07]:
Yeah, I was going to ask you for that. Yeah, I read something a long time ago also that it’s that I think it was radar operators. They would be able to like melt chocolate and like cook food by putting it on or near the radar dishes.

R Blank [00:27:22]:
Have you heard of that it doesn’t surprise. I didn’t know that specific anecdote, but I know one’s like it. I mean that’s literally how they, they, they realized that microwave ovens could be a technology was when they saw that if that certain television transmission installations could cook, I mean could really heat stuff. And for your listeners who don’t know, right, your microwave oven uses the same type of radiation to cook your food that your WI fi router uses to send an email or watch something on Netflix. It’s just the difference there is power levels. And so it’ll send the same type of, a microwave oven will use the same type of radiation as a WI fi router, but it will do so with much, much higher power levels. And the types of radar installations that you’re talking about, particularly the military grade ones, that those emit tremendous levels of power. And again, that is why both the US and Soviet militaries were so interested in researching these, these health effects.

R Blank [00:28:32]:
Well, there’s, there’s a, an archive, it’[email protected] and it, it’s, it was assembled by this researcher, Zori Glaser. And what he did is he found thousands and thousands and thousands of studies created by the US and Soviet militaries on these questions in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. I mean it is, it. They, they invested a lot of resources in learning what this stuff does to, to humans.

Nick Urban [00:29:01]:
Yeah, it’s hard to fathom that the science is quote, unsettled, still close, quote. Because it’s, there’s so much out there. If you know how to look and you know, like what you’re looking at and you can parse through it. But for the life person who hasn’t really been able to parse through all that’s out there, it seems very like divisive and very like not clear.

R Blank [00:29:22]:
Yeah, I mean it’s. And so there is a chapter in the book Empowered that tries to explain that to people. Why is that the case? If, if, if, if I’m telling you the truth, which I hand to God I am, then why is it that average consumers out there might think, well, yeah, yeah, I mean, maybe that’s true. But then, I don’t know, it still seems unsettled. And the answer is corporate influence both over the science and over the regulatory agencies. There is a famous paper out of the Harvard School of Ethics that talks about how US regulatory agencies become use the term captured. Right. And again, this is, this is the Harvard Graduate School of, of Ethics.

R Blank [00:30:17]:
This is not just some random person on the Internet, they’re talking about captured agencies. And it’s essentially this revolving door, right? So they bring people in from industry to run the agency that regulates the industry and then that president’s term is over. And so there’s a changing of the guard. And, and those people who had been regulating the industry then go back to high paying jobs in the industry. And so the economic incentives are very, very strong to keep regulation as weak as possible. And the reason I’m talking about it right now is the example agency that they use in this paper where they define what a captured agency is, is the Federal Communications Commission, which is the agency that’s designed to, to regulate cell phone radiation emissions in the United States.

Nick Urban [00:31:09]:
Though if that’s the case, you would think that other countries would have more stringent regulations on these types of devices.

R Blank [00:31:16]:
Some of them do. I don’t memorize them all because there’s a lot, but I do link. So Environmental Health Trust does maintain it’s not 100% up to date because it’s a lot of information to keep up to date. But I believe that China and Russia are examples of countries where exposure regulations are much more stringent for cell phones than they are in the United States.

Nick Urban [00:31:42]:
Interesting.

R Blank [00:31:43]:
And so yeah, I link to a, to a public database that, that does explain all that stuff. Obviously most of the time I’m speaking to Americans and North Americans too. The situation is very similar in Canada. And so that’s, that’s where my knowledge is most current.

Nick Urban [00:31:59]:
Yeah, we’ll get to solutions shortly because I think that’s a really important part of the conversation and your book does an excellent job breaking down what we can about this. Before we do, I want to paint a little more of a picture because I think it’s important for people who don’t really aren’t convinced that this is an issue or something they should put their attention into.

R Blank [00:32:18]:
Yeah, how do we do that?

Nick Urban [00:32:20]:
Well, one other thing I saw in your book is you mentioned other impacts on the body that I wasn’t familiar with or I hadn’t really like stopped and integrated into my knowledge. And that is the impact of EMFs on hormones such as the stress hormone cortisol, then also thyroid hormone, which is the metabolism hormone and energy hormone, and then also the sex hormones like testosterone and estrogen and progesterone and all that type of thing.

R Blank [00:32:47]:
This, the, the, the part of this that I’m most familiar with is the impact and this is one that is very widely accepted and it’s Just not surprising to anybody based on the science, which is that EMF impacts your circadian rhythm. And the reason it impacts. And by the way, just to be clear to anyone who’s listening who might not know this, I mentioned that visible light is a type of EMF and blue light is a type of visible light. And so we all know that blue light exposure really messes with your circadian rhythm. It turns out EMF radiation exposure, even invisible types does the same thing. And that is the result of alterations to your hormones and that is a result of endocrine system disruption. And so you find, it turns out you find similar types of disruption with every hormonal system in your body. And so I definitely, I don’t believe I did a, a super comprehensive job of saying every single one in the book, but there are several that I do mention.

R Blank [00:34:03]:
And so, yes, sex hormones, thyroid is another. Thyroid system alteration and disruption is another one. And by the way, there’s also increasing links to thyroid cancer and tumor formation. But essentially every part of your endocrine system has disruption to every part of your endocrine system has been linked to these types of EMF exposures. And so, yeah, that’s, I mean, that’s pretty fundamental to every biological process. I mean, that’s. Hormones are how your body regulates everything it does.

Nick Urban [00:34:46]:
These days everyone’s hopping on HRT of some form, testosterone replacement or estrogen replacement or something like that. But perhaps a lower hanging fruit place to start beyond just eliminating plastics from the diet and lifestyle is watching over and quantifying EMF exposure. And then perhaps hormone levels naturalize and normalize just from that alone. And then the other therapies, that all have downsides, every therapy has a downside as well. Then they become redundant and, or unnecessary.

R Blank [00:35:18]:
Yeah, that’s entirely possible. I am not here to argue or advocate that EMF is the only environmental toxin in today’s world. I mean, everyone knows that we are living in a world of tremendously growing levels of toxicity from multiple different types of pollution. What I’m here to say is that EMF is certainly one of them. And it is one where you actually have a, a tremendous amount of control. Right? I mean, there’s nothing really we can do, you and I and your listeners can do, about how many cell towers are going up. But there’s a lot that we can do that really impacts what your own personal direct exposure is. And part of that comes down to understanding what causes those exposures and, and, and how those exposures actually play out in real life.

R Blank [00:36:14]:
And Then you can make some really simple changes that have really dramatic impact on, on, on quantifiably on your exposures, but also on your life.

Nick Urban [00:36:28]:
Explore those in your book. I like that you mentioned that instead of just jumping straight to technologies, that behavior change is one of the low hanging fruit to start with. Why is that?

R Blank [00:36:39]:
Yeah, well, so, I mean, I think this is true for, for every form of protection against toxin. EMF is the one I’m talking about here today. But obviously the best way to protect yourself against harm from a toxin is to reduce your exposure to the toxin, right? So the best way to prevent secondhand smoke is to ban smoking. You know, before in a restaurant, for example, before, you know, the second best way maybe would be installing a really powerful air filtration system like you find in the casinos in Vegas. But the best way is to actually not have smoking in the restaurant. So the, the limit, reducing and eliminating the exposures in the first place is where you want to focus. And then what’s left over, right, the other exposures that you are unable to address by avoiding them, those are the ones that you can then approach in terms of evaluating specific products based on your particular lifestyle. But there’s something just as a precursor or a piece of grounding for what the part of the conversation we’re about to have.

R Blank [00:37:56]:
There’s something your listeners really need to be reminded of, which is that the power of EMF radiation diminishes exponentially with distance. Which is why it is so important for you to be aware of and concerned with the cell phone in your pocket. Even as you pick up 20 Wi Fi networks on, on your computer and see five cell towers out your window, it is the cell phone in your pocket, right? Because the exponential drop in power, what that means in practice is if your phone is one inch away from your body and, and you move it two inches away from your body, you have slashed the power of that exposure by 70, 75%. And then if you then move it four inches away from your body, it’s another 75%. And conversely, when it’s directly against your body, you are getting the maximum possible dose of radiation exposure that this highly overpowered device has to give you. And when you’re carrying it in your pocket, not only is it really close to your body, right? So you’re getting that really powerful exposure. Most people don’t do that for just five or ten seconds. If you’re carrying your phone in your pocket, you’re doing it for hours every day.

R Blank [00:39:17]:
And so you’re talking about A really high powered dose for really extended periods of time, basically day in and day out of, throughout your life. And so if you change that one behavior, you are going to make a massive, massive difference in your personal levels of EMF exposure, even if you don’t take any other steps. Like I talk about in the book. The other day I was doing an interview and they asked me what’s one, one thing you want everyone to learn from this book? And the answer is stop carrying your phone pocket.

Nick Urban [00:39:56]:
Yes. Yeah, I always say that that’s a really good place to start before you worry about your WI fi, which is 30, 40, sometimes 50, 60, 70ft away. Like the thing that you’re exposed to, it’s on your body. Maybe not 24, 7, but at least 12, 7 is a good place to start. Especially as the power levels increase on mobile devices constantly over time. That’s a really good place to start. And then once you do that, you can do all the other stuff as well. But start with the thing that is your biggest exposure.

Nick Urban [00:40:27]:
And especially because the damage caused by exposure is cumulative. It’s not just one device here, one device there, and they take their turns doing it. It’s like, no, no, it all adds together some eights and then that’s what’s really affecting you.

R Blank [00:40:41]:
Yeah. So not only is the cell phone closer, and I really appreciate the point you just made, but not only is your cell phone closer, in general, this isn’t going to be universally true, but, but in general, your cell phone is more powerful than the WI fi router. Right. Because the WI fi, depending on the details, right, it’s designed to maybe run 300ft. Right. The, the, it depends how wide an area of your network is, but it, you know, maybe on the order of 300ft. So it’s running enough power in order to, to get communication within 300ft. Your cell phone has enough power to communicate several miles.

R Blank [00:41:24]:
Right. Because if that’s where the closest cell tower happens to be, your phone needs to be able to connect to it. And so that difference is in power emission can be really, really significant. And then keep in mind that the cell phone isn’t just a cell phone anymore. It was back in maybe 2006, but now it is, it is WI fi, it is Bluetooth, it is nfc, which is the near field communication use for Apple Pay and Google Pay. It’s GPS. A lot of iPhones have UWB. And so these are all separate and, and additive exposure, EMF exposures that come on top of the, the cell phone Itself.

Nick Urban [00:42:12]:
Wow. Yeah, I hadn’t even thought about some of the other modes and sensors modalities built into phones beyond just Bluetooth and WI Fi. But you’re right, nfc, I hadn’t even heard of. Uwe.

R Blank [00:42:23]:
Yeah, Yeah, I think it’s a, it’s like a customized proprietary version of Bluetooth or NFC that Apple made to support some specific Apple technology.

Nick Urban [00:42:35]:
So on the cell phone front, while we’re here, it’s a good place to start. And if you can take it out of your pocket, put it on the counter, or not have it touching your body, that’s a good place to start. Then if you have very low signal, that’s actually paradoxically worse for you because then your phone has to try harder to communicate and you put out even more EMFs, like let’s go through like a quick cell phone operation manual if you will, of like how to make damage mitigate the most. I also know that like even on airplane mode, I have a meter right here and I’ve tested many devices with. And my phone, my iPhone 16 still puts out EMF on airplane mode. And that’s because like find my iPhone and other things like that that are always communicating. A phone can be dead. Yeah, you can still use Find my iPhone and Find my friends and that kind of thing.

Nick Urban [00:43:23]:
So there’s obviously still communication coming out of it. It’s a lot lower when it’s on airplane mode, so that’s better, but it’s not, it’s still not perfect.

R Blank [00:43:30]:
Yeah, so I hadn’t, I hadn’t thought about that. So that would be something that you, I mean, obviously Find My phone can be really, really useful if you’ve lost your phone. So maybe you don’t want to disable that, but if you wanted to eliminate that emission, you could disable that particular feature. But it’s also a reminder that all of those sources, those separate sources of EMF in your phone, you can enable and disable on demand. And you can even configure your control lock center screen to have little shortcut buttons that allow you to do this. Right. So even if you need your phone on, maybe you don’t also need wi fi and Bluetooth running at the same time. So you can keep your phone on and disable WI fi and Bluetooth or vice versa.

R Blank [00:44:21]:
Right. You just need WI fi and you don’t need the powerful cell connection. So, and so you. When we talk about airplane mode, it is not an all or nothing proposition. You can approach it based on what it is you need. Actually your phone to do at that moment in time, but airplane mode in general, and you just brought up something that I really should probably update, empowered now with this information. But in general, full airplane mode essentially eliminates the EMF emissions from your device. They’ll still be tiny, tiny, tiny bits because it’s running on power, and anything running on power is going to have some.

R Blank [00:45:01]:
But it’s like, so minuscule that for all intents and purposes, I say airplane mode eliminates the EMF from your phone. But to your point, it turns out there are a lot of devices now where, if, even if you turn off, and I’m not talking about phones here, but if you disable the wireless, it doesn’t actually disable the wireless, it just disables your ability to connect to it, right? So smart TVs are a really big offender of this, right? So if you go into your smart TV and turn off the WI fi because you just need it for TV or maybe you’ve hardwired it or whatever it is, you’ve. You go in and you turn off the WI Fi, it’ll still be transmitting. You just won’t be able to connect to it because you have disabled the WI fi. And so a lot of these products, even if you think you’re disabling the wireless, you’re not actually disabling your exposure. Another one of these offenders is my, my, I’m pointing like you can see it, but my elliptical, which is behind my desk. And so a good practice with these, you can do what I do with my elliptical is unplug it. So I plug it in when I’m using it, obviously, because I need to use it.

R Blank [00:46:22]:
But then when I’m done, I unplug it. And when you unplug it, you’ve definitely killed the wireless and the, the EMF exposures that come from it. But you asked about the phone and I got sidetracked, so I apologize.

Nick Urban [00:46:33]:
Even on that note, too, you can use like a timer, couldn’t you, if you need to, say, turn off your WI fi at night and there’s no setting built in, and that’s not going to damage the device if you put it on a timer?

R Blank [00:46:43]:
That is correct. And we actually get that question a lot right, because there are a lot of Internet service providers out there that tell you never to turn off your WI fi and because doing so can damage the router. A, I don’t believe it, but B, there’s, there’s, there’s really no reason why that should be true. And C, I have dealt with hundreds of thousands of customers over the years and. And none of them have ever told me. I followed your advice and now my router needs to be replaced. So there you. So yes, you can definitely turn off your WI fi at night.

R Blank [00:47:21]:
And if you don’t want to make it part of your own personal regimen, then yes, a light timer, like the kind when you go on vacation, you want your lights to go on at a certain hour and off at a certain hour. You can get the same thing, but just for a WI fi and plug your WI fi router into it and set it onto a calendar.

Nick Urban [00:47:42]:
So if I have to actually take a phone call, I’m at home. Is it better to use data or WI fi, assuming that the other. All the other antennas are going to be off?

R Blank [00:47:52]:
Yeah. So this. So the answer, I mean, the way I do it is is WI fi, but I also don’t have cell service at my house, so that’s not a great but. So in general, WI fi will emit less power than. Than just using your cell phone connection to communicate via cell. That said, so in general, I recommend WI fi calling, but if that’s the only reason you’re running WI fi in your home, then maybe it doesn’t make sense. Right, because it. Because the WI fi will be running all the time for you to get your cell phone calls.

R Blank [00:48:38]:
And so you’re flooding the house with WI FI radiation only just to have it replace the cell phone that you need to take the call every so often. So with a lot of these things, unfortunately, there’s a lot of things where there’s clean cut. Do this, it’s better for you answers. But when it comes to the types of questions that you just exemplified, unfortunately, sometimes the answers are not the kind that I know consumers really want, which is, yeah, do it this way, not that way.

Nick Urban [00:49:11]:
I mean, I think this day and age, probably 99 people tuning in have WI FI in their house. A very small percentage are hardwired. You would consider WI fi only to take calls. They probably have it for their other devices as well. So assuming you have good reception at home and you already have WI FI in your house, it’s fine just to turn off cellular data and Bluetooth and.

R Blank [00:49:32]:
Just make sure WI fi calling’s activated on your phone because oftentimes that’s something you have to activate.

Nick Urban [00:49:38]:
Yeah. Another tip that I learned years ago, I’m not sure if it’s still a best practice, but I’ve been doing it anyway, is to go into the cell phone settings on iPhone, it’s like settings cellular and then changing the mode from 5G to 4.4G LTE because it’s a lower power protocol, as far as I understand. And therefore I’m like reducing my exposure and like the difference between the speed is negligible and my phone still is pretty fast and works great.

R Blank [00:50:08]:
Yeah, I mean, and that’ll also depend on where you live because a lot of your listeners may live in areas without 5G yet. I, I, I actually haven’t been following the rollout so closely for the last couple of years, so I don’t know how widely dispersed it is. But I do know even in areas where they claim 5G coverage, there’s huge spots where you’re not going to get 5G and you’ll be pushed down to 4G or LTE anyway. So. But yeah, 5G really brings no benefit to the user, that’s for sure.

Nick Urban [00:50:39]:
And it dramatically increases your exposure level, from what I understand.

R Blank [00:50:43]:
Yeah, I don’t know enough about the phone side of that engineering question to answer that. I do know more about the infrastructure side because you need such a dense network of these antennas because 5G doesn’t travel very far, and so you need just a crazy large number of antennas to power a network like this. Because like I say, 5G, it’s, it’s the higher millimeter wave frequency, and the higher the frequency, the less far the, the, the lower distance that the signal will travel.

Nick Urban [00:51:22]:
Yeah, and I think right now I’m not sure about the rollout either, but I think that the way it works is that it shows 5G in the status bar, even when it’s not actually 5G and it’s just there until one day they really switch and the whole, the whole protocol upgrades for everyone.

R Blank [00:51:36]:
That’s all new phones that I’ve seen.

Nick Urban [00:51:39]:
Yeah, I’m not sure, like, all new phones that I’ve seen, whether Android or iPhones, they come with 5G mode on. And like on the top status bar, you see 5G. So it, it says it’s there.

R Blank [00:51:51]:
Yeah, yeah. I live in a country where they’ve only just started deploying 5G and only in the capital city. So by the time it gets here, I, I’ll probably be on Social Security or something.

Nick Urban [00:52:06]:
R. What do you think about having WI fi EMF or not WI fi EMF meters, Electro Smog meters, as this one’s called. Do you think it’s generally helpful? Because I found a lot of sources that I hadn’t put two and two together that were actually like polluting my bedroom in places that are really important to have as clean. As electromagnetically clean as possible.

R Blank [00:52:28]:
Yeah. So I’m a big proponent. I think I. What, what, what. What brand is the one that you have there?

Nick Urban [00:52:34]:
Yes, this is all. I’ve had it for seven years or so. It’s a cornet.

R Blank [00:52:38]:
Yeah, it looked like a cornet. I think that’s one of the ones that. There’s a newer model that is one of the two that I recommend for most consumers, and there’s a few reasons why that is. But I am a huge advocate for people getting a decent quality meter, which is what you have, and learning how to use it. And so Empowered has an entire chapter on meter recommendations and why you might want to consider each different one, because there’s a lot of meters covered in that chapter, and then a whole other chapter on how to use these meters, regardless of which one that you get. And I start that chapter with an anecdote, a personal anecdote, which is very similar to what you were just explaining, which was, I was staying at an Airbnb, and because of who I am, I took out one of my meters and I just started measuring. And I was in a rural area. I wasn’t expecting anything.

R Blank [00:53:44]:
And then suddenly, in one part of the house, there was just this massive spike in electric fields. And it was just so weird. And so using my meter, I was able to track down that. That massive spike in electric fields that was filling the living room was coming from one DVD player, which I wasn’t even planning to use, because what’s a dvd? But it was just plugged into the entertainment center. Right. It’s part of the rental. I would never have thought about it, but as soon as I unplugged it, the electric fields disappeared from the. The house.

R Blank [00:54:24]:
Those high, highly elevated levels of electric fields. And that’s an example of what you’re talking about, which is there’s a ton of these exposures that you’ll have no idea that you’re. You’re having unless you learn how to measure. Because like, like, everyone knows this stuff. Except for visible light. EMF is invisible. It’s odorless, it’s tasteless. You can’t touch it, so you won’t have any idea how much they’re.

R Blank [00:54:52]:
Right. So you shouldn’t have your phone on in your pocket. You should turn off your wifi router. You should stand as far away from your microwave as possible. There’s certain obvious things that will have a big impact on your exposure. But then there’s a ton of other exposures where you would have no idea unless you measured. And a lot of them do actually come from these electric and magnetic fields, not the, I mean, the wireless ones happen too. That’s how you can tell that your TV is still emitting wireless even when you told it that the WI fi should be off.

R Blank [00:55:26]:
But a lot of them come from the electric and magnetic fields because these come from wiring in your walls. Right? So people should understand that not only, I mean, obviously wiring conducts electricity, so it’s going to be a source of emf, but there’s different ways, right? If you cross the wires over each other, it can lead to big spikes in the emissions. Or you may not know where in your home the wiring is because you bought it already built and it’s behind the drywall and you have no idea where the wiring is. And so you don’t know where on the wall the higher levels are. And so, and also probably goes without saying, but EMF emissions are not part of residential electrical code in the United States, I don’t think, anywhere in the world. And so electricians aren’t trained in how to do their wiring to minimize EMF emissions. Building inspectors are not trained or required to measure EMF emissions based on wiring patterns. And so your walls can just be these really unpredictable sources of EMF emissions.

R Blank [00:56:35]:
And you won’t know that unless you measure. And the rest, the resolution here, by the way, just to put your listeners at ease, right? It’s not to rip out your walls and rewire your home. It could be, for example, you realize that if you move your sofa two feet to the left, then when where you and your family spend all your time watching TV is suddenly going to be a lot safer than it was two feet to the right. It could be that you find that there are very high levels of electric fields right where you rest your head at night when you go to sleep. And so again, the answer isn’t to. To rip out the walls and rewire everything. The answer is to kill the power running to your bedroom at night when you go to sleep, to de. Energize your bedroom.

R Blank [00:57:25]:
These are all the types of things that I talk about in Empowered as practical responses to, to. To this toxin and, and these just ubiquitous exposures in our lives.

Nick Urban [00:57:41]:
Yes. When I was traveling, I don’t always bring my meter with me. One time I was at a hotel and there was a WI FI router in the room, which is okay because it’s nice to have WI Fi, but they placed this one behind the headboard of the bed.

R Blank [00:58:00]:
Oh my God.

Nick Urban [00:58:00]:
I only noticed that because I had the meter and it’s like, I don’t need that there while I sleep. Especially. So because of that, I just unplugged it while I slept and I was fine.

R Blank [00:58:09]:
Okay, good. Yeah. Another thing I, hotels, by the way, are, are EMF dumping grounds. Because, because they need really good WI fi throughout. If, if they don’t have it, they’ll get bad reviews because the number of people that are staying there. But one thing I always do when I get to a hotel is unplug the alarm clock. Because those, those red LED alarm clocks that plug into the wall, those are huge sources of, of electric fields and magnetic fields. And so the first thing I do is, is, is unplug those when I get to a hotel.

Nick Urban [00:58:43]:
I think we mentioned this last time. When you are looking at the different types of EMFs, there’s like what, four or five most prominent. Are they all weighted equally in your mind? Like, do you care equally about each of the different types or are you more focused on eliminating or reducing one particular one?

R Blank [00:59:03]:
That’s a really good question. And, and the answer, there’s my answer and then there’s what I recommend consumers do. My answer is I’m, I am concerned about all of them, right? So there’s not like one forum of EMF that when, again, when I’m saying emf, I’m talking about these human made non ionizing forms of emf. There’s not one form of them that we found is safer than the other forms of them. So there are different clusters of disease based on different types of exposure to different frequencies. The neurodegenerative diseases, for example, like Alzheimer’s and Lou Gehrig’s disease, those are much more strongly linked by the science to the power line frequencies. Whereas, you know, brain tumors are much more closely linked to the wireless frequencies. But none of them are safe.

R Blank [01:00:06]:
It’s, you know, it’s a pick your poison kind of thing. That said, where we’re seeing the massive, and I would say a very irresponsible spike in exposures is to the wireless technologies. Right, because the grid is the grid. And yeah, people are getting some new appliances in their homes, but you’re not getting exponentially more appliances in the world today than you were 10 years ago and 20 years ago, whereas you are on the wireless. And the more of these wireless devices that you have, obviously the, that’s the more exposures you have in your home. But then that’s also corresponding to growth in the actual wireless infrastructure required to support all of these different connections. So you’re getting this massive explosion in exposures to these wireless frequencies coming both from the calls coming from inside the home, but also outside the home. Right.

R Blank [01:01:12]:
So that is where we really are seeing these massive, massive spikes and in, in, in human exposures. And that is where I think people should be because of that. I think that is where people should be focusing, building out their awareness. Right. Because I know when you’re a consumer and even if you decide to care about something, it’s one of 832 different things in your life that you have to allocate time to care about. And so you can’. Care about all of the EMF in your life as certainly not as a starting point. And so the wireless stuff and like what you do with your cell phone and what you do with your WI fi network and what you do with your wearable tech, that is where I think most consumers should find themselves starting and focusing.

Nick Urban [01:02:01]:
And a lot of devices these days have the ability to go into airplane mode, especially wearables and everything. Because we were mentioning earlier the proximity effect, inverse square law, I think it’s called turning those on. Airplane mode is going to have a high impact. One thing I’m not sure we mentioned is like the power level difference between different protocols and mainly cellular versus WI fi versus Bluetooth.

R Blank [01:02:25]:
Yeah. So. Well, we talked a little bit already about why your cell phone, in general, your cell phone will emit more power than your WI fi router. As with all this stuff, there can be exceptions. If you have 100 people running on your wifi network and they’re all streaming video at the same time. Your WI fi router might be a bigger source than your phone, but in general, the phone would be a source of more powerful radiation than your wifi because the WI fi is designed to operate over, well, we said, I don’t know, some radius of 300ft or something like that, whereas the cell phone is miles.

Nick Urban [01:03:03]:
Yeah. Here’s the question I’m getting at, and you’re going to hate this question. If you’re forced to answer a call, you can’t use the better option, which is speakerphone or even wired headphones. You have to either use Bluetooth earphones or hold the phone up to your head. Which do you choose and why?

R Blank [01:03:23]:
Well, I would never own Bluetooth headphones, so I would hold it up to my head. And this also came out in a recent interview I did where, you know, I. This has happened to me Right. I mean, there are scenarios like you’re running, you’re running through the airport, you’re trying to catch a flight, and an important call comes in and you can’t futz. A speakerphone isn’t possible because you’re in a crowded airport. And B, I don’t have my headset, my wired headset handy. And so I will answer the call and hold it up to my head and it makes me cringe on the inside when I do it, but I do it and then I try to get off the call as quickly as possible because I don’t think people should have Bluetooth headsets. There is no airplane mode for a Bluetooth headset.

R Blank [01:04:18]:
I mean, because if it’s an airplane mode, it’s, it’s, it’s a paperweight, you know, so, so that would be my answer to that question. And there, there are times too when I have to put my phone in my pocket because I don’t have one of my products with me and I need it. I can’t put it into airplane mode and I’m running to go catch a bus. Or, you know, there are scenarios where this happens. And so I’ll put my phone in my pocket or in the. Your example, I’ll hold it up to my head and I try to keep it as short as possible and then undo whatever I just did. But these, these aren’t. Like the whole point here is to not be afraid is.

R Blank [01:04:59]:
It’s to realize there is no. I say this multiple times in empowered. There is no getting to zero when it comes to emf, right? Like there could be getting to zero when it comes to gmo, you know, not avoiding GMO in, in, in your diet. There could be coming, getting to zero when it’s inorganic food, right? I mean, that can be a realistic goal for some of these things in your life. It is not a realistic goal for emf. And if you set it as your goal, you, A, you’re going to fail, but B, you will increase your anxiety levels, which will increase your oxidative stress, which will then start leading to the types of damage that you’re trying to avoid by addressing the EMF issue. So in this world, there is no aiming for zero when it comes to emf. And it’s about eliminating the exposures that you can that are within your control and fit within your lifestyle.

R Blank [01:05:59]:
And so if you have to answer the phone by holding it up to your head, you know, do it. You know, it’s good that you know that that comes at some kind of Cost, but don’t also don’t stress about it. Another great set of examples, and I apologize for being a little soapboxy here, but has to do with personal medical devices, right? So I wish I lived in a world where you could get a pacemaker that didn’t come with Bluetooth. I wish I lived in a world where I could get a hearing aid that didn’t come with Bluetooth. I wish I live in a world where you could get a good, a glucose, continuous glucose monitor that didn’t come with Bluetooth or wi Fi. That world, by the way, is not imaginary. It’s called 1990. All of those products used to come without wireless integration, but now they all come with it.

R Blank [01:06:49]:
You, there’s some occasions where you can get the manufacturer to disable it, but in general you, if you’re going to use these technologies, you’re getting extra doses of EMF radiation and these are all important technologies. If you need a pacemaker, you need a pacemaker. And so if it comes with other EMF exposure, don’t let that stress you out. You can make account for it in reducing EMF somewhere else in your life. But the fact that you have to have an EMF emitting pacemaker in your body is not something that should give you cause for concern. And same with hearing aids. They add a tremendous, they might not be life saving, but they add some so much to quality of life and cognitive focus that if you need a hearing aid, don’t avoid getting one just because it has EMF emissions, because there basically are no EMF free hearing aids anymore. And so this is true with a lot of this technology where the discretion comes in is in the stuff that isn’t life saving or doesn’t make a huge leap in your quality of life.

R Blank [01:07:55]:
And you know, I happen to think that Apple Watch falls into that category. But you know, some other people may not agree with that, but certainly like the Vision Pro headsets and the Ray Ban, the Facebook Ray Ban glasses, none of this is life saving technology. None of it is really even quality of life enhancing technology, in my opinion. And when it comes to things like, you know, you want to track your health, I talk about this in the book Oura Ring does like you we were saying it does come with an airplane mode. So if you want a good health tracker, biometric health tracker, you can get Oura Ring and you can use it in a way that’s really, really safe from an EMF exposure perspective. And you can still get all the benefits of this stuff without exposing yourself to this radiation 24 7.

Nick Urban [01:08:49]:
Yeah, I’m with you on that. To make sure I’m clear, if I had a Bluetooth headset in my hand versus holding up a phone to my head, are you saying that you, you would still favor the phone to the head because it’s not going to be like in your ear, per se, like I’m trying to understand because I thought Bluetooth was a lower energy protocol, so.

R Blank [01:09:07]:
It would be not energy power. So yeah, when it comes to emf, energy means the frequency. So how fast the EMF is vibrating. So higher energy is higher frequency. So you know, visible light is higher energy than radio waves. Power is how much of it there is. Right. So you can think of it like volume, the equivalent to sound.

R Blank [01:09:33]:
So higher power is higher volume of emf. And so you are correct that cell phones are higher. So this gets back to a question you asked earlier, right? Cell phones are higher powered in general than WI fi. WI fi is higher powered in general than Bluetooth. Even within Bluetooth, there are three primary protocols. And I forget what order they go in. There’s 1, 2, and 3. And one of them is multiple orders of magnitude stronger than the, the strongest one is multiple orders of magnitude more powerful than the weakest one.

R Blank [01:10:12]:
And so like, one is designed to communicate over, I think five feet. One is designed to communicate over 15ft, and one is designed to communicate, I think it’s 100ft or maybe even 150. AirPods are the more powerful one. And so they’re really, really powerful. And that’s how you can sustain the connection over, you know, when your phone is so far away because it’s using this high powered protocol. But to your point, in that particular instance, yes, putting a blue, an AirPod in your ear would probably lead to less EMF exposure than holding the cell phone up to your head. But in general, I really don’t think people should be using AirPods because it’s, it’s, again, it’s like having two lower powered Wi FI routers mounted on your brain. Right? I mean, and it, so not only is that close obviously to your brain, it’s a part of your brain that has no natural shielding.

R Blank [01:11:15]:
Right, because there’s no skull there. That’s how your ear canal works. And so you’re, and you’re generally not using it for 10 seconds or even two minutes. I see people walking around with these things all day, all day. And so it’s a really, really big set of exposures, even though it is a lower powered technology than cell phones.

Nick Urban [01:11:38]:
Very important nuance. And I know you hate to answer that false dichotomy of like which of the two do you use? But I think that’s, you really illustrated that example perfectly. And it’s why in addition to many other things that you’ve built shielding products, not necessarily for AirPods. Oh, that would be a good idea if it was even possible, but for a lot of other forms of electromagnetic fields and emr, same thing. What is your approach there? Tell me about your, your products that help with that.

R Blank [01:12:10]:
Okay, I’ll give, I’ll give some examples here. Right, so the, the emphasis of empowered is the emphasis of me in life, which is reducing your exposures in the first place through behavioral changes, right? Like not carrying your phone in your pocket, not buying an Alexa smart speaker or AirPods and stuff like that. Now there are limits to this, right? So let’s go back to the not carrying your phone in your pocket example. You shouldn’t carry your phone in your pocket or if you do put it into airplane mode. But then there are people who need to carry their phone in their pocket and it needs to be on, right? So a good example here would be a doctor who’s on call. They need their phone. If they’re going to be on call, it needs to be on. They can’t be in airplane mode.

R Blank [01:12:58]:
That is an extreme example. There are plenty of other professionals out there who need to have their phone on them and on. And so what do you do then? And that’s an example of where EMF protection products come into play. And to your point, implicit in the question is EMF shielding, right? So almost every product that I make and cover carry in my shield, your body store, is based on EMF shielding. And this is the, it’s technology that’s existed since 1836 when Michael Faraday invented the first Faraday cage. So it’s almost 200 years old. Universally accepted science. It has been used in industry for decades and decades and decades.

R Blank [01:13:53]:
Right? Because for example, inside your computer there’s a lot of components that are very sensitive to disruption from electromagnetic fields. So they will shield parts of, you know, electrical and electronic components in electromagnetic shielding to protect it from, from emf. What we do is we use that same type of technology and put it into products that are designed to protect the humans using the technology, not just the technology itself. And, and why I focus on shielding is because it, like I say, it is universally accepted science and you, it is demonstrable and measurable. Right? So EMF is, we talked about several Times it is invisible, odorless, tasteless. You can’t touch it. And so when you use EMF shielding, you can actually measure how much you are reducing your exposure using a device like the cornet you showed. And so it is a way to actually know that, that your EMF protection is actually working.

R Blank [01:15:07]:
Because the type of protection it provides you is one that is measurable not only by the companies like shield, your body that make these products, but by you, the consumer. There are a lot of other types of EMF protection out there. A lot of them are bogus. It is a very snake oil filled environment because it is one that in general, the consumer is preyed on with fear. And as I said, this stuff is hard to understand. It’s intimidating and you can’t sense or smell it or whatever. So you have no idea if these products are actually doing anything. Now, I’m not saying that every one of those products is actually snake oil.

R Blank [01:15:53]:
I’m saying a lot of them are. And unless you’re making something that can be measured, the risk of it being snake oil is simply too high. And so that’s why When I started S.H.I.E.L.D. you’d body, I made the decision to focus on shielding technology. And it is why as I’ve now grown Shield your body through partnerships with other companies like Haven and like Safe Sleeve, that I, I build partnerships with other companies that also focus on shielding technologies because that is a type of protection that provides quantifiable, measurable reductions in your exposure.

Nick Urban [01:16:37]:
That was a great section in your book too about like how you actually evaluate these technologies that supposedly help you. And I like that you were like very transparent about like, yes, I have a company that does this. I think our products are the best because we do this, this and that. It’s not perfect. No technology, no device, no product out there is perfect. It’s a work in progress as like the physics, we have better understand the physics and like what we can do with this. But it was something that I hadn’t seen broken down anywhere and I didn’t realize just how deceptive a lot of the claims around like EMF protection are.

R Blank [01:17:12]:
Yeah, thank you for pointing that out. That is a part of the book I’m particularly proud of because really no other EMF protection company talks about it in those terms. And it is a chapter specifically on helping the reader decipher and understand EMF protection product claims. Because I want consumers to feel confident that the products in my store do what I say, that they are actually effective for what I’m saying they’re effective for. But I want consumers, I don’t pretend that I sell the only effective protection in the world. There are plenty of other brands out there, there’s other stores. And so I want consumers to be empowered to actually understand what it is they are getting, to evaluate if it’s something they should be getting and then also to understand how it’s supposed to be used in order to support the product claims. And yeah, I think a lot of readers will find that chapter to be particularly insightful because as I say in that chapter, no form of EMF protection is 100% or I should say no EMF protection product is 100% effective.

R Blank [01:18:20]:
There are zero instances in which EMF protection product is 100% Effective. And so everything is going to be some type of trade off. And you really need to be able to understand the product claims in order to understand how it will work for you in real life.

Nick Urban [01:18:36]:
Yeah. And I’ve been using the. What is it? The device that not even device like the shield you put in your pocket and then it helps protect your, your pocket, your body from your 5G phone shield. Yeah, I’ve been using that since our first interview and that’s been really helpful. So I can attest that some of your products, actually I haven’t used all them obviously, but the ones that I’ve used work great and they’re durable, they last. So if people want to connect with you, we’ve been going for a long time already. Jeez, how did they go about connecting with you? Trying your products.

R Blank [01:19:10]:
So thank you so much. It’s Shield your body dot com. That’s all Shield your body, all one word dot com. The book is at SHIELD it’s called Empowered and it’s. You can get the links, you can get a sample chapter [email protected] empowered and that’s also where you can find all the links to buy it. And we’re also at S.H.I.E.L.D. your body on every social network that I don’t use, but I know a lot of people do.

Nick Urban [01:19:37]:
Perfect. Yeah. And that book is jam packed. It’s got all of the science in there, at least the most relevant science. And it has the important stuff that consumers like me want to know about, like how do you actually choose these devices? I also learned some of the other ways electricity positively influence the body, such as the Cold War Russian. I think it’s senar devices. And then there’s the. I don’t know how to pronounce it cafely.

R Blank [01:20:04]:
Then there’s X. I thought it was cephaly, but now. Now you’re making me doubt my my memory.

Nick Urban [01:20:09]:
No, you’re. I hadn’t heard of it, so that was new to me. The cardiac bypass, obviously like implants, pmf, light therapy, a lot of different ways that are well established that electricity influences health and some of them are beneficial. We can also cap some of the downsides of the less than beneficial ones. And again, your book Empowered. Awesome. Go ahead and pick that up. We’ll put a link to everything we’ve discussed in the show notes and a discount urban for 15% off SYB and 5% off everything else are thank you so much for coming back on for round two today.

R Blank [01:20:46]:
Thank you so much for having me, man. I really appreciate a how I mean the fact that you read the book and had really great questions, but B helping me spread the word about Empowered. This, this book means a lot to me. I took two years to write and I really means a lot that you’re stepping up to help me get the word out.

Nick Urban [01:21:07]:
Well, thank you again and bye everybody. Thanks for tuning in to high performance longevity. If you got value today, the best way to support the show is to leave a review or share it with someone who’s ready to upgrade their health span. You can find all the episodes, show notes and resources [email protected] until next time, stay energized, stay bioharmonized, and be an outlier.