The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #295 - R Blank

TRANSCRIPT

(Note: This is generated by AI with 98% accuracy. However, any errors may cause unintended changes in meaning.)

R Blank

The science around EMF health effects has been successfully corrupted and delayed and denied using many of the tactics that were perfected by the tobacco industry. People don't walk around with EMF meters on them 24-7, so you don't necessarily know how much EMF you're being exposed to or where your greatest exposures are.  With the phones, it's particularly jarring advice, A, because they bury it in the documentation, but B, because these are devices that they literally design to be held against your head. And then they tell you not, but they do it in the fine print.

Melanie Avalon

Welcome to the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast where we meet the world's top experts to explore the secrets of health, mindset, longevity, and so much more. Are you ready to take charge of your existence and biohack your life? This show is for you. Please keep in mind we're not dispensing medical advice and are not responsible for any outcomes you may experience from implementing the tactics lying here in you.  Are you ready? Let's do this. Welcome back to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast. Oh my goodness, friends, this has been years and years in the making, and it is finally here. I am so thrilled to have the launch of my Avalon X EMF blocking product line. And in today's episode with returning guest, R. Blank, who happens to be my business partner in producing these products. We dive so deep into the science of EMFs and what they actually do to our bodies.  What I love about R is he is all about the hard science. We are here for the facts of what actually is happening and what you actually need to be concerned about. And I am fairly certain just like me, you will learn so much in today's episode. It was such a joy, such a pleasure. And yes, my Avalon X EMF blocking air tubes are here. Friends do not miss the launch special. It starts today, March 28th, and it ends April 1st, not an April Fool's joke. This is your chance to get 20% off of these air tubes.  They come in rose gold and black. You don't want to miss this. They are basically Apple style headphones without any of the EMFs. Go to Avalon X EMF dot us and use the code launch 20 to snag that discount. Again, this ends April 1st, so do not miss this. And in today's episode, we dive into so many topics. We talk about why the science of the dangers of EMFs can be so hard to get clarity on, even though they are classified by the IARC as a group to be carcinogen. And as we talk about electromagnetic hypersensitivity is a verified diagnosis that you can get at the doctor. Like there are medical codes for it. We talk about a lot of practical stuff, like how to safely use your phone, how to adjust and outfit your home and daily habits to minimize your risk and enhance your health, how to handle travel and the airports, and even what car you should ideally drive.  It is such an honor to know our, and it was so worth it working for years on these air tubes. You will learn why it took so long in today's episode. So again, go to Avalon X EMF dot us and use the code launch 20 to get 20% off my Avalon X EMF free air tubes. These show notes for today's episode will be at Melanie Avalon.com slash EMF two. The number two, those show notes will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about.  So definitely check that out. There will be two episode giveaways for this episode. One will be in my Facebook group, I have biohackers, intermittent fasting plus real foods plus life. Comment something you learned or something that resonated with you on the pinned post to enter to win something that I love.

Melanie Avalon

And then check out my Instagram, find the Friday announcement post. And again, comment there to enter to win something that I love. All right. I think that's all the things as a brief reminder.  The launch of my Avalon X EMF free air tubes is here. You can get 20% off for a limited time. This ends April 1st. Just go to Avalon X EMF dot us and use the coupon code launch 20. That's Avalon X EMF dot us with the coupon code launch 20. And now without further ado, please enjoy this fabulous conversation with our blank. Welcome back to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast friends. I am so excited about today's conversation. It is such a long time coming. So I was just checking when we last had this fabulous guest on the show. Our blank. I don't know if you remember our, so it was, we aired it in December of 2021. So it's.

R Blank

It's been a while. Not much has changed in the world since then, so.

Melanie Avalon

I know, crazy. And so it's so interesting though, it's really interesting to like look at timelines and look at time and how things change. And so when you first came on the show, that was the first time meeting you, we had a really incredible deep dive into the world of EMFs and how they're affecting our health and wellness. And you have your awesome, incredible company shield your body. And it was just a really fascinating conversation and drew attention to something I think people need to learn more about.  What I really love about you is you're very like logical, practical, you're good at telling people like what are the actual issues? How can you adapt for that in your life? And you know, how can you weigh the cost benefit of what you actually need to do in your life when it comes to EMF protection? And so we had that episode and we connected and decided to launch a co-brand together, which I am so excited about. And it's finally coming. It's finally here. So the day that this episode airs, yes, today, my Avalon X EMF blocking product line in collaboration with our shield your body is available. I am so, so thrilled. We're launching while we can talk about this, we're launching with two options of EMF free air tubes in black and rose gold. So we will tell you all about the launch special and all the things. But our, first of all, thank you so much for everything that you do. Thank you for coming on the show the first time. Thank you for coming back now. Thank you for being so awesome to work with over the past few years. And yeah, thank you for being here.

R Blank

Yeah, well, thank you very much for having me. And I'd also like it's just it's a pleasure working with you. And so I'm excited that we're finally able to show people what we've been working on.

Melanie Avalon

I had my therapist session earlier and I was reflecting on like who I work with and business projects and things like that. And I was using you as an example of just somebody really incredible to work with. So I'm really, really excited about this.

R Blank

Thank you. Maybe I should restart therapy just so I can compliment you.

Melanie Avalon

That's so funny.

R Blank

funny. To a therapist. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, we love our therapists. So in any case, to start things off, I was wondering if we could revisit your personal story, because the world that you're in with EMF blocking protection, not a lot of people, you know, who have made that their life.  So what led to this? Like when did you have an epiphany someday about all this? What's your backstory?

R Blank

Yeah, well, so this all started with my father, Dr. Martin Blank, who was a professor at Columbia University Medical School for, I don't know, over 30 years. In the 1980s, he read a paper by someone that said that exposure to electromagnetic radiation caused biological effects in cells. And just stepping back, I'll do this really quick. But for those who don't know what we're talking about, hey, I'd say go back and check the last episode Melanie's referring to, because that was a two-hour deep dive into a lot of this stuff. But electromagnetic radiation is a form of energy that is created by a combination of electrical and magnetic forces. That's where it gets its name, electromagnetic. There's a whole bunch of this that's normal, that's natural, like the one we all know is sunlight. Sunlight is a natural form of EMF. Now, there's certain forms of EMF with more energy than sunlight. Those include things like gamma rays and X-rays. And everyone has always known that those are incredibly harmful, even in really, really, really small doses.  So you don't want any of that stuff. Then there's a bunch of forms of EMF with less energy than visible light. And these include things like we call them radio waves are one example, right? The same thing that you listen to the radio on, or more accurately, this day and age your cell phone works with. Now, because they have less energy than visible light, it was long thought that these forms of EMF were safe, that they had no impact on life. And what a body of science that now goes back over 100 years and is continually growing, what this body of science shows is that that assumption was incorrect. That even at low levels, far lower than what safety standards allow, these forms of EMF do have biological effects, some very wide ranging and some very serious. The one that tends to get the most headlines, right, is brain tumors from cell phone use. But it's not just brain tumors. It can cause tumors and cancers in any biological system in your body and not just in humans. But again, cancer being terrifying gets a lot of the attention. But there's a lot of other health impacts that are very tightly linked to this type of exposure. One of the strongest areas is infertility and sub fertility, anxiety, depression, sleep disruption, hormonal disruption, the number of health effects. I mean, the way I'd like to summarize it is you see these health effects in basically every biological system in which you look for them. And we can get into why it has such a wide ranging set of impacts later on. But that's what the science shows. That's not, though, what my father was taught when he went to graduate school. He was taught that this stuff was safe. And when he started teaching at Columbia University Medical School in the 60s and through the 70s, he taught his students, future doctors, that this stuff was safe. And then one day in the 80s, he's reading this paper and he's seeing biological effects.

R Blank

And he thinks this doesn't make sense. And then he looks and he sees that the person who published the paper works in the same building as him. It was Dr. Reba Goodman. So he goes over to her office and they start talking about this. And he's intrigued and they end up doing many years of research together, publishing many papers on this.  And what my father learned was that EMF radiation, even the low energy kind, the kind that we are exposed to from wireless communication and from power lines and appliances, the stuff that everyone thought was safe, is actually harmful at very, very low levels of power. And so by 2012, he's retired. He gets a contract to write a book for general audience, right? For normal people to, to, to learn what he has learned over 30 plus years about the health effects of EMF. And because this is for general audiences and not for other smarty pants like him, you know, doctors, scientists and academics, uh, he asked me to help him write it. And so we ended up co-authoring what became overpowered.  Came out in 2012. It's still in print, still one of the best overviews of the best and most accessible overviews of that, the science on EMF health effects. And it was in the course of writing that book that I came to the conclusion. The A, the science here is really, really strong when you see it presented on the news or wherever you might be reading about it, it's often kind of shrouded in a both sides is some kind of thing. Like some people say this, but other people say this and it is harmful. No, it is safe. There's a raging, but if you look at the science, the science is really, really strong, but the other side of that is that the stuff that emits this form of energy into our world is the same stuff on which modern society and the modern economy is entirely and completely built and dependent. So there's no getting rid of it unless you want to go back to the 1850s. And so knowing those two things that the science is really strong, but there's no getting rid of it, I realized there, there has to be safer ways for people to relate to and use the technology in their lives.  And, you know, part of that is habit based and learning how to use this stuff more safely. And then part of it is product and solution based, which means getting certain types of products that will reduce your exposure to this type of radiation when you use the forms of technology that that created. So that's how I got in. So that was in 2012, 2013, I launched my first product and then in 2016. So this was still part time in 2016. I was turning 40 company wasn't going anywhere. And I said, look, either I'm turning 40. So either I'm going to dive in and really give this a shot or I'm going to give it up. And I said, I'm going to dive in and give it a shot. My partner in my software engineering firm bought me out of my half of the software engineering firm and I went full time with SYB and that was now almost what would that be nine years ago.

Melanie Avalon

Wow. Since writing that book together, have you changed your mind on anything you presented in the book? Like, do you think you over made something seem more dangerous than it is, or on the flip side, the reverse? Have things changed?

R Blank

I don't think so. One part of the book, by the way, it's actually two different chapters, so two chapters in the book, because I went back relatively recently and reread it. Those two chapters I am very, very proud of, because those, and this was informed entirely by my father, which is how the science around EMF health effects has been successfully corrupted and delayed and denied using many of the tactics that were perfected by the tobacco industry, and really mapping out how this has been happening for decades, and how certain scientists' lives and careers are completely ruined by looking into this. So I found that really enlightening.  There are some things that my father wanted in the book that I wouldn't put in, because I felt that I wasn't convinced by the science. So for instance, there are many people who believe in links between EMF exposure and autism, and my father was one of those people, and I read the science, and I just didn't think it was compelling enough. I wanted everything in the book to be based on really strong science, and I'm still on the fence about that question, but I just say that as an example. One thing I would have probably put more of an emphasis on is electro-hypersensitivity. I'm glad I get a chance to talk about that here now, because the problem is much, much worse now than it was when we wrote Overpowered. But briefly, electro-hypersensitivity, I've already said that EMF exposure can lead to all forms of disease and ill health, but there are some people who react to, like, you and I could walk into a room and feel fine, and someone with EHS could walk into that same room and start having severe reactions that, for lack of a better term, we could call allergic reactions, migraine headaches, debilitating joint pain, rashes. There's a number of other symptoms, and when we were writing it, I didn't have—like, now, after running Shield Your Body for 12 years, I now have a lot of direct contact with people who are EHS, and I have a lot more understanding and sympathy for what they have to endure. When we wrote the book, I sort of felt like this was an outlier—I mean, we addressed it, but it didn't even get its own chapter.  It was combined with the chapter on children, because those are both groups that are more sensitive than, for lack of a better term, average adults. And so, I guess, yes. So, looking back on it now, I would have given much more weight to the information presented on EHS. Now, I mentioned this is a bigger problem now than it was in 2012, and that's true, and there's really kind of two reasons for that. One is the amount of EMF in our environment keeps growing exponentially every year. And so, as you introduce more of the trigger into the environment, obviously more and more people are going to be hitting that threshold at which they realize symptoms. And the other is there's cross-deceptibility, right? So, EMF exposure is a trigger for EHS, but oftentimes, you will find it's people who also have had or have Lyme disease or multiple chemical sensitivity that also then become EHS.

R Blank

And that is illustrative of the fact that our overall, so it's not just there's more EMF in the environment, but our overall toxic load keeps increasing every year, which makes more people more susceptible.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, so many things here. With the EHS, I guess I first started becoming aware of all this when I was suffering my own collection of health conditions and just trying to feel better, but my toxic load on my body was definitely very high and that's when I started noticing sensitivity for myself personally.  Do you have theories or are there theories about the science of what would make a person more sensitive besides the toxic load aspect?

R Blank

I am not an expert on this particular question, but I will say that EMF is a toxin, right? So people who react in ways that generate allergic reactions, they're just reacting more strongly to something that we all react to.  So it's not like certain people are susceptible to damage from EMF. Everyone is susceptible to damage to EMF, and it's just some people are more susceptible to more immediate symptom manifestation.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. A problem with this concept of people being more sensitive is, I feel like a lot of the backlash against the potential problems with EMFs is people say it's like woo-woo science or just not real science.  And I think this idea of some people are more sensitive than others further colors that agenda, like it makes it seem even more, I don't know, I guess non-scientific.

R Blank

Yeah, and yeah, and part of that is that it's sort of, I mean, for a long time, no one considered it a real medical condition. Now, some people consider it different institutes. So in Sweden, it's a recognized disability. In the United States, Medicare actually has billing codes for it, certain universities, and I never remember all of them. But for instance, I know the Women's College in Toronto has built a system to both diagnose and treat it, so to treat it more formally. And I know that Dr. Sharon Goldberg, whom your listeners can Google, is working very hard on initiatives to help standardize this process. But yeah, so it is a formal condition.  It's just it's still in the process of finding ways because the symptoms manifest in so many different ways. And it can also be hard sometimes to trigger or rather to prove specific exposure, like because people don't walk around with EMF meters on them 24 seven. So you don't necessarily know how much EMF you're being exposed to or where your greatest exposures are. And so for all of these reasons, these present inertia and inertial force against sort of building up the momentum to get where we need to be on it. But progress is definitely being made. And it's going to become more and more important. Because, like I say, the amount of EMF, and the amount of toxins in general, just continue to rise, that's not going to turn around. And so more and more people will be experiencing this stuff. I'll also add that a lot of people have these symptoms without having any idea that EMF could be the cause of it because they're not aware of a some of these symptoms are things that just happen to people, right? How many people do you know who get migraines who have no idea why they get migraines. And so and their doctors are not going to tell them this because many of their doctors aren't aware of VHS unless they're going to one of these institutions that has actually formalized a regimen or not.

Melanie Avalon

Wow. Okay. That's so good to know. I didn't realize it was a formalized thing. I'm going to definitely include that when I talk about it.  With the actual toxicity of EMFs, I know with a lot of toxins, there's different dose response curves. Like some toxins are actually more toxic at lower amounts or there might be like a cocktail effect or a synergistic effect. What is the actual toxicity graph look like? Is it just the more there is, the more exposure the worse it is?

R Blank

Yep. And the effects start at really, really, really low levels. So, so one of the projects that my father was involved in is called the bioinitiative report. It's bioinitiative. So you can see it at bioinitiative.org. It was published in 2008 and updated in 2012, the same year overpowered came out. And what it is is a group of scientists, including my father from around the world, who reviewed thousands of studies, but some showing negative health effects, others showing no negative health effects. And they published their findings, they summarized what they found from this review of thousands of studies. And the summary, well, the full report is available for download, I doubt many of your listeners will want to do that. But the conclusions are published on the site as well. And that's a nice kind of bite size page. And you'll see that they are reporting health effects at exposure levels that are so low, you rarely can, like you have to go out into nature to get them, I mean, to get below them. So they recommend that safety standards be reduced by multiple orders of magnitude. So that's how low a level at which symptoms start manifesting and are documented.  And then oh, sorry, further answer to your question, then yes, it goes up. So this is why, for example, the longer you use a cell phone, meaning both in terms of time, but also the amount of time that so the number of hours you do it, but also for instance, you know, every day for 10 years kind of thing, your risk for certain types of cancers, like glioblastomas increases. So there is a there is a documented dose response relationship. So the effects start at incredibly low levels of exposure, essentially instantly. And the risks of forming diseases increase in a dose response relationship.

Melanie Avalon

Wow. Okay. I mean, you mentioned at the beginning the different types. And so that includes, like you mentioned, radio waves. What is the role of the distance to it? So because I can tune into the radio anywhere at any time.  So I'm assuming there's radio waves all around me. But a phone, you know, you're holding it by your head. So like, what is the role of actual distance?

R Blank

Yeah, distance is huge. So the power of EMF exposure diminishes exponentially with distance. So you mentioned holding the phone. So let's say you're holding the phone an inch away from your head. Now let's say you double that to two inches away from your head. The power level of your exposure from that phone has dropped 75%.  And then if you double it again to four inches, it drops another 75%. And so distance really, really matters, which is why one of the core messages of shield your body is to not carry your phone in your pocket. Because when you're carrying it in your pocket, there's no distance. And people tend to do it for hours a day, every day. And so it is a huge source of exposure for people.

Melanie Avalon

I think one of the most convincing things for me, I'm trying to remember if you were the one who pointed this out, what it says in the iPhone, in the legal section of the phone.

R Blank

Yeah, so yeah, that yeah, so an iPhone is I mean, it's a great example, because it's such a popular phone, but it's hardly the only piece of electronics that that have but to explain to your listeners what you're talking about, there is a minimum. So if you read the iPhone manual, it you'll see it tells you to maintain a certain distance between your phone and your body, in order for the radiation levels to be at or below what's legally allowed.  With the phones, it's particularly jarring advice a because they bury it in the documentation. But be because these are devices that they literally design to be held against your head. And then they tell you not to, but they do it in the fine print. Another example is there's a line of Dell laptops, where they actually and they call them laptops, they don't call them notebooks. And they call for a minimum distance of eight inches between the laptop and your lap.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, this is, it's crazy. So if listeners, if they go to the legal section of the phone and then type in RF exposure, well, they start by saying iPhone has been tested and meets applicable limits for radio frequency exposure.  And then they explain that. They say during testing, iPhone radios are set to their highest transmission levels and placed in positions that simulate uses against the head with no separation and when worn or carried against the torso of the body with five millimeters separation, but then they say right after that to reduce exposure to RF energy, use a hands-free option such as the built-in speakerphone, headphones or other similar accessories. And they also say that metal cases may make it worse but I find it really, really interesting that they actually recommend, you know, to use it hands-free or use speakerphone or headphones, like their Apple. They're not just gonna, especially if it's a phone designed to be put by your head, there must be something there if they're going to actually recommend you use it a different way.

R Blank

Yes, it's, it's part of them. I apologize in advance for the inelegant phrasing, but covering their ass because major insurance underwriters actually refuse to ensure cell phone companies against future health claims because they recognize the risk is so high.

Melanie Avalon

Wow. Okay. It's funny.  I actually, I regularly check this section to see, I'm like worried it's going to go away or, or, or they're going to update it and make it more sneaky. So interesting. I've noticed it just anecdotally. I grow hydroponically a lot of plants in my apartment. The plants by, cause I, there's like a big, there's a, like I have a extension cord with like a ton of things plugged into it. And the plants that are right by that do not.

R Blank

they don't do as well.

Melanie Avalon

The plants that are like directly by that will die. It's fascinating.

R Blank

There's a famous, I won't call it a study, it was a science project, an elementary school science project, I believe out of Holland in a group of young girls. I believe they were working with watercress seeds. Watercress tends to, I think that's what they were working with. That tends to be one of the more well-studied plant seeds, that when you look at EMF science on plants, that watercress is a lot of them. Anyway, so they use these watercress seeds and they put a batch of them next to a wifi router and a batch of them far away from the wifi router. And the ones by the wifi router die didn't grow, reproduce. And the other ones did. This got a lot of attention in articles around the world, but then everyone said, this is ridiculous.  It's just kind of a stunt. These girls are, you know, they're in school. And so I forget which scientists did it, but they recreated it for publication. So they've actually shown this. But this, I mean, you can see this out in nature. There's a lot of actual science on this where forests, and there's a lot of this in overpowered, but there's a lot more than we could put in there. Trees and plant life near radar installations or near cell phone towers or near FM radio towers do much, much worse than the ones further away.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. Like when I saw that in my apartment, it was just so evident to me. And talk about coolest science project ever for those girls, real scientists. Like that's like the dream when you're a kid.  Oh my goodness. When you made your first product for this, what was your first product?

R Blank

Recently discontinued, it was called the pocket patch and it was at the time of release an iron on patch. So you would turn your, for instance, your genes inside out. You'd iron this patch onto the inside of the pocket and then it turned your pocket into a radiation shield. Uh, but because, and then later on we, we discovered a new adhesive. So you didn't need the iron. The iron was one obstacle to getting P like kids don't even have irons. And when I say kids, I mean young adults don't even have irons. To be honest, I actually don't know if I have an iron, but then we found an adhesive that worked so you could just apply it and, uh, without an iron. But the problem with that product was that you needed a patch for every pocket you wanted to shield, right? Because it's a permanently a fixed product. And so it quickly got just basically too expensive for people to use practically.  And so the product that's effectively replaced that in my catalog is the phone pouch, because you only need one pouch. Even when you change your phone, you can still use the same pouch. And so you put your phone in the pouch, the back of the pouch is shielded and the front is unshielded. And so it deflects radiation away from your body when it's in use.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, I want to dive a little bit deeper into that. I'm getting so many flashbacks right now. And I was like, what am I thinking of? And it was ironing on patches when I was in like brownies, girl scouts. I do not have an iron.  I discovered the world of steamers. And I was like, whoa, I'm never, never going back to irons to actually block EMFs. What does it look like if we could see EMFs? What does it look like practically? What's the role of blocking versus absorbing or reflecting? And where does the EMF go once it's blocked?

R Blank

So blocking in this context, it's this blocking and reflecting are the same thing. And so you can think of it, I think the clearest way to visualize it is, you know, when you close your window shade, the sunlight is blocked and deflected back out the window.  And that's how EMF shielding works at different frequencies than than light, right? So okay, so this goes this technology goes back a couple hundred years to when a British scientist whose name is Michael Faraday, and some some of your listeners might recognize this, invented a cage, which became known as the Faraday cage. And what he showed is that if you take certain conductive metals and weave them into certain patterns, you can block and deflect EMF radiation in the other direction. And this has been used for for a very long time to protect sensitive electronics, because there's a lot of like in your computer, for example, there's a lot of components that if they get electromagnetic interference, they malfunction. And so a lot of these components are shielded with electromagnetic shielding, which is based on the same technology as a Faraday cage. And what my products do is they take the same technology, but we're not doing this to protect electronics, we're doing it to shield your body. And so so for instance, in the foam pouch that I mentioned, the back is lined with a fabric, this fabric is manufactured with nickel, cobalt and copper threading that's woven in such a way as to block and deflect radiation in the other direction.

Melanie Avalon

Is a microwave in our house a Faraday cage?

R Blank

a little bit. So that's not fair, more than a little bit, but certainly not 100%.  So at the time of purchase, your microwave is permitted. And forgive me, I forget the actual number, but I believe it's 5% leakage, it could be 10%. But there's a certain amount of leakage that is permitted at the time of purchase. And then you're actually supposed to have your microwave serviced every year to restore the shielding.

Melanie Avalon

Whoa, who's doing that?

R Blank

Yeah, exactly. No one does that, which is why they tell pregnant women not to use microwaves. So they already acknowledge that this is a dangerous level for some people.  And so microwaves, so I should say something about EMF. So microwave ovens use microwave radiation, which is very similar to radio waves. They're basically over. They're used interchangeably, microwave and radio wave. So you could say your Wi-Fi router communicates using radio waves. You could say it communicates using microwaves. It's important to realize that your Wi-Fi router communicates with microwaves. And the thing is, is with any form of this EMF that we're talking about, if you have enough power, it will cook, right? So if you have so much radio wave radiation or microwave radiation, it will heat and burn your tissue or your dinner, you know, whatever the use case happens to be. So with all of these forms of EMF, if there's enough power, it will cook. And so that's the basis on which they invented and created microwave ovens. You got to realize microwave ovens use a tremendous power level, I should say, of microwave radiation to cook. So even if only 5% is getting out of the microwave, which again, I believe is the most optimistic scenario, you're still talking about a tremendous amount of microwave radiation, which is why if you use a microwave, you should be as far away from it as possible when it's in use, ideally in another room. But there's another side to microwaves, right? Because as I mentioned, you're generating super high powered levels of microwave radiation. In order to do that, you're using a lot of power, meaning literally energy from the grid. And so that's another form of EMF, right? I mentioned anything that runs on power creates EMF. And that part of the microwave, by the way, is not shielded. And so this type of EMF is called ELF or extremely low frequency. That's the kind of stuff that's created by the power grid and appliances and so forth. Microwaves are sources of really high levels of ELF. And again, that isn't shielded at all. So with microwave ovens, you're talking about a double whammy of high exposures. You have high exposures to microwave radiation and high exposures to ELF radiation.

Melanie Avalon

That relates to another question I had, which is, so let's, once you cook your food, for example, those microwaves and all the ways in general, where do they go? Do they dissipate? Like what happens to them?

R Blank

Yeah, they dissipate.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, and then they're not harmful anymore once they're like gone.

R Blank

Yeah, when they're gone.  Yeah, I mean I I've heard And I'm not well versed on this stuff But a lot of concerns around how microwave ovens alter molecular structure of our food And that's that's something we should worry about and but I don't know anything about that stuff But the microwaves themselves are gone

Melanie Avalon

Okay, gotcha. Are you seeing, because we haven't mentioned this little fun fact yet, but the IARC, they classify EMFs as a group to be carcinogen, are you seeing, like, do you think that they're going to actually increase that rating? Are you seeing changes now?  I know, like, with changes politically, there seems to be a lot of focus on toxins and processed foods in that whole industry. Do you think it will weaken to, no pun intended, the EMF world?

R Blank

Well, what's going on with the U.S. government right now, I believe will have no impact on how IARC does, proceeds.  I forget who I was interviewing for my podcast, I think, but I actually asked for insight onto this very question. And that's when I learned that this is, there is absolutely no transparency because I had heard that the IARC was considering redesignating EMF as a class one. But so I asked this guy, is that really true? And he said there would be no way to know that, because we don't even know who forms the committee that makes that decision. It's completely opaque. So if they do it one day, we'll hear about it. But until then, we have no idea.

Melanie Avalon

It's funny, I really wanted a, for the longest time I really wanted a Tesla and then somebody pointed out that that's basically just sitting in, sitting in like all of these waves.

R Blank

Well, basically any new car is really because I mean, think about all of the wireless features that are in your car. So you got Bluetooth. I noticed when I go into cars that have these like support Android car, I forget what, whatever, you know what I mean, where your phone pairs with the car. And so you allow Bluetooth for that to happen. And then somehow the car has power to turn the Wi Fi on on your phone to these systems use both Bluetooth and Wi Fi.  But then, you know, you have collision detection, you have lane detection, you have in some of these newer cars, like Lidar with Tesla's Tesla's not the only one, they can update your car software over the air that you need powerful wireless connections in order for that to happen. Most modern car if you want a car with low emf, you get an old car. But also in terms of electric cars, that obviously generates more concern from people. If we're talking about the powertrain itself, right, the amount of emf emissions from the powertrain itself, but really, it is the hybrid cars that are bigger sources of emf from the powertrain, because hybrid cars need a power inverter. And the power inverter generates a significant amount of emf. So if you're Yeah, if you're looking at the just the powertrain itself, the greatest is hybrid, then electric and then conventional.

Melanie Avalon

Okay, maybe we should just go back to riding bikes and see how that goes.

R Blank

but not a smart one.

Melanie Avalon

I know. Oh, so true.  That brings up a good question, though. So you're mentioning these aspects of the car that create more EMF exposure, but it's things that are seemingly pretty beneficial, like, you know, collision detection and such. So how do we make choices about what is worth it when it comes to all of this stuff, like to keep in our life?

R Blank

I mean, that's a very personal decision for people. The thing to keep in mind is to be aware of the risks and knowing that each additional source of EMF in your life incurs additional risk of think, do I really need this? Do I really want it? I mean, I was just talking about Bluetooth and wifi to connect your phone to the car. Yes, that introduces risk, but if it keeps you from looking at your phone while you are driving, that eliminates a lot of risk. And so, you know, with all of these things, it's a very personal decision.  So for me, for instance, not having a microwave is very easy. I've never purchased or owned a microwave. I just never, never did. And so that one's very, very easy for me. I do have wifi in my house. I also have my house hardwired so I can switch between them. When the wifi is on, I make, I turn it off when I'm done working. And if I can get away, I mean, you, you saw here people at home, the listeners don't know this, but I had to switch now cause I have some, sometimes unreliable internet. So I need to have, when, when we're doing a recording session, I need to have two networks running and I can't just quickly switch between them from my computer if, if I'm using the hardwired connection. So that's a good example of when I, you know, use wifi, but I make sure to turn it off for me, it's very easy not to sleep with my phone. And so that, you know, that, but for other people, they may not find that so easy. For me, it's very easy to basically use my Kindle and airplane mode all of the time. And then I, I turn on wifi just when I need to, you know, I'll download like 20 books at once, and then I won't have to go online with it for a few months and then I'll go back on, I'll get my new collections and then go back off. So these, but I never carry my phone in my pocket or I put it into airplane mode if I do, right? So it's these exposures to the really high powered things. And it's the exposures that are really close that are the ones that you should address first. And so if you do use wifi, like I said, turn it off when you're not using it and keep the router as far away from you as possible, there are other product solutions you can consider if you want, just as a starting point. There's very practical behavioral things that people can do for almost everything. But yes, to your point, I happen to think these in-car systems are very good for safety because it really discourages people from looking down at their phones, which is a real problem in terms of traffic accidents and fatalities. In my car, I have the option of connecting via USB-C, which is great, which means my phone doesn't have to be a source of Bluetooth and wifi. But I doubt that that means that the car is turning off its Bluetooth and wifi because it's going to continually keep searching for new devices, right? So there's limits to this stuff, but I'm not upset that this is in my car because like I said, I think it's a really overall, it's really good for health and safety. So these are the, it's a very, very personal decision for people, but there are certain behaviors, like I said, not carrying your phone in your pocket.

R Blank

Absolutely never holding the phone up to your head to talk. I actually occasionally, like if I'm running through the airport and I'm getting in a, you know, a call from like the person who's supposed to pick me up or something, I, and I don't have my headset connected, I will answer it and hold it up to my head and I hate doing it. And I get off that phone as quickly as possible. But that to me just underscores how infrequently I do that.  So never hold the phone up to your head, even if you have EMF protection on your phone, never hold it up to your head. Never carry your phone in your pocket or put it into airplane mode. If you do keep your phone in airplane mode as much as possible and turn off your wifi when you're not using it. These like are examples of things that you can do that basically incur no negative impact in your ability to use and enjoy technology, but do have a big impact on your overall risk profile from these exposures.

Melanie Avalon

It's so funny. I have the exact same. I have created really intense visceral muscle memory of resistance to putting my phone to my head. And when I have to do it, like the example you gave, I'm like, I'm just shuddering. And I stop as soon as I can.  I feel like just thinking about it, I feel like there's two big barriers to people implementing these things. One is the energy required to actually make a change that requires modifying your environment. So for example, like the ethernet. So I have my computer hardwired, but I had to get the ethernet cable and run it along the wall and do all of that stuff. And then I turned off the 5G on my router. Wait, no, no. I turned off something on my Wi-Fi router.

R Blank

You have a dual band router which most routers now are meaning they can run two wireless networks in your house and you can log in and turn one of them off and keep the other one on so you've got the radiation and half by doing.

Melanie Avalon

Yes, and that was not easy to do. I thought I could just do it.  Like you said, login, I had to like call. They were like, why do you want to do this? And they had to do it like wire like from their end. It was like a whole, a whole thing.

R Blank

Well, so that's where, by the way, where some products can come in handy. So for instance, in my store, this is not a product I make, but it's one that I sell and really happy to have it in my store.  And it's called the JRS Eco router. And it's a low EMF router. And I actually did an interview with the inventor on my podcast, the Healthier Tech podcast, where he goes into detail on how this works. But it turns out, this guy, I forget what he was, he was a computer engineer, or maybe he was in finance, I think he was a computer engineer. And he just started one day, after they installed a new Wi Fi router above his desk, he just started getting sick. And so he had to quit. And after he kind of regrouped his bearings, he decided to engineer a router that emits a lot less radiation. So he did that. There's a bunch of things he did. Again, you know, if you want the details, you can go go look at the site and shield your body or listen to this podcast. But basically, he cut the number of signal, right, this is Wi Fi routers are normally pinging, I believe it's 10 times a second. And he cut it down to once a second. So that cuts down 90% of the signals right there, Wi Fi routers are constantly emitting, he made it so that it's only emitting if there is radiation if there is a device connected to it. And then he also Wi Fi routers are designed to communicate over, I forget the number, but 150 feet or something like that. But you most people don't need it to communicate over 150 feet. So he put a little dial on there. So you can adjust the power level so that maybe you only need to communicate 20 feet or 30 feet. And so between all of these things, basically, you can have Wi Fi the way you are used to using it and enjoying it with 90% less radiation when you are using it, and zero radiation when you're not using it. And other than that, there's no changes to behavior. And it's a great example of how, you know, the companies themselves could be making this stuff much safer for people. I asked him, why is Wi Fi? Why don't why don't they make the Wi Fi routers this way? And he explained, because they make Wi Fi routers, the same one you put in your home is the same one that they'll put in an office. And in an office, it has much higher needs, needs to transmit more data over more active connections, and so on and so forth. But in your home, you don't need that. But there's no incentive or pressure for the companies to make a separate home version, which is why he came up with with this solution.

Melanie Avalon

Wow. Well, that is beyond incredible. I am going to get that for myself. And listeners, if they are intrigued or would like to integrate any of these products into your life, you can go to Melanie Avalon.com slash SYB and use the code Melanie Avalon that will get you 10% off site wide. So definitely check that out.  That's one of the barriers I think to people is taking the energy and time to, you know, do these things. And then the biggest barrier I've encountered talking to people about this is it is really hard to undo something you've been doing that seemingly brings benefit to your life. So convincing people to not use AirPods. And I don't try to convince people of anything, but having conversations with people about AirPods, people do not want to stop using them. And it's so interesting because the reasoning I get from people is that they can't live their life, like that they will not be able to function without their AirPods. Like how will I do calls? How will I go to the gym? Like, well, how are you doing it before AirPods? You were doing it and I only use wired headphones myself and I promise you, it's fine. Once you get used to it again, it's just really hard though to go back.

R Blank

Actually, I know people like my brother is one of these people who, who obviously believes in this science and wants to find ways of reducing his exposure. So he, he insists though, on using the AirPods in the gym, but that's the only place he'll use them.  So because he feels like they just give him so much more flexibility in the gym, but he also doesn't want to overdo it. So that, I mean, there's, there's middle grounds available.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. And when you are using the wired ones, so historically I was using the Apple, like the normal Apple headphones, but even those are digital and can conduct some radiation from the phone into your head.  So that's why we decided for our first co-branded product that I'm so excited about. We are creating Avalon X EMF free air tubes. And one, I'm really excited because I feel like I was familiar with the EMF blocking product world, had products for myself. There's a few different brands and I feel like a lot of it is skewed more masculine and everything. So I got really excited when R presented the possibility of creating rose gold air tubes as well as black ones. So we're having black and rose gold and they're so beautiful. I absolutely love them. It took so long to launch because we started, we probably talked about this, you know, right after I interviewed you, I think.

R Blank

Yeah, headphones were your first request. And I kept trying to suggest other products. And we even went down a few of those paths. And they're still on the road.  One of them I remember in particular, I know is still on both of our roadmaps. But eventually, you will us to back to the headphone path. And I'm really glad that you did.

Melanie Avalon

The other ideas, which I still want to do, I'm so excited about, but they were required a lot more innovation on our part compared to working with something that's pre-existing that we can optimize because you already had on your site, for example, AirTubes. But not like yours.  Right. You didn't have the ones with the ... I should learn this terminology, probably. What is it called when it's the earbud that is similar to the Apple headphones?

R Blank

But most people call it is the Apple style earbud so yeah the ones that I have been selling now for oh geez nine years have what it's I don't actually know that but it has like this rubber while silicone piece that kind of fits in your ear and it comes in three sizes and and some people. Really don't like those because they fall out of their ears so then I launched a second one that has what we call a mushroom style earbud and that was designed to wrap so it goes deeper in your ear and it has enough cord to wrap around your ear so those were really secure fit.  And but we never did what like we're calling here an apple style earbud which is obviously super popular I mean because apple does it and we never had the only two colors we've been selling our black and white and so now we're adding a rose gold to the next.

Melanie Avalon

I am so excited and R has been so patient because friends, listeners, we have gone through so many samples, so many.

R Blank

Your listeners need to know how devoted to product quality you are it is it is really dear listeners you can you can trust that melody was really focused on creating an optimal experience with this product in a way that i am very impressed by.

Melanie Avalon

I was literally waiting. I was like, he's going to give up on me.  He's going to be like, we can't do this anymore. There was two parts to really address, which was the sound quality of the actual earbud and then the mic quality because these function like, oh, which by the way, I didn't realize until we started creating these everything that my normal Apple like earbuds could do. I didn't really, I didn't realize I could, I didn't like I learned that like with the with the button, you could like fast forward or like skip forward or fast backwards or skip backwards or do all this stuff. And I had no idea until I realized, yeah, so now I know hours do all of that as well. So everything that you can do with your normal.

R Blank

Yeah, full phone control.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, and you can skip forward, like you can actually like skip forward in the song, skip forward to the next song, etc.

R Blank

Yeah, answer calls go up volume go down volume. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. So it's all, it's all on the box. They do all the things and they, they sound good. And yeah, sound, they sound good both ways now with the, with the mic and the sound. So I am, I am really excited beyond thrilled.  And I feel like, like these, what I really like about these is you can get them for yourself. And if you're like me, I'm listening to music a lot. I'm listening to audio books constantly. I'm doing calls constantly. So this is something that you can change, like make the switch. You will adapt to new habits. Like you will get used to having wired headphones again. That's just going to have a, that's just going to radically reduce your exposure because people are just doing that constantly. So I feel like it's a really good way to make a big impact every day.

R Blank

So if I may, first off, as you were clearly explaining, switching to wired headphones away from AirPods and other kind of Bluetooth headsets, that's going to be a massive reduction in radiation. And I should explain just briefly, the AirPods, they use Bluetooth technology, which is essentially the same thing as Wi-Fi radiation, except lower powered. But it's the same type of radiation. And they're obviously positioned in your ear, which is not only very close to your brain, but it's at a part of your head where there's no bone, right? Because the ear canal has, it's a big hole in your skull. That's how your ear works. And so the bone provides a certain degree of natural shielding, but there's none of it there. And then people tend to keep it in there for hours, right? They'll walk around like they're the Borg or something, and they feel super cool when they just get a call and tap and answer and all. And I can understand that. I used to be a tech guy too. But the point is, this is a very significant exposure that people tend to have for very extended periods of time.  So getting rid of the AirPods and switching to these wired headsets is a really, really big step in terms of reducing your exposure. But then these Avalon X EMF-free headphones, Melanie touched on this a few minutes ago, but so using wired headphones is much, much better than using Bluetooth headphones, hands down. But wired headphones have, as the name suggests, wire, running the whole length of the headset. And wire conducts EMF, right? So when you plug a wired headphone into your phone, that will conduct a certain amount of your phone's radiation up the wire and then into your ear. And so what Melanie's headsets do is they convert, they have wire for part of it, but then they convert the rest into sound vibrations, air vibrations. And so the wire doesn't actually go up to your head. And so there's nothing on which the EMF can be conducted. So it strips this excess radiation from being conducted from your phone all the way up to your brain. And so that's the problem that the Avalon X air tube solves.

Melanie Avalon

and I am so excited about it. And it's also really great because you can get it for yourself and make that change in your life. And then it's also just a really great present for people. I know people are often looking for presents for people. I know I am. I actually Christmas shop throughout the year for people. So stock up on these, especially with our launch special, because they will make great gifts for lots of people in your life.  If you had to choose between making a call on your phone using cellular versus having it in airplane mode and using wifi calling.

R Blank

I prefer Wi-Fi calling, that's assuming that there's a Wi-Fi network available. If you're talking about turning on Wi-Fi just to have Wi-Fi calling, then it becomes a more complicated cost-benefit analysis. Does that make sense? So if there's Wi-Fi already running, to me it's a no-brainer, use the Wi-Fi for calling.  But if there isn't Wi-Fi and you have to turn on your Wi-Fi in order to make the call, then there's a lot of other variables in the mix. A lot of questions with EMF, man, I try my best to give simple, straightforward, clear answers, but a lot of times it's, well, if this, then this, and if that, then that. Because it's so complicated, because there's so many different sources and so many different scenarios in which exposures occur.

Melanie Avalon

life is not simple. And it's also distressing to me.  I live in an apartment and so it's like secondhand smoke. You seemingly can't escape it because I'll turn on to look at the Wi-Fi or Bluetooth and I just see all these things. And I'm like, what can I do?

R Blank

Well, that's why we make the canopy shielding your whole apartment or much less your whole home is very difficult, very expensive and requires a lot of trade offs once you actually like if you painted your walls with shielding paint and things like that. Once you did that, if you did it right, you then can't use any emf emitting tech in your apartment. Otherwise, you'll be amplifying bounces back to you.  Yeah, so that's why we created the canopy which is a bed canopy which you can install it includes formats so you get a full basically a faraday cage around your bed and that won't protect you all day long but it will protect you for a big chunk of your day right approximately eight hours or a third of your day and it's the chunk of your day when you're supposed to be resting and rejuvenating for the next day. And so that's really the solution for people who live in high emf environments that's really the only practical solution and that's why i prioritize adding a canopy to our catalog.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, especially, you know, you get all of those benefits while sleeping, which is such a critical point of time for your health anyways.  So again, the code Melanie Avalon, will you 10% off that as well? What's your personal favorite product that you've created for your site?

R Blank

I got to keep going around on this as we launch new products. So, but right now my personal favorite, we have two Fanny packs, which double as cross-body bags, and one of them, we call it the Metro. It's a vegan leather and it is so stylish. And it's like, I can't use it for traveling, like, cause I have an SYB sling bag and if I'm traveling, I'll want my backup battery and my Kindle and my glasses case and stuff. But the, if I'm just going out for the day, I'll throw on my phone and my headphones and, you know, my lip balm and blah, blah, blah. And I love it.  The, it's a vegan leather, which, but it's a type of vegan leather, the texture of which I had never felt before. And so I, we don't advertise it this way, but I refer to it as vegan suede because it just, it has such a nice soft touch and it's so stylish and it's the perfect size for, like I say, going out for the day because I, like I've told you, I never put my phone in my pocket. So I'm always going out with at least one of my products. And that is now, well, for the last, I think eight months is hands down my favorite product of mine.

Melanie Avalon

I love using the mat for the laptop.

R Blank

Okay, the laptop pad, yeah.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, because I work on my laptop for hours and hours and hours, especially prepping this show. So that was a really easy thing to integrate into my life because I already was putting my laptop onto a lap desk thing.  So I just put the mat on top of that and the laptop on top of that, no-brainer. You don't even notice.

R Blank

But also, since last we spoke, and you know this already, but catching your listeners up, last time we spoke, I only sold SYB products in the Shield Your Body store. That is the brand that I make and sell.  But since then, I've added products to my catalog from 18 other brands. And so part of the joy in that… Oh, wow. 18. Yeah, I think it actually might be 20. We have a couple more that we're launching soon. I'm very excited about, but I can't say it yet. Part of the joy of that is getting to sample all of these other products and seeing… So I'll give you an example. One of the products I really, really like, it's called the Oculamp. And it's a rechargeable blue light free lamp that I use as a night lamp. And it is so cool. It looks like… I'd say it looks like something out of Star Trek, except that might turn off part of your audience. But it looks super art deco, like sleek and everything.

Melanie Avalon

Have we talked about Star Trek? I don't think we have. Don't get me started on Star Trek. Ha ha ha.

R Blank

But it's good because I had someone come and do an EMF assessment at my house, and I have a super low EMF bedroom. She was shocked, actually. But she said, you know, you have this because I was using a Himalayan salt lamp as my nightstand lamp. And she's like, well, you know, it would be great if you didn't have it plugged in here. And I was like, Oh, yeah, I guess you're right.  And then I got an oculamp, which like I say, it's rechargeable. So I don't keep it plugged in. And it's it's low, it's it's blue light free, it actually has three modes, but as a blue light free mode, and the charge lasts forever. And it's on a dimmer so I can control how, how bright I want it. And I love this lamp. And then another example is the JRS router, which we already talked about. I love having that in my store. I think it is such an amazing invention. We're going to hit 200 products by April in the store. And that's not skews. I mean, we're talking, I think we have over 3000 skews with all the variations, but actual different products, we're about to break 200. And there's so many parts of daily life and lifestyle, there's solutions for so many of them now that I we just didn't have, you know, as a small company, there's only a certain amount that you can make. And even then there's only a certain amount that you can make really well. I'm so glad to be partnering with these great companies and these great brands to be able to bring such a wide catalog of solutions to people.

Melanie Avalon

Wow. Okay.  First of all, just a fun fact, you can probably, I mean, I might get it wrong, but you can probably tell me the plot of an original Star Trek episode and I can possibly tell you the title of the episode. That's how much I love that show.

R Blank

Well, I remember there was one that involved a trouble with Tribble.

Melanie Avalon

So, that doesn't count.

R Blank

That's actually the only episode I remember. Sorry.  That's so funny. Yeah, I wasn't a big Star Trek fan. I well, I prefer to I prefer this will get hate. But I prefer Star Trek to Star Wars to Star Wars. Yeah, but I just was never one of those big kind of sci fi fans.

Melanie Avalon

This lamp, yeah, this lamp looks super cool. The AccuShield, yeah, because I'm same.  I, well, right now currently I'm using, I use a Himalaya lamp on my nightstand and then I, at night I actually use my red light therapy devices to light up my apartment. So it's kind of like the red light district going on. Ha ha ha ha.

R Blank

I don't think that's what you meant to say.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, it's really it's really funny. It's funny if you see my apartment from the outside at night like I saw it for the first time because normally I'm inside so I don't see it but I guess I left them on and then I went outside and I saw my window and I was like whoa people must be like what is happening there?  Okay wait that actually reminded me of a question I'm dying to ask you so the you mentioned travel the scanners at the airport so I know the ones that actually they tell me every time because I always opt out.

R Blank

that it just bounces off of you and that it's harmless.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, so I always opt out of it. And I've been told multiple times that it's, you know, harmless. The last guy who actually talked to me, he was actually very convincing. And I was like, hmm, I need to research this more.  Yeah, so the new ones, is that harmless?

R Blank

Yeah. If you can, if you can, if you can deal with the pat down, then get the pat down.

Melanie Avalon

Okay. I love the pat down. It's like a free massage at the airport.

R Blank

You and I view human interaction very differently.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. What's funny though, what's funny though is I actually don't normally have problems opting out in the US. They don't, they don't give me any grief.  I traveled internationally to the UK. They were not about it.

R Blank

I don't think every country allows the opt-out, but the U.S. definitely does.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, they were like, they're like, well, what's your reason? And I was like, medical. They're like, what is it? I was like, I just medical.  I don't, I can't go through. And then they were like, well, you, like you need to. I was like, in America, they let me opt out. They're like, this isn't America.

R Blank

Oh my God, that was the wrong thing to say, yeah.

Melanie Avalon

I got to opt out though. I was so adamant about it and then they like took me away to like a separate room. They were like, yeah, so good times.

R Blank

Yeah, if my carry on always sets things off. Yeah, no matter how much I take, because I throw all my electronics in the carry on.  So, you know, I'll take out the laptop, I'll take out the Kindle, I'll do it. And then, oh, now all of a sudden, my portable speaker is what's setting it off. Like, there's always just something in there that that gets me the specialty search.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, and then I always wear NAD patches when I'm traveling, and so they're always confused about that as well.

R Blank

If you wear emf shielding apparel you will get the pat down anyway.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, because you'll it'll block stuff in the

R Blank

Yeah, so I once went through a scanner with my boxers, my SYB boxers, and they were very confused.

Melanie Avalon

Oh, and then that's probably more problematic because they're not supposed to pat down there anyways.

R Blank

Yeah, they do, but they use the back of the hand.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, interesting.

R Blank

I mean, I wasn't, I wasn't using, I wasn't wearing bikini briefs. These are boxers.

Melanie Avalon

Well, listeners, so I bet, I mean, I'm even more inspired. I'm like, I'm creating the brand. And I'm like, man, I got to go buy some more things. So, um, for listeners, again, we are launching the Avalon X EMF free air tubes with a very limited time launch special. It's from Friday today, March 28th through Tuesday, April 1st, not an April fool's joke, and you can use the coupon code launch 20, and that will get you 20% off the launch of those headphones.  So now is the time to stock up, get them for yourself, get them for your friends. Get all your Christmas presents done now. Why not use that code? Because it is limited time. Are, what do you see as the, like, how do you feel about the future of all this? Do you see things changing? Are you excited about any upcoming innovations? Where are we going?

R Blank

I am encouraged by the, I mean, that's again, one of the things that I was sort of getting at when I was talking about the size of the shield your body catalog. I am encouraged at the breadth of offerings now of different types of solutions that are real solutions, right? When I got into EMF protection, there was very little that would I would consider to be consumer friendly. Certainly, for instance, on the apparel side, there was no comfortable stylish apparel. Now, we have multiple apparel brands in my store, but there was nothing like the JRS router. There was nothing like the signal tamer that we have in the store, the palm shield nightstand Faraday cage. Your listeners may not know what all of these products are, but they're just examples of the types of products that now exist that are super high quality, consumer friendly, that really work.  When I got into EMF protection, not only were the product offerings not really consumer friendly, the market was just dominated by fake steak oil because EMF is invisible. It's odorless. You can't see it, smell it, touch it, taste it. It was very easy to just sell a stick or gem and say, here, now you're protected. That stuff still exists, but now we have so many companies focused on building so many cool solutions, and again, ones that really work, and I see that continuing. That part to me is very heartening. Exposures, on the other hand, are more resigned than pessimistic. That's how I would describe myself, but exposures are just going to keep going up and up and up and up and up. That's why it's really important for people to remember the amount of control they have over their actual exposures. You can't control how much EMF you're exposed to by walking around New York City or any city or any urban environment. You can't really control that, and you can't control how much of that bleeds into your house, but you can control how much of it you're generating in your house and how far away from you you're keeping it. You can be making a lot of these decisions that have a lot of real impact on your exposure level.  I'm encouraged by the growth in the number and sophistication of real EMF protection products, and I continue to be motivated by making people aware of all the various things that they can do to improve their risk profile because this isn't going away. Even if all of these companies suddenly changed their tune overnight and they made phones safer, like if they engineered Wi-Fi routers to work like the JRS router out of the box, we're still facing a future of more and more and more EMF exposure. On that part, I'm resigned, but on the personal empowerment side, I am optimistic.

Melanie Avalon

I wanted to point that out briefly, which is none of these products you create are that world of like a gym or a sticker or this is also that physically just literally blocks like most scientifically.

R Blank

Yes, that's correct. Everything in my store is based on real demonstrable, measurable science.  In fact, we have a free guide that people can download from my store that explains how people can verify these product claims for themselves. We stand by all the claims of every product we sell in our store.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, and thank you for fighting the good fight. I know, I remember, I think it was pretty, it wasn't that long after I interviewed you the first time, for example, you went on, was it Dr. Phil?

R Blank

Yeah, it was it was about a year after your show. Yeah

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, and I mean, I just got to see like the experience of how traditional media, you know, tries to warp stories and, you know, make things difficult for sharing this information.

R Blank

Yeah, but you know, it it that it's how would I say it, it's that part of it is no different than really expressing any opinion today, because expressing any opinion today, you're gonna be, you know, siloed and shouted down by somebody else. So you just, I mean, it's just, it's just the nature of the way information flows nowadays, unfortunately.

Melanie Avalon

Yes. Well, thank you for what you're doing. Was there anything else you wanted to share with listeners about this whole world?

R Blank

I just want them all to know what a pleasure it is to work with Melanie Avalon. This has been a very long and sometimes frustrating road and never has a voice been raised, never has a curse been uttered.  Every call and email starts and ends with something ending in an exclamation point that's a very positive statement and sentiment. So, no, everyone should know that your persona on your show is your persona in real life and it's been a real pleasure and I look forward to a long business relationship with you.

Melanie Avalon

Thank you so much for saying that. Like I said at the beginning, it has been such an honor working with you. I am just beyond thrilled. I'm so grateful for everything you're doing, beyond thrilled about this launch.  As a reminder for listeners, I haven't actually mentioned my landing page for it. So you can go to avallonexemf.us and that will take you to a launch page for the products. It will redirect actually to our site, but you can get a lot of information there. And the code LAUNCH20 is the limited time, 20% off coupon code. It ends April 1st. That will get you 20% off after that. You can use the coupon code MELONIEAVALON for 10% off. So again, that is avallonexemf.us with the code LAUNCH20. Thank you so much, R. So the last question that I ask every single guest on this show, and you might remember it from last time, but it's just because I am all about mindset. So what is something that you're grateful for?

R Blank

Oh well that one right now i think i may have struggled with this the last time you ask me i don't remember but right now what i am grateful for is this shoulder pain having finally gone away i got i was under i think i told you i was under a tremendous amount of stress at the end of last year business related stress at the end of last year. And i did not realize how badly i was punishing myself and i developed this massive shoulder pain that was kind of debilitating which also prevented me from working which made me even more stressed out anyway the point is it took a while to diagnose because it was it was a weird manifest but it turned out to be carpal tunnel.  And it was carpal tunnel with referred pain up to the shoulder and it had gone on for so many weeks while i was getting treated and diagnosed and it took a while for someone to figure out it was carpal tunnel once they did i started using braces and i i got my desk shortened by three inches and i got a vertical ergonomic track ball and i made a lot of changes that the nerve damage was really bad so even after making those changes the pain went on for months. And it's just in the past few weeks that i'm basically pain free and i'm back up to act being able to exercise like every day and just the ability to live without that pain right now so this is a it's a very self centered answer to the question this time around but that is what i am most grateful for right now is being able to live and function without this horrible horrible pain.

Melanie Avalon

Wow, were you having actual carpal tunnel pain or was it all referred pain?

R Blank

No, it was all, so that was also part of what was weird. So most of it was in the shoulder, but even there it would move from day to day. So it would be in this part of the shoulder, and then tomorrow in another part of the shoulder, and then the next day it would be in the shoulder and the tricep. I'm like, how does this even make any sense?  And it turns out it's this, permanently, because of how everything works. But it's just the pain would be referred all up and down the median nerve. And no, I never got what I would consider to be traditional. I never had wrist pain, and I never had pain in my hands or anything like that. And that's part of why it took so long to diagnose.

Melanie Avalon

Wow, I'm glad you figured that out. And now I'm iterating. I'm obsessed with, you got the like the vertical type mouse.

R Blank

Yeah, the vertical trackball, yeah.

Melanie Avalon

Could there be an EMF-free version of that?

R Blank

Yeah, well, this is wired.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah, mine is too. Yeah, that's a game changer for me. So well, I am so so happy that that was all for you. And again, sending all the gratitude your way for everything.  I'm so excited this launch date is finally here and I can't wait for many more things to come. It's exciting. So thank you.

R Blank

Same. And yeah, so let's get another interview on the books for three and a half years from now.

Melanie Avalon

Yeah. Awesome. Well, thank you so much, R. We'll talk soon and enjoy the rest of your day.

R Blank

Excellent, you too.

Melanie Avalon

Thank you so much for listening to the Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast. For more information, you can check out my book, What Win Wine? Lose weight and feel great with paleo-style meals, intermittent fasting, and wine, as well as my blog, MelanieAvalon.com.  Feel free to contact me at podcast at MelanieAvalon.com.  And always remember, you got this.