The Melanie Avalon Biohacking Podcast Episode #327 - R Blank

TRANSCRIPT

R Blank
When it is profitable to do so, these companies will be more than happy to change their designs. You'll get unbelievable speed. That's how it's being marketed.

But that's not why it exists. It exists because there are too many things connecting to the 4G network. Within industry, there is just so much opposition to acknowledging these health risks. But even if everyone knew these health risks, people would still be buying phones.

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 herein. So friends, are you ready to join me? Let's do this.

Welcome back to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast. Oh my goodness friends, it is such an honor to have my dear friend and business partner, R. Blank, back on the show for his epic new book, Empowered. I promise you it is the go-to ultimate resource when it comes to understanding and taking charge of your EMF exposure. Yes, EMS are considered a group 2B carcinogen by the IARC. I cannot recommend R's book enough. It is mind blowing and an incredible resource. And you can get a free chapter. For that, just go to MelanieAvalon.com slash Empowered. You can also get 10% off my EMF-free Avalon X air tubes, as well as 10% off all of R. Blank's Shield Your Body products. For that, use the coupon code MelanieAvalon. You can go to AvalonXEMF.us to check that out. Also, I work with a lot of people business-wise. I cannot express enough how much R. Blank is one of the most incredible, kind, intelligent, savvy, epic humans I have ever worked with. I am so, so grateful for him. He is such a treasure to humanity. So it is really just an honor to sit down with him again today.

And in today's episode, we dive deep into so many things when it comes to understanding and taking charge of your EMF exposure. Things like what are the actual true risks of EMF exposure? We talk about common arguments that are often presented against the problems of EMF. Things like, well, haven't we always been exposed to EMFs and wouldn't we be seeing more brain cancer by now? We talk about that. We also talk about how you can address one of the likely highest sources of EMF exposure in your home, which is your wifi router. We talk about problems with current safety standard protocols and how they are actually measured. Free and easy behavior changes you can make to reduce your exposure. And we answer a lot of fun listener questions, including one about electric vehicles. I was actually shocked to hear the hierarchy of exposure when it comes to electric vehicles versus hybrid versus conventional cars. Hint, the highest exposure may not be in electric vehicles. We also talk about how you can protect your children and instill them with healthy digital and social media habits and so much more.

The show notes for today's episode will be at melanieavilon.com slash empowered book. Those show notes will have a full transcript as well as links to everything that we talked about. So definitely check that out.

Melanie Avalon
I can't wait to hear what you guys think. Definitely let me know 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, 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, I cannot recommend enough getting a free chapter of ours new book. For that, just go to melanieavalon.com, slash empowered, and you can get 10% off my Avalon X EMF free air tubes, as well as all of our blanks, shield your body products. There are so many fun things here. Just use the coupon code melanieavalon at avalonxemf.us. And now, without further ado, please enjoy this wonderful conversation with my dear, dear friend and business partner, our blank. Hi friends, welcome back to the show. I am so incredibly excited about the conversation I am about to have. It is, I'm trying to think, I think this is this guest's third time on this show.

R Blank
perhaps? I think so. I'm not.

Melanie Avalon
or either. I talk with this guest a lot. So it's hard to know like what actually was recorded and put out there. And I've been on his fabulous podcast as well. And he's my business partner and friend and author and all the things. And we're going to talk about a topic that I am insanely passionate about. And I've been talking about for years to you guys. And we're going to go nitty gritty into all the details and what you actually need to know.

And that is the concept of problem of just the issue of EMFs in our lives. I am here with R. Blank. He is the CEO of Shield Your Body, which is an epic resource store online to get all the EMF products, ones that R makes, as well as from other brands as well. It's really an incredible hub to outfit yourself. No pun intended if you're getting the entire version of it with products that can help you reduce. And I purposefully use the word reduce and not eliminate your EMF exposure because I'm sure we're going to talk about that.

R is back on the show today. He first came on the show a while back. We talked, that was when I first met him actually. And it was just to talk about the science of EMFs and all the things. And then he came back on again because we together launched an incredible brand of EMF blocking products. Well, product air tubes that I've created in rose gold and black, which I am so excited about. And I think, wait, did you or is this the second time? No, this is the third time, right? Am I making things like this?

R Blank
What? That I'm on the show? Yeah. Yeah, I think third.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, because now you're coming back on for the book. Okay. Yes. Okay. I've got it. And now he is back because he has an incredible new book.

It's called Empowered, a consumer guide to legitimate EMF protection to shield your body. And friends, I have the book in front of me right now. It is a monster of a book in a good way. If there's anything you ever wanted to know about the role of EMFs in our life, you've got to get this book now. It dives really, really deep into the history and the science of our understanding of exposure to these fields, like naturally, like in the world, and then also the human-made versions that we're exposed to and how that's actually affecting our health. It talks about the regulations surrounding all of this and the problems with those. It talks about countries and initiatives that are being done to tackle EMF problems. And also super amazing is it has a deep dive into all of the current EMF products out there and how to evaluate products. Do they actually work? Should you use them? How can you upgrade your life with them? And even better, it has a huge focus on behavioral change. So how can you do things that are completely free, change them in your lifestyle, to again, reduce your EMF exposure because we're not going to eliminate it completely. So I cannot recommend this book enough. I'm so excited to dive into it. Thank you so much for all that you do for our world. Thank you for having this new book, and thank you for being here. Thank you for

R Blank
that amazing introduction, Melanie. Nice to catch up with you again. I know.

Melanie Avalon
I always, always look forward to our conversations so, so much, so many ways that we could go here right now. I actually have a really random question.

So the book is called Empowered. And I actually am prepping for another show right now, and it's a book about not this. It's about changing your life and how you should live your life and things like that. But she talks a lot about the concept of empowerment. And apparently, the word empowerment has a lot of different definitions, like people don't really agree on the definition of it. I'm really curious. Well, first of all, is it supposed to be

R Blank
a pun? No. What would be the pun? Like power? Oh, no. No, it wasn't.

So empowerment, to me, is, well, the verb empower is claiming agency, claiming authority, claiming the ability to do something. Now, in a roundabout way, I suppose it is a pun because I like the name. I think it's very suiting for the mission of this book, but I also named it empowered because people who have been following both my career and that of my father would know that the book that we wrote together that was released in, I believe, 2013 was called Overpowered, and that was a book. It's still available, still very well regarded, but that book focuses, really the entirety of the book, focuses on the science of EMF health effects. So what my father, Dr. Martin Blank, who had studied this for 30 years from his role at Columbia University Medical School, he spent decades studying this, doing his own research, and leading what became an activist career. And so that book was a summary of everything he learned in those 30 years about the science. And the name comes from the concept that these devices are overpowered, right? Your cell phone is overpowered. It literally emits more power than it needs to, and certainly more power than our bodies and all life are designed to absorb. But then when I was writing this book, and I was trying to think of names, empowered was not the first, and then one day it just hit me. And my father loved wordplay, so he would have loved this name too.

But what I like about this is that it is about the consumer taking authority, taking agency, taking ownership of their decisions, and their actions, and the power that they have to actually significantly reduce their exposures to these forces through knowledge, through understanding what they are, what they can do, how they work, where they come from, how to measure them, and then, of course, how to…

Melanie Avalon
protect yourself. Okay, so I love this so much and you include his words for the forward, which I thought was...

R Blank
Pretty pretty cool. Yes without a Ouija board.

I had I had my deceased father and yeah No that that is because when I joined the the project to write Overpowered he'd had just a lot of things he'd written Trying to get his thoughts out which we didn't use in the book and I still had all those and I thought it would be When I read this part in particular, I thought it set the tone perfectly For empowered and I thought it would be nice to give my father a voice

Melanie Avalon
once again. It's nice to hear that, you know, that your goal here is to empower people to have agency to make choices to, you know, learn, make behavioral changes.

And as a case study example, I told you I was going to tell you about my CT scan yesterday. So I've been having like a recurring sinus infection that keeps coming back and it's been really, really annoying. And I saw an ENT and so she wanted me to get a CT scan of my sinuses. And it's funny friends, so whenever I am contemplating something that is higher EMF exposure, R gets an email from me because I'm like, should I do this? Should I not? We can talk more about this, like how to know what to choose to consciously engage in. But one thing I really like about you is you're like, you know, you've got to know that the cost benefit and if you need a CT scan, like you need a CT scan, I really appreciate that. But in any case, this is just a small example of you can even with something like that. So they originally put in the order for it. And then I just sent a message and I was like, can you actually request like a lower EMF version? They did. So I mean, like they had to cancel the order and send in a new order. And then when I went in yesterday, I was like, this should be like a lower EMF one or any or lower radiation. He was like, yeah, I saw that in the notes like he didn't act. He acted like he knew what to do with that information. Now I don't know if he actually made any changes to the machine, but I'm assuming so. But it was a nice little example of even with that where presumably you're going to get a hefty dose of radiation, that was like a small little step, but maybe it made a difference in reducing it a little bit. Yeah, that's just my that's just my like case study example of like practically just, you know, asking questions and seeing what you can do with daily things in your life that might, you know, have an effect. I don't know if it happened.

R Blank
had an effect. I didn't even know that that was Bob.

Melanie Avalon
chatgbt told me to do that actually

R Blank
Yeah, that's fantastic. I mean, I've never had a CT scan. But now, if and when I eventually need one, I now know that that's possible. That's really it.

There's, there's a chapter in the book about how companies could make this technology safer, if, if they wanted to. And I think, I mean, because that's something that I've never read in a book. It's something I mean, people know, I learned it from somewhere. I think a lot of readers will read that and say, Oh, my God, they could make a Wi Fi router, that's safer. Why aren't they doing that? And when you realize that that's the case, you'll realize that that a lot of these technologies could work with less power. And that I think what you just explained is a is a pretty fantastic example of that.

Melanie Avalon
I'm so glad you brought that up because my understanding, I'm assuming with the CT scan that normally they would, I don't know, but my understanding is probably normally it's maybe a larger area, maybe higher powered, but because she just needs to look at my sinuses, they can actually fine-tune the machine to only get what it actually needs.

I loved that chapter, are the one about how companies could be doing things differently. Besides, it made me a little bit angry. But basically, you talk about all these different things that could be done and products that would make a massive difference. Do you think if there was a big enough paradigm shift surrounding this, that those things could start happening? Yeah, totally.

R Blank
Totally. So there's two ways that that would happen. And just to make it, I know you understand this, Melanie, but your listeners, just so they understand, I'm talking about changes in the technology that lead to significantly reduced exposures to this toxic radiation without sacrificing any benefit or functionality of the technology itself. There's two ways that that's going to happen. One is by regulatory change. So government comes in and tells companies they have to make them these products safer, just like they did with cigarettes. Cigarettes are awful still, but a cigarette today is a lot safer than a cigarette in 1958. And that is through regulation.

And that's really, I think, what the goal of Overpowered was, was to show enough people that stronger regulation is required. That is not my goal, right? So I said there's two ways to have these companies make safer products. One is through regulatory change. And two is through consumer demand. And that's where I really want to focus the effort behind the message of Empowered is by making more people aware of these options, of these technologies, how they work, what they could be doing differently. And then consumers will demand it. When it is profitable to do so, these companies will be more than happy.

Melanie Avalon
to change their designs. Yeah, no, I think it's so important.

I just pulled up my notes from that section, so it's things like changing the direction of signals, so some products just blast out the signal in every direction when it only needs to go in a certain direction, changing the continuity, so how often do these devices need to be transmitting via EMFs, it could be in more like a pulse situation or just when needed rather than constantly. And then you said that this would also improve battery life and energy efficiency, so that's a nice side benefit. The power output like you were talking about earlier with your prior book, they just don't have to be this powerful.

R Blank
all the time. Yeah. So my favorite example from that chapter is Wi-Fi. It's my favorite for a few reasons. One is because everybody can relate to it immediately, right? So especially if you live in an apartment building, but even if you live in a house, how many Wi-Fi networks do you see, right? You're seeing more than your own. That means whoever's Wi-Fi network you are seeing is reaching an area it does not need to reach. That means it is transmitting with more power than it needs to, right? You shouldn't see your neighbor's Wi-Fi networks. That is a totally gratuitous exposure.

You're not joining your neighbor's Wi-Fi network. It is because all Wi-Fi routers emit a certain amount of power just out of the box, and it's a one-size-fits-all solution, whether you live in a 150-square-foot apartment, like my last one on the Lower East Side of Manhattan was, or a 3,000-square-foot house. Or you're in a 1,500-square-foot office with 30 people connected to it at once, right? You're using the same technology is in place because there's no way for you to tune down the volume on the device. There's no way for you to say, you don't need to emit this much power because I'm just trying to give my apartment a Wi-Fi network. That's actually just one example. Another is, like you mentioned, continuous transmission. You don't need Wi-Fi continuously transmitting. It only needs to transmit when there's an active connection. There are all these examples, and then I also then talk about the JRS EcoRouter, which has become a very popular product in the Shield Your Body store, where the engineer behind it designed a Wi-Fi router that actually empowers you to do all those settings yourself. There's a little knob on the side that allows you to turn down the power. It'll only transmit when something is actively connected to it. There's a series of design choices that he made that leads you to have 90% less exposure when you're using Wi-Fi and zero exposure when it's not being used. It's the same technology that everyone's buying in their Wi-Fi routers. The Wi-Fi router company isn't doing it because there's no market demand. Putting that knob on the side would probably cost an extra $10,000.

Melanie Avalon
for five cents. Yeah, it's so upsetting, especially because I know, well, it's funny because you have an Android phone, right? So I don't even know, I'm speaking iPhone language right now, so I'm not sure. Does Android have, I'm sure it does, like the thing where you, the Bluetooth where it shows all the Bluetooth devices around you? Yes. Yeah. If you're trying to connect to Bluetooth. So that, like if I pull that up in my iPhone, I see a lot of Bluetooth devices around me. But then every now and then I lose, I do because I do have some Bluetooth devices, I lose them like my Aura ring, for example. And I've downloaded an app that will show like way more than is that you can even see on your phone. Like it is shocking how many devices are, like you said, like Wi-Fi routers, all these Bluetooth devices. I mean, it's kind of scary.

I'm like, this is so many things all around me that I had no idea. And I do want to emphasize, so like I said, so much of your work is about, you know, free things that people can do, just behavioral changes. And also reading your book, I was like, oh, I need to get some of this. Like this Wi-Fi stuff is really cool, like the, so is the signal tamer different from the router thing that you're talking about?

R Blank
Yeah, so the JRS EcoRouter is actually a router, and so that costs, I mean, that costs money because it's electronics hardware. The signal tamer is more of a shield. You can think of it like a sleeping bag for your phone that's made out of this EMF shielding material, which I talk a lot about in the book. Almost everything I carry in my store is based on EMF shielding technology. The JRS router is an exception to that.

There are a couple of exceptions to that. The air tubes are an exception to that. But almost everything in my store is based on EMF shielding. And so the signal tamer is an example of a shielding product, and you put it over your Wi-Fi router. And then what you do is you kind of roll it up little by little, you know, like your your pant leg if it's too long, just little by little to let more and more signal out until you have the right amount of signal coverage for your home or apartment. It gives you control over how much of the power output you're actually exposed to by using this more conventional shielding technology. And because it's shielding fabric, it costs significantly less than the JRS router.

Melanie Avalon
So this will actually be a good way to, because we kind of jumped into a lot of topics. If I ask you questions about this signal tamer, I think it'll be a good way to kind of explain how EMFs work versus being blocked, like where they actually are.

Are you saying that it blocks like one direction of the router or it's over the whole thing and it lets

R Blank
It lets it out. It is designed to, like I say, it's like a sleeping bag for your router. So it's full coverage. And that's why you roll it up to expose bits of it, right?

Melanie Avalon
When you roll it to let some out, does that mean all the signal is inside and it gets super focused out through this one area? Does it work that way?

R Blank
No. In practice, it does not.

Because the power of EMF radiation diminishes exponentially with distance. And so as it bounces around inside of the signal tamer, it will gradually lose its power. Where does it go? Where does it go? It goes to little EMF heaven. No, it just dissipates. It's a form of energy that dissipates. So it's just like I just said, the power of EMF radiation diminishes exponentially with distance. And so if you hold your cell phone an inch away from your body, and then you double it to two inches away from your body, the power of your exposure has diminished by 75%. So the energy just dissipated. It disappeared. I guess you could, I mean, I'm trying to think of a good poetic metaphor to use it, it evaporated into the ether. But I mean, this isn't, you know, this is measurable stuff. So you can, with an EMF meter, measure how much radiation you are shielding with a product like the signal tamer. And that is also something I explained to people in the book, how to do there's an entire chapter on testing, and then another entire chapter on meter recommendations, so that people can get that kind of insight, and they don't have to take my word for it or your word for it, or the company, whoever they're buying from, they can see for themselves with the efficacy of these products.

Melanie Avalon
Yes, and I think that's an insanely valuable chapter as well because you emphasize the importance of you really need to know that these things are working and the meters can be very complicated. So there's a really really helpful chapter on how to how to actually pick up you know choose a meter and go about using it.

Question, I had a one more question while we're just while we're talking about the Wi-Fi and such. You said there's also is it around there was something that used light instead. Wi-Fi.

R Blank
Yes. So this is a relatively new technology, and it is a replacement for Wi-Fi. It is called LiFi, and it uses light instead of radiation to transmit the signal. Now, I should be clear here, light is a form of EMF radiation, but it is in a different band of the electromagnetic spectrum. Right?

So we've talked about this, you and I, multiple times and in at least one of the prior episodes. I know we did. But just very briefly, EMF exists on a spectrum of different frequencies, and there are a band of frequencies that we can see. Visible light is a form of EMF radiation. And then, of course, there's versions with more energy than visible light, and those are ionizing, those are x-rays and gamma rays, and everyone knows that those are incredibly harmful. And then there's versions with less energy than visible light, and those are the non-ionizing forms like we're talking about here, and that includes radio frequency and microwave. LiFi uses visible light, which is the type of EMF that we all, all life on Earth, evolved with, and it sends its transmissions by using these versions of visible light. It is a brand, not brand. I mean, the technology itself is, I think, something like 15 years old, and there are just starting to be some consumer options on the market. They are still very expensive, and it does require some changes in behavior. It's one of these things where the actual selling point is not that it's healthier for people, even though it is. It's for security, right? Because Wi-Fi and wireless networks can be easily hacked, and LiFi, because it uses visible light, you need to have direct line of sight to the transmitter, right? So like the router needs to be in the same room as you. If you're not in the same room as the router, you can't connect to that network. And so even though it is a wireless technology, it is a much, much, much more secure wireless technology, and that is the selling point that these companies are pursuing as they try to break into the market. But it is also much healthier because it is using visible light instead of these non-ionizing frequencies like radio

Melanie Avalon
microwave. So do you know, can you see it then? The light that

R Blank
comes from it? It is just outside of what is perceptible. And it uses a flicker, and it uses a flicker, so it flicks really fast, right? So the light flickers really, really fast.

But if you measure it with a flicker meter, which is a thing you can get, you won't detect anything. And again, that's because it's just so it is it's considered light, but it is a frequency of light that that humans cannot perceive. Oh, wow.

Melanie Avalon
I'm envisioning like this future world where we go that direction and everybody has their life eye and then they start making party versions and it's like you can see it and it's like pink light and you like light up your room with your internet. Okay, and okay, some other, actually I said no more wifi questions, but I think it's just such a big part of people's lives.

We talked about this, I know we talked about this on a prior episode, like the two versus the 5G, because I had to turn that off. I had to turn off the 5G on my wifi and it was not easy to do. And I think it's back on now. I think I need to like turn it off again. I had to like call to figure that out. You said in the book, something about how, so 2G, is it lower signal but it goes farther?

R Blank
Yeah, so those are frequencies, right? So when you're talking about 5G, you're not talking just for your listeners. I know you understand, but just so your listeners understand, you're not talking about like 5G cell networks.

You're talking about a 5 gigahertz Wi-Fi network.

Melanie Avalon
Well, that's actually a good foundational question because in my head, I actually, yeah, because I know it's a thing on my phone, but I see it on my wifi too. Yeah.

R Blank
are different 5Gs. The 5G you see on your phone means you're connected to a 5G cell phone network, which means you live in a city. Because if you didn't live in a city, you wouldn't have a 5G network.

But that is not communicating at 5 gigahertz. That's communicating at millimeter wave frequencies, which are higher. A 5 gigahertz, well, let's just step back. So anyone who's bought a Wi-Fi router or had one given to them by their cable provider, at any point in, I don't know, the last seven years, eight years, it came probably running two networks. So when you turn on your Wi-Fi router, you see two networks in your home, not one. And so one is operating at 2.4 gigahertz. And another is operating at 5 gigahertz. And that's where the 2.4G and the 5G come from when it comes to Wi-Fi. And your recollection is correct. So the 2.4 gigahertz network goes farther. It penetrates more surfaces. And the 5 gigahertz network will not extend as far. What I explain in the book is why that people, unless they need two networks in their home, right? Like if you ran, I don't know, a bed and breakfast, maybe you want two networks so that you have yours and the guests have theirs or any kind of store, right? But most people don't need two networks in their home.

So I encourage people to disable one. As you're explaining, the companies don't necessarily make that like the easiest thing in the world to do. And there's no standard set of instructions. So what you'd want to do is type in whatever your router name is and your internet provider, and then ask, how do I access the control panel, right? So all of these Wi-Fi routers come with a kind of control panel with all these amazing settings, right? So if you call tech support, I don't know, you have Verizon. Let's say you have Verizon and let's say your internet was down. your rising guy would come to your place and he would log in to that right and he'd see what all the settings are and he would update ones that that might need updating you as the consumer also have access to that panel. And that's where you can do things like turn off one of the networks and you know you would access it by like opening your web browser and typing in something like one nine two dot one six eight zero dot one. Which is actually what a lot of them would be but it may depend on your own model which is why you have to kind of Google to get the instructions for yours but once you're in there you'll see that's where you would change the password for your network it's where you would change the name of your network it's the same place. And you can turn off one of the networks or if you're actually just using the ethernet right because you've decided to hardwire your home or apartment. You could turn off both of the Wi-Fi networks and still have ethernet Internet.

Melanie Avalon
flashbacks to our last conversation. We probably had this exact conversation.

Yeah, so I have Comcast Xfinity and they actually were able to, and I'm going to do this like this week. I'm going to call them again because I know they're both back on again. I think when I call them, they were able to do it remotely. Like they

R Blank
They turned it off. They all have some degree of remote access to your hardware. I don't know, so that's entirely believable and possible.

Melanie Avalon
And it probably got, I'm sure since then at some point, there was probably like a really intense hard reset or something. And that's when it probably came back on and I probably asked this question last time.

So I thought I should turn off the 5G, but it sounds like maybe I should turn off the 2G goes farther.

R Blank
Well, it depends. I mean, right? Go to the furthest place in your home and see which network you can see. Why? Okay.

Melanie Avalon
I only really, you know what? So if I, you said the, so the actual strength of this, okay, so if the 5G is more intense, but it's shorter. Intense.

R Blank
That that's that's a loaded word. Yeah, it's supposed to be faster. It's supposed to be faster. Yeah

Melanie Avalon
Okay, so if I'm like if I'm like standing right in front of my router and I get blasted with 2g or blasted with 5g Do you think one is worse than the other I do not so I should probably keep on the 5g turn off the 2g again

R Blank
it, see if it reaches where you need it to reach. Just turning off one, whatever one you decide to keep, turning off the other one, you're slashing your exposure. So I wouldn't stress too much over which one it is, as long as it still works.

The whole point to having Wi-Fi is to have it work.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, this is so interesting to me, I guess because I immediately think 5G so much worse. Because with phones, it was like 5G is coming or like, you know, it was like the thing.

And which, by the way, speaking of this idea of being able to like opt out of things. So we can turn off like on our, well, I don't know, can you? I did it in the past. Now it says 5G right now. So maybe that train is gone. But even if you could turn off like your phone accessing a different network, the network is still there. That is correct.

R Blank
But your phone would not be actually connecting with it or emitting the signals associated with it and I believe you are correct I I've never Wait, that's not true. I think I did connect to a 5g network one, but I don't have that was when I was traveling I don't have 5g networks anywhere near where I live. So I don't have much experience with it.

But as I recall on phones you can Give preference to which type of network it should connect

Melanie Avalon
I think what the situation was, was there was, this is my memory of it and I could be wrong but like I said, it was coming for a long time and people who were concerned with EMF exposure were like, oh, you need to, you know, not be turn off the setting, not be using it and I feel like I was doing that but there's just been like so many updates and I don't know, or I'm looking at my phone right now and it says 5G so I should probably,

R Blank
Look into this. Yeah, I'm not so worried about that as some other people are I mean you were asking me, you know What's the difference between being exposed to 2.4 gigahertz Wi-Fi and 5 gigahertz Wi-Fi and look I'm sure there is a difference But would I call one? Safer than the other no, I would not and the same is true about a 5g network on your phone Versus a 4g network on your phone 5g got a lot of attention.

They came at a very sensitive time Sociopolitically And it got picked up and I'm glad that it got attention But it was also an area that was rife for Misinformation and conspiratorial theories and so forth the thing that I find that I want people to understand about 5g Is not that it is quote-unquote more harmful to you than 4g. It is that it is designed, right? It's marketed to you that you can download a movie in 8.3 milliseconds or whatever it is, right? You'll get unbelievable speed. That's how it's being marketed But that's not why it exists. It exists because there are too many things connecting to the 4g network Right, and this is this has to do with the popularity and growth of all of these wireless technologies that are making use of These frequencies and these communication networks and we're not talking about just the growth in cell phones We're talking about cars right cars communicate Wirelessly with each other and then also with central hubs traffic lights are in cities are doing this all of these sensors and monitors And smart devices are all and so the network got clogged and so 5g was engineered from the ground up to create the room for a growth of orders of magnitude and scale of these connections and that means a growth by orders of magnitude in the number of sources of EMF in your life and that means a Order of mag multiple order of magnitude growth in your exposures And that's what I want people to be aware of with 5g not that it is implicitly Better or worse than 4g because I don't believe that the science bears that out I'm not a because there's no real long-term science into 5G because that's how they deploy this stuff. But when you look at the history of what we do know about EMF, we have not found any safe frequencies. There are documented health effects at all of these frequencies. Now the specific health effects, right, can vary based on the frequencies. So for instance, the neurological diseases like Alzheimer's and Lou Gehrig's, those tend to be documented much more closely with power line frequency exposures and seen in utility workers and so forth. Whereas melanoma was documented with FM radio frequencies. That's just one example, right? So you see clusters of disease at different frequencies. There's not a frequency that's safe. There's not even, as far as I read the science, there's not even a frequency that's safer when we're talking about these human-made forms of energy.

R Blank
I mean, what it comes down to is I mentioned natural light is a form of EMF. And that is the form of EMF with a couple of other exceptions, which we can talk about or at least mention, but that is the form of EMF that all life on earth evolved to cope with and to thrive with and to require in order for it to succeed as life.

Any other form of EMF is a foreign form of energy. It is a form of energy that are very delicately, finely tuned biological systems did not evolve the capability to react to or to exist with. It is a massive change in the environmental profile. And so there's not like one form of EMF that is human-made that is safer than the other ones because all of these are foreign forms of energy and they are all very, very, very powerful. When you look at the guidelines, there's a chapter on safety regulations. I talk about the ones like that the FCC uses for cell phones and that ICNIRP, which is part of the World Health Organization what they use. And then I talk about ones that, for instance, were recommended by the Bio Initiative Report, which is an international team of scientists who analyzed 1800 studies into these top and the Building Biology Institute, which is an institute devoted to the science of healthy homes. And if you look at the ones advocated by example, For example, the Bioinitiative Report and the Building Biology Institute, you will see that they are minuscule. They are saying safety levels should be orders of magnitude lower than what is currently permitted.

I'm not talking about 50% less. I'm talking about orders of magnitude less. And so very, very, very small amounts of these forces have a real impact on every biological system. I feel like I just went down a kind of soapboxy rant. So I apologize. Let me pass it back to you, Melanie.

Melanie Avalon
No, I love it. You actually answered a question that I didn't even ask that I was going to ask.

So that's good because I was going to ask a argument that has been posited to me before, interestingly by a few people in my biohacking sphere. So the interesting thing about EMFs and the problems with them is that I find there's a lot of people who appreciate the harm, a lot of people who do not, and a lot of people who are skeptical, even in the very health-centric, biohacking-type world, they're still skeptical of the EMF stuff. And the thing they say, because multiple people have told me this, is we've been on this earth for however many millions of years, and we've always been exposed to these types of energy waves from the sun and the environment. That's what I get told.

R Blank
Yeah, that's bullshit. So it's true that all life on Earth has been exposed to forms of EMF radiation for the duration of life on the planet, but not these forms and not in these levels. It's a ludicrous, or I can see how it has appeal, but it is a ludicrous fallacy because there were not cell towers. Well, of course there weren't cell towers.

There wasn't anything emitting these types of radio waves and microwaves and extremely low frequency waves. And even if there were, which again, there were not, the amount of it in the environment now, I can't remember if I put this in the book, but I've cited it before elsewhere and I don't remember the footnote. And by the way, this citation is now, I believe 10 years old. But as of 10 years ago, if you are walking down the street in a city, in a modern city, well, a 2015 city, you are being exposed to approximately one trillion times the amount of EMF radiation than would be found in a state of nature.

Melanie Avalon
Wow, can't even fathom that.

R Blank
Yeah. And I believe it's gone up probably by another several orders of magnitude.

So I believe, Greg, because that was 10 years ago, and this stuff is advancing so quickly that it's probably a quadrillion now. So that's what, I mean, again, that's kind of where OverPOWER got its name. There is just so much of this power floating around in our environment. I mean, people can't see EMF, they can't touch it, they can't smell it, they can't taste it. If they could...

Melanie Avalon
The reaction would be a lot different the second argument that gets that I hear before that my analogy, I guess for the We've been exposed to it for millions of years and you know, so it's fine It's kind of like the food situation like well, we've been eating for millions of years But now we're eating all this processed food and look at Us like look at the obesity epidemic and everything and metabolic health issues The other thing people will say if it was actually this bad We would see the effects more like everybody would have Brain cancer from their cell phones. Well, not every

R Blank
I mean, just because something, incidents goes up several times, doesn't mean that everyone gets it. But you are now seeing massive spikes in brain tumors that was reported out of the UK. You are seeing massive spikes now in colorectal, early onset colorectal cancer in the United States, right? So when we're talking about these types of diseases, we are talking about things that take 10 and 20 and sometimes 30 years to form. And so we are now starting to see the impacts of people carrying their phones in their pockets for 10, 20 years. We are seeing a massive epidemic of chronic diseases in the United States and increasingly around the world.

And I am certainly not claiming that EMF is the only cause of these. But EMF exposure is documented by high-quality, peer-reviewed research to be linked to a lot of these diseases. And actually, I just interviewed somebody on my podcast, Camilla Reese, from the 704 No More Project, which is related to cell phone health regulations. And she told me about, I think she told me in time enough to actually put it in Empowered after the version you read, but in the final release. And it's a report from the Navy, the US Navy in 1971, predicting the massive onset of chronic disease in the US population based on growing EMF exposures. And so this was predicted by the US Navy in 1971. And if you remind me, I will send you that report tomorrow or something. Yeah, no, that was good.

Melanie Avalon
would be amazing.

R Blank
Yeah, I mean the people who are saying that aren't looking at the data that's right in front of their eyes. I mean, again, just because something doesn't kill you instantly doesn't mean it's safe.

Just because not everyone is, thank God, not everyone is getting brain tumors doesn't mean something can't cause brain tumors. I mean, look, there's people who smoke for their entire lives and never develop lung cancer or emphysema. Does that mean we say smoking is safe? I mean, that's ridiculous argument. Everything you're bringing up from your, and I am no longer, it's been so long since I did debate in high school and college, but everything that you are bringing up is actually a logical fallacy of the kind where a real debater would disembowel your

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. It's just interesting. I do feel like those are the two things that I hear the most from people. And it's interesting.

So to make it super clear, so the IARC does classify EMS as a group 2B carcinogen. I know when we first were talking about this years ago, you said there was the potential of it maybe increasing on that scale. Has there been any update with that?

R Blank
There are no updates. There is still the potential. I forget which scientist I asked about this, because I actually learned more about this since we last spoke about it. Not only is there no insight into that process, we don't even know who the people are that would be making that determination, so they don't make that information public.

But there is definitely a push, and the science is continuing to grow. I talk about the 2018 National Toxicology Program report in Empowered. Again, I don't know if it's in the version that you read. For those of you who are listening, Melanie got an earlier version of Empowered, and she was a phenomenal proofreader. If any of you are writing a book, befriend Melanie and get her to edit it. This wasn't in the version that you read, but I did add it in later. It documented that this was a large study of rats, a significant, certainly statistically significant increase in tumor formations in male rats exposed to 3G radiation equivalent to cell phone use. And so that's a government study, so the science is continuing to grow on this.

The epidemic, I mean the incidence of disease in the population, I mean you know as well as I do right now how much exposure that topic is getting, because it's real. We have serious epidemic of chronic disease, I would say especially but certainly not exclusively in the United States. And there are just so many toxic forces in our environments, and at some point something has to give. Yeah, and

Melanie Avalon
you're mentioning about how it's like, it's the one, not the one, it's one of the ones that you really, like it's so pervasive and you just, you can't see it. And not only can you not see it, it's seemingly making our lives better because it's something that we really need for what we

R Blank
think we need. I would say not just seemingly, I'd say it is. Yeah.

Melanie Avalon
It is, making our lives.

R Blank
No, it totally is. I mean, right, because we're spending a lot of time here talking about wireless technology.

But EMF comes also from anything that runs on power, right? So that includes power lines, it includes your refrigerator, it includes your

Melanie Avalon
television. My whole setup right here talking to you.

R Blank
If you wanted to live in an environment free of human-made EMF, you would have to time travel to 1860. Even the light bulb is a source of EMF in your life.

And right? I mean, so EMF exposure today is a byproduct or a cost of life-saving technologies, of how we entertain ourselves, how we learn, how we drive all economic development. If I'm out on a hike and I have a health emergency, I can call 911 right there, right? Because I have a cell phone on me. This stuff is really, really, really valuable. The advances that EMF have brought humanity are immense. I would say immeasurable and incalculable. So this is not an exercise in Luddism. This is an exercise in having people understand that there are costs that have effectively been hidden from them. And there are a lot of things that companies could be doing to make this stuff safer while still bringing us benefit and enjoyment. And there are a lot of things in the interim that we as consumers can do to make this safer to use and engage with until the companies actually decide to make this stuff safer.

Melanie Avalon
Speaking of the safety measures, so you talk a lot in the book about how those levels of what's safe are even determined and all the flaws, the potential flaws with all of that. So the safety measures for these devices, is it primarily just involved with how much the device heats up something like temperature wise? Yeah.

R Blank
So, and this will vary by country. So obviously we're talking about the United States and the regulations that you were talking about are cell phone and not just cell phone, but wireless communications like cell phones.

And yes, that system, that regulatory system is based on how keeping radiation levels low enough so that they don't heat up human tissue based on a model that they use and I talk about in the book. So yes, it's based on the heating effect, it's called the thermal effect of EMF radiation.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, the reason I find that really interesting is basically it sounds like it's really just measuring something that we literally can perceive. It's kind of like with sunlight and UV exposure being super aware of like sunburn. So people are super concerned about sunburn and cancer and things like that. But I think the reason it's so, a reason it's so obvious to people is because we do get like sunburn. So like there's an immediate effect that we can see.

So it sounds like with the EMFs that the regulation is focused a lot on this aspect that we can actually see, but that doesn't speak to everything else going on beyond that, beyond just like the heating up of the tissue.

R Blank
That's correct. You need a certain amount of power of EMF in order to heat something. All of your listeners will know this because that's how a microwave oven works.

It doesn't apply heat. It applies microwave EMF radiation like your Wi-Fi router does, but with so much power that it cooks food. It cooks your food or boils your coffee or warms up your coffee or whatever it is. And so the EMF radiation, when it is powerful enough, can heat tissue. And when there is a heating effect, that is toxic. That is something over which there is absolutely no debate because it triggers the types of biological responses that lead to disease, including cancer. And so the regulations that exist are intended to keep your exposures below the threshold at which you experience the thermal effect. The issue is that that regulatory standard ignores what is now over a century of a growing body of science that shows a lot of these negative health outcomes at levels far below what would trigger the thermal effect. So, and this is what part of what I was saying earlier, which is that you don't need very much power in order to trigger the biological responses. The biological responses happen at incredibly low exposure levels.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, it's kind of like by the time it's actually heating it up, I mean, I would imagine problematic things happen before it got to that point. And I'm just looking, I always bring this up, but it's just because I find it so fascinating.

You can actually go to the information about this in your iPhone. You just search for legal or search for RF exposure. And that's where you can find the section. That's where it says iPhone has been tested and meets applicable limits for radio frequency exposure. So question there, is that covering everything that we need to be concerned with with the phone, the radio frequency, the RF, or is that...

R Blank
only a aspect of it. That is basically all of it, except I mean, so when you're talking about RF, right, you're talking about the wireless frequencies.

And so those are the types of frequencies that we need to be concerned about with phones. And I explained this in the book, but radio frequency and microwave are two different names. So they actually refer to different parts of the EMF spectrum, the electromagnetic spectrum, but they are used basically interchangeably by companies and health experts. And so they basically mean the same thing. So radio frequency and microwave refer to the forms of EMF radiation that are used for wireless communication. And so those are cell phones, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, FM radio, radar, all of that stuff. Anything that communicates wirelessly is doing so using RF radiation. Okay. So

Melanie Avalon
I feel like this is class. So I'm going to read this little section. Can you tell me what they're actually saying here and how it might have been? I'll just read it to you and you can let me know your thoughts.

So it says, specific absorption rate, which is SAR, refers to the rate at which the body absorbs RF energy. The SAR limit is 1.6 watts per kilogram in countries that set the limit averaged over one gram of tissue and two watts per kilogram in countries that set the limit averaged over 10 grams of tissue. 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. So reading that makes it sound like, okay, they tested the phone the way we would use it in its highest emission and it meets these safety limits. What do you think?

R Blank
Well, I mean, so the safety limits are vastly inadequate, so that's a starting point. If we are to, for the moment, just assume that these safety limits were adequate. There are a lot of problems with this regulatory regimen the way it is enforced. So a lot of people think that when you hear that cell phone radiation is federally regulated, that that means the government is testing this stuff. And the government is not testing this stuff. Apple has hired a lab. That lab is working for Apple to perform these tests. So these are not being monitored by the federal government or any kind of neutral third-party arbiter.

And so that creates the landscape in which this stuff can be gamed. Just a few years back, I can't remember which version of the iPhone it was, but Apple had to stop selling it briefly because it was emitting too much radiation. This was after they had those tests. Those tests said it was fine. They were released to the market. It was after all of that happened. They had to acknowledge that, ah, you got me. And it turns out that they were able to fix the problem with a software update. So they didn't even need different hardware. They updated all the phones of, again, I forget which iPhone it was, that model. They updated them with software, and they emitted less radiation. And that's just using the iPhone as an example. In France, a few years back, the federal government decided to test 300 models of cell phones. And I have links to all of this in the book, in Empowered. But they decided to test 300 models of cell phones. And they found 88% of them emitted more radiation than the manufacturer had set, and several emitted more radiation than was legally permitted and had to be recalled from the market.

So we see that these companies lie, which shouldn't surprise any modern consumer. But now let's assume that not only these inadequate safety standards are somehow adequate, and B, these lying companies aren't lying, C, SAR is based on, in the United States, right, a standard SAR test, the kind that the FCC is requiring from these laboratories. is based on how much a model of a human absorbs, right? So they don't actually expose a human to this radiation and measure how much it's heating their tissue. They expose a model called SAM, which is something specific as absorption mannequin, I think is what SAM stands for. And SAM approximates the body of a six foot four, 220 pound man. And what that means is if you are smaller than a six foot four, 220 pound man, you are absorbing more radiation than SAM.

Now Melanie, let me ask you, it's been a while since I've seen you. Are you smaller than a six foot four, 220 pound male? Just a little bit, yeah. Okay, so you absorb more than SAM. In fact, 95% of the world's population is smaller than SAM. And so 95% of the world's population absorbs more radiation than what Apple is telling you in that disclosure. Wow.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, that's really, really upsetting. And this is the part I really do like about this.

The next paragraph, it says, to reduce exposure to RF energy, use a hands-free option such as the built-in speakerphone, headphones, or other similar accessories. And then it says cases with metal parts may change the RF performance of the device, including the compliance with RF exposure guidelines in a manner that has not been tested or certified. I just think if Apple is putting in here, it's basically recommending to use, to not use it up against your head, in my opinion, when I read this. I just feel like if they're putting it in there, that that's something.

R Blank
the fact that it's in there. And I think it also says something.

Two leading underwriters for Lloyd's of London are refusing to ensure cell phone companies against future health claims. Oh, wow. That's really interesting. Yeah, because it's they considered obvious that this is going to happen at some point. You know, what I think is amazing, right? So this to me is really short sighted. There is so much within industry, there is just so much opposition to acknowledging these health risks. But even if everyone knew these health risks, people would still be buying phones, right? They'd be maybe demanding safer phones, I would hope they'd maybe be using them a bit less, I would hope. But they'd still be buying phones, right? I mean, people still buy cigarettes, and those don't add any economic value. Wireless technology forms the entire foundation and structure of the modern life in the modern economy. This technology is not going anywhere, but they just so they're reacting out of, to me, a fear that is so fundamentally irrational. It can be hard to

Melanie Avalon
to accept at times like basically you're saying they're kind of like ignoring it because they're worried people would stop using phones when really everybody's going to keep using phones. So we'd probably trust them more if

R Blank
if they were more open about it? Oh, it's not about me trusting them. I mean, I never trust companies. If they acknowledged it, it wouldn't change very much, right?

And that it could open the conversation for how we just have more intelligent use of this stuff. It's the same thing with social media, except we are actually starting to see at least more of an honest discussion on the impacts of social media. It's not like social media is going anywhere just because everyone knows it's a super toxic force. This technology would not disappear. They would not be regulated out of existence. Wireless would still be around, right? People would still buy iPhones. All that they would need to do is make this stuff a little bit safer and just be honest about it. People do stuff all the time that they know brings risks, right? I mean, people eat sugary desserts. People drink scotch. People smoke cigarettes. People go skydiving, right? People are, you know, just because you acknowledge that something has risks doesn't mean people are gonna stop doing it, especially when it's the entire, like I say, underpinning of modern life, modern economy. That's why to me, it's just crazy that these companies don't want to acknowledge. So I give another example in the book about the NFL and Dr. Omalu, who you might've seen and your listeners might've seen was portrayed by Will Smith in the 2015 film, Concussion. And he is the doctor who discovered CTE in football players, right? Chronic traumatic encephalopathy. Basically, being a football player led to brain damage. The NFL responded by funding their own science to show that Omalu was wrong, by trashing his reputation, by getting him and his colleagues fired, and he had to move across the, it was just horrible what they did to him because they did not want to acknowledge that what it's immediately obvious, that bashing your head thousands of times across the, you know, your career could lead to brain damage. They didn't want to acknowledge that obvious thing because they felt it would create financial exposure for them and their business model. Meanwhile, 10 years later, they did acknowledge it. They changed the rules, they modified the helmets, and they are making more money than they ever did. But they fought it tooth and, and it was something so obvious, right? I mean, like bashing your head thousands and thousands of times can cause brain damage. It's something so obvious, and they just fought it and fought it and fought it. And at the end of the day, they acknowledged it, and they're making so much more money now than they were in 2006 when it happened. Gotcha, yeah.

Melanie Avalon
I hope we have that turn with this, that would be absolutely amazing. Well, I think it's up to the consumer.

R Blank
And, right, so like I said, overpowered was really, I think, the goal was about creating the landscape in which conversations happened and which regulatory change could occur. And that was really a lot of what my father was focused on.

I mean, outside, in the lab, he was focused on actual science. Outside of the lab, he was focused on regulatory change. I am not. I am not only not a scientist, I am from a different generation, and I am not waiting for the government to come and make my life better.

I mean, I'm happy when it does. Don't get me wrong. It's possible that the government can come and make my life better, but I am not waiting for it. And fortunately, with EMF, it's not like the ozone layer, right? I mean, with the ozone layer, you have to have the government do something. There's nothing I could do that would make an impact on how much a deteriorating ozone layer would harm me and my life. But with EMF, there's a lot I can do. And that is not just the core message of empowered. But it is what, I mean, empowered goes into so much detail about how you can actually do that. And it gives you so many options that you can pick and choose which ones you are comfortable with, and which ones make sense in the context of your life. So that you can just make a really, really big difference in how much of this stuff you're exposed to until the time at which either the government or these companies start making these types of changes.

And honestly, in the meantime, you're going to make these changes. You'll influence somebody else who will then start making these changes. And eventually, there will be a tipping point of consumer demand. So we don't need regulatory change. It will come from market forces. Because at the end of the day, all of these companies respond to market.

Melanie Avalon
market forces. Yeah, no, I love this so much. And like we've been saying, there's so much people can do that's relatively, you know, very easy to implement and can make huge changes.

I mean, even just things like using Ethernet for your internet, which I will say, honestly, for me has been, I mean, because I've been, ever since I moved into this apartment, I immediately hardwired with Ethernet my computer setup. And it is, it's like the best thing because I mean, it's way better than using like Wi-Fi for my like for podcasting and stuff like I would I would much rather have Ethernet. Yeah, it's faster and more reliable. And people will say like, and you talked about this in the book, but like, oh, but that's so many chords and things. It is not so I'll tell you what I did I got they make this. It does it is a little DIY project, it does take like a little bit of time, but then you're you're set. And so I they make Ethernet cables that are not paper thin, but they're like flat. So my walls are white, I got it in white, they make these little clips, you can buy on Amazon that you can like clip to your baseboard. So basically, the Ethernet connects to my computer, then it just runs, it runs down along the baseboard, it even runs like around the room, because it has to get over to the the router. And you don't even see I'm looking right now, you don't even see it. Like how did I do that? You don't even like I don't even. So like basically, once I took the time to like, install it, and do it, and it was cheap, I mean, the chords are not that expensive. I'm like set. Now I have internet, I don't have to worry about I do use Wi-Fi, and we can talk about that. I don't use it all the time. But I do. But but yeah, I think people, I think people get intimidated by like, oh, it's like so much. And like, there's chords and all these things. But you can do it. I'm telling you friends, you can do it. And the way I

R Blank
did it is with power line adapters. So I run my ethernet network through the electrical wiring in my home. Oh, yeah, because my walls are made of concrete. There's there's no drywall here. So anytime I have to go through a hole up through a wall, it is a it is a really big ordeal.

And it's effectively reversible. So I use power line adapters. And so like at the router where it comes in my home, I plug in to a power line adapter. And then wherever I need Ethernet, I have another power line adapter. And it connects over so it uses the electrical wiring in my home. That is really cool. And the book gives those and oh, sorry, just this is an example of the type of solution that that that that the book goes into detail on.

Melanie Avalon
One of my favorite parts of the book actually was when you talk about your office set up and you actually had somebody come and evaluate the levels of your house and you found, it was like Paige Turner, I was like, oh, because you said that, I think it was a woman. Yeah, Cassie.

Yeah, she found a source in your office, right, that you were unaware of.

R Blank
of? That is correct, right?

So at the time I had a metal desk and it turns out that that was conducting electric fields effectively from, you know, I have this mess, I have a lot of power cables and battery backup and all this kind of stuff. And so it was effectively conducting electric fields from that area where all those cords are over to my chair and particularly waste level where, you know, at the spot where I spend many hours every day. And it was leading to not only elevated electric fields right there, but also elevated body voltage when that was measured. And so the solution there was to swap my desk that had a metal frame for a wooden desk, which I happened to have one in my house at the time. So we were able to actually perform that swap right then. And it just totally dealt with the problem.

Melanie Avalon
And actually to that point, so here's an in real time swap that I actually have been wondering if I need to do. And it actually speaks to a topic we haven't spoken about yet, I don't think on this episode, which is how people can actually potentially misuse shielding products because they think, oh, it's shielding.

So I put it on. So I'm shielded, but really, for example, like people will put on a shielding case on their phone, like just on the, but it might just be like on the back. So then that's actually potentially reflecting like the EMS back into your head. Yeah.

R Blank
it's written, this is, I'm glad you brought this up because this is a really important part of any shielding product, right? So let's assume that the shielding product you've purchased works, which a lot of them do. You have to remember how shielding then works, right? Because shielding doesn't make EMF disappear. It makes, it blocks and deflects it in the other direction. It will, as we talked about earlier, eventually disappear, but it blocks and deflects it in the other direction, right? So let's use the example you just said. Well, actually, yeah. So a phone case, except let's assume it's designed, right? So the front of the case is shielded and the back isn't. And the reason phone cases are that way is because backs need to have holes in them for the cameras. And so the holes would make shielding much less effective. But so the front of the case is shielded. So when it is closed, there is much less radiation coming out of the front of your phone. Now you answer a call, right? And so when you answer the call, first you want to see who it is. So you open the case, you flip it around. So now what was the front of your case is sitting on the back of your phone and you see, oh, it's Melanie calling. I definitely want to talk to her. So you answer the call and then hold the phone up to your head. And at that point, you are effectively doubling the amount of radiation you are exposed to from your phone because the radiation coming from the front of the phone is hitting your head. And the radiation that would be going out the back of the phone is getting deflected back through the phone and also going into your head. So in that, that would be an illustration of when shielding technology is being used improperly, leading to increased exposure.

And when you deal with EMF shielding, you have to make sure you are using these products correctly. Now, there's certain products that you don't have to worry as much. So Haven used to be called Lambs. They make EMF shielding t-shirts that I talk about in the book. It's pretty hard to use a t-shirt wrong, right? So you put you put that on and you're using it right. But then you also have to make sure, right. So let's say let's say that the t-shirt is a little long on you. It doesn't come just down to the belt line. It goes below the belt line and you're carrying your phone in your pocket. You need to make sure that the t-shirt is not covering your phone, right? Because then it would be deflecting more radiation into your body. You have to be mindful of how all of this shielding technology works. And I mean, so I make a whole line of products that are designed to make it safer. to use your phone, like the foam pouch, and the sling bag, and the fanny packs. And with these products, I've designed them intentionally so that they are very, very difficult to misuse, right? So let's take the fanny pack. There's a side that's obviously designed to go towards your body. So it's not even something you have to think about. If you put your phone in the fanny pack, and then you put the fanny pack on, as long as you're using it correctly, which is the way you're gonna, right?

R Blank
I mean, it's just, I know you have listeners, and so I can't show them. There's just a side that goes against your body. It's obvious.

And so as long as you're using it that way, it's deflecting radiation away from your body. With a lot of these other products, including some that I make, it is very, very, very important that you use it correctly. So like my canopy, the SYB bed canopy, which is a really, it's an expensive product because it uses a lot of this expensive shielding material, but it is a fantastic solution to create an extremely low EMF environment for your bed, where you sleep, where you're spending eight hours a day. But if you're using one, you have to be darn sure not to bring a phone to bed, right? Or not to use an electric blanket. Or if you have an alarm clock that is plugged into the wall that it's outside of your canopy, right? You can't have anything that's an EMF emitting device inside your canopy with you. So you have to, with all of these shielding products, you have to make sure you're using it.

Melanie Avalon
them correctly. Do you also have to make sure that the ground part is shielded like underneath the bed?

R Blank
So, my canopy, the SYB canopy, it does include floor mats, shielded floor mats. In general, we recommend that you use them.

But if you live on the ground floor, if you're very confident that there's no EMF coming from beneath you, you don't need it. But that's something you definitely want to measure and not just assume. For most people, I mean, we include the ground mats, and for most people, I definitely recommend they use that.

Melanie Avalon
Okay. And so like for me being in an apartment on the fourth floor.

R Blank
I would. You would use one, yes, otherwise it could be bad.

The same thing is true, by the way, for EMF blankets. I don't make, I mean, I make a baby blanket, but I don't make like a queen size or a king size blanket. But if you were to use a shielding blanket, you have to make sure there's no EMF coming from below you, otherwise you'll be leading to more exposure.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. Yeah. And then so here's my in real time. I'm like embarrassed to say it because I've been it's been there for so long and I think I kind of just forgot it was there.

Now I'm realizing that I don't know. It's probably either doing nothing or it might be making things worse. So I was given a by different brand years ago a like a mat, a shielding mat, kind of like which I do use when I'm sitting on my couch using my laptop. I do put one of those between the laptop and my like lap. I understand I but I guess in my I'm I guess that like you're weighing the cost benefit of Yeah, because

R Blank
If your laptop is such a big source and you're putting it right against your body, we didn't focus heavily on it this time, although we mentioned it, but we definitely in one of the prior episodes talked about how much distance matters. That's because the power of EMF radiation diminishes exponentially with distance.

And so when the laptop is right up against your body, unless the third floor has a power plant, you know what I mean? Like the laptop is going to be a bigger source than whatever is coming up from your neighbor's apartment. And so that is not I wouldn't advise advise against doing what you're doing. I think that's smart. We have a lot of people who use my baby blanket that way. A lot of people use the baby blanket instead of the laptop pad to use their laptops on their bodies.

Melanie Avalon
Awesome. Yeah.

And that laptop pad, that's because you have one, that's yours that I use over there. No, it's yours. Wait, what? No. Actually it's, I think you sent it to me when we first met, I think. So I've been using, but that's not the one I'm talking about being the problem.

R Blank
You're talking about a mat. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Melanie Avalon
That's the one I'm pretty sure I'm using correctly.

R Blank
when I do my left but you have a meter so you don't have to guess I know see

Melanie Avalon
I know and I don't know how much I understand it I need to I need to

R Blank
Just measure and see if the number is bigger or smaller.

Melanie Avalon
And now this is true. And also, we have chat TPT now that could help me use the meter. Okay, I'm going to do this. So the math that I think

R Blank
I'm using. I've trained chat GPT on everything in empowered and everything in overpowered. So I have helped, I've helped make LLMs more.

Melanie Avalon
EMF aware although I mean that's a side note because it says it doesn't like remember anything does it learn things though from what we yeah and it remembers too

R Blank
It doesn't have perfect memory, but unless you are telling it not to train off of, and I don't know how all of them work, but chat GPT, unless you are telling it not to train off of you, it will be training off of you. It trains off of every interaction unless you have changed your settings to not train off of you, even in a temporary chat.

If you do a temporary chat in chat GPT, you click that button so it doesn't get stored in your saved chats. It is still learning off of you.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, it just claims that it doesn't, it can't like personalize and remember specific things, but it's still learning. That is correct.

R Blank
Correct, but if you're not in temporary mode, it is definitely learning about you. It doesn't have perfect memory, right?

So if you're using it for three months and then in a chat, you're like, do you remember when we talked about X? And well, if you ask it a question, it'll always answer yes. But do you remember when we said X about Y and what did you say? And so it'll kind of like remember some bits of it and not others. So it doesn't have perfect memory, but any stretch.

Melanie Avalon
but it does have memory. So I'm gonna use it to help me with my meter.

So the way I think I'm incorrectly using a mat is I have one, so my desk set up right here, right now. So I'm in front of my desk. I have my computer in front of me, the mic, all the things, I have a mat underneath my keyboard. I don't really know, I don't think that should be there because it's just- Is it a wireless keyboard? Well, I plug it in with the, it is a Bluetooth keyboard, but I plug it in.

R Blank
with the cord. Okay, but is it still transmitting Bluetooth? I've actually

Melanie Avalon
I actually wondered that, I'm not sure, but here's the thing, it's in front, it's like in front of me, it's not on top of me, so I don't know what, I don't know what having a mat underneath is doing. Your legs go under it?

R Blank
Like is it under your, like do you slide your legs and maybe your lap kind of close to it? No.

Melanie Avalon
Like, I don't get underneath this keyboard. So I think the only thing it's doing is reflecting stuff, like if the keyboard is emitting anything, reflecting it back into my hands. Yeah.

R Blank
Yeah. Possibly. I mean, you keep asking questions that you literally have the tools to answer for yourself. I know.

So, and that's what's, you know, and I deal with customers all the time. I mean, it's a big reason I wrote Empowered is because I've dealt with customers on these questions for so long and with experts. I wanted to be able to explain what, like, I wanted an average consumer to know when they care about these things. And so I understand how much a consumer just wants a simple answer to a question that sounds like it should be a yes or no question. And I also understand that when it comes to issues like EMF, often yes, no questions don't have yes, no answers. You know, it's a lot more common to have, well, it depends. And then getting into a longer discussion, which is why I think it is so important to empower consumers with as much of this information as possible. It's not so that it's not that I think consumers should be experts. It's not that I expect consumers to be experts. And I don't want consumers to even feel any pressure to become experts. But understanding these issues at a consumer level will help them and empower them to make wiser decisions.

Melanie Avalon
Exactly. And so I think this is a good in real time example of, I mean, I'm just logically thinking it through and there's no, I don't think I should be using this mat right here. There's no reason. I just put it there because I got it years and years ago and I was like, Oh, this is good.

R Blank
I'll do this. Yeah, just like if you have one of my laptop pads, but let's say you have a desk set up like mine, right, where my laptop is, it's over an arm's length away from where I spend my time. A laptop pad isn't going to do anything for me, right? But there's some consumers who hear that laptops are a big source of EMF, EMF is bad. The laptop pad helps with laptop radiation, right? And so they'll want to buy the laptop pad. And that's an instance where the laptop pad would do nothing for the consumer. It wouldn't hurt them, but it would not help them. It serves no value.

And there's so many different types of EMF protection out there. I mean, there's a ton of types that are completely bogus. But even when you get into the realm of legitimate EMF protection, there are so many different types of products out there. Someone in an interview recently asked me what had changed in the years between writing overpowered and writing empowered. And one of the things that had changed was just the landscape of EMF protection, right? I mean, I could not have built the store that I have today, 12 years ago, when overpowered came out. Almost none of the products that I sell today existed in 2013. Not even mine, because that's the year that my first product came out. And now if you go to my store, I think there's something like 260 products available. And I know that if I go to my store, I know what I would want to buy. If you tell me something like, hey, R, I want something for X, I'll say, oh, go order this. But that's a bias, right? That is a perceptual bias because I have so much knowledge. And as I was building out the catalog so significantly over the past two years now, right, that's when my store has grown from 30 products to 260 is in the last two years. As it was getting larger and larger and larger, I suddenly was realizing, like, oh, my God, wait, if I'm just someone who's learned about EMF, and I think I should get protection, and I come to this homepage, I have no idea what the F I need or should look at or should buy and the landscape of protection is just going to increase. There's going to be more and more companies filling more and more use cases. That is one of the key reasons that I wrote Empowered is to explain what EMF protection is out there, how it works, why it works, how to use it, but then also to really emphasize the behavioral changes that need to proceed investment in protection products because right now it is like I said it. There's so many different products just in my store alone meeting so many different use cases that I wanted to.

Melanie Avalon
explain it to people well you definitely did that in the book you go through you know all the different living situations and you're you know like how to address your workspace how to dress your your bedroom and it's a lot of stuff that is like like i said completely free it's just like behavioral change, you know using airplane mode on your phone actually i have a few so i ask listeners for questions for you if you wanna rapid fire some of these.

R Blank
do my best to rapid fire. You see, I seem to talk a lot today. No, I love it. So.

Melanie Avalon
So we have, I think it's Lona, I think is her name, she wants to know, do electric vehicles have high EMF? Is there any comparison of radiation emitted between, I think she's saying like electric vehicles and, um,

R Blank
microwave. So I do talk about this in Empowered. It is a question I get a lot at SYB, Shield Your Body, my company. It does not get its own chapter, but I do talk about it in the book.

And the answer is yes, electric cars are a significant source of EMF, but it might surprise people to know that hybrid cars are a more significant source of EMF. And even conventional gasoline burning vehicles these days are really significant sources of EMF. So I do not believe that EMF concerns are a reason to choose or avoid electric vehicles. So let me give a little more context on that. I told you I wasn't going to give you short answers. All cars these days have just tremendous number of sources of EMF, right? I mean, there's Bluetooth, there's Wi-Fi, there's LiDAR and radar. Depending on the car, it might be connecting to a central network to get software updates. There's all of these things. These are really big sources of EMF, and that's before you get to the engine. Also, keep in mind, you know, these cars are made with a lot of metal that creates these frames that are little chambers in which you're getting the EMF to bounce around. That's before you then also add on the fact that you're carrying a cell phone and all your passengers are carrying cell phones and maybe they have AirPods, and it's all bouncing around in there. It may surprise your listeners to know that there are absolutely no regulations as to how much EMF you can be exposed to by your car. Manufacturers are not required to disclose that number if they even measure or know it. We don't know. Then electric cars do, like, so let's say you have car X and then you have the electric version of car X, right? So what's an example? The Civic, right? So there's a Civic and maybe there's an electric Civic? I don't know. Whatever. But other than the power train, they have all the same features, and one has a conventional power train and the other one has an electric power train. The electric one will be a bigger source of EMF because of the electricity. But then I mentioned that hybrid cars are a bigger source of EMF than electric cars, and that is because they still have the an inverter, right? Because it is converting the power created by burning conventional gasoline into electricity, and that creates an additional source of EMF. Anything with an inverter is going to do that. That is the answer.

It is also, unfortunately, one of these areas where you just can't really provide protection, except with apparel. That is one of the instances in which, if you want to protect yourself, EMF shielding apparel is really the only thing you can do. Just to explain a little bit more, I mean, obviously, it would be, you know, if you're not making use of these wireless technologies in your car, it would be great to disable them. Some cars allow you to disable them, like the Bluetooth, for example. Other cars do not. Even on the cars that allow you to disable them, it is unclear whether it actually disables them or just disables your ability to use them. And so it's just, you know, it's one of these things where it's a fact of life. Like, you can't do anything about it, really.

Melanie Avalon
Okay, I think that's probably gonna be a surprising answer for people, because I think, yeah, I think most people would think normal car, all good, electric car.

R Blank
know, horrible. No, if you wanted a safer from an EMF perspective, if you want a safer car, you want an older car. And the older your car, the less EMF it's going to be emitting.

Melanie Avalon
That makes sense and she wanted to know like how it compares like a microwave

R Blank
Well, microwaves are, I mean, they're insane. I mean, it would shock people if they measure them. I mean, they literally tell pregnant women not to use them, right? I mean, they don't tell pregnant women not to drive.

And microwaves are really a double whammy, right? Because these are massive amounts of microwave radiation. I mean, to cook, right? You just need a tremendous amount of microwave radiation. It leaks. It's allowed to leak.

Melanie Avalon
It does leak that was my question

R Blank
Yeah, so at the point of sale, I believe it's allowed to leak, I forget that it's something like five or 10%. That's at the time of sale. The seal will degrade over time. A lot of the manuals will tell you to have it serviced every year. I have yet to meet anybody who even knew that much less has ever had their microwave oven serviced.

That's just the microwaves. You need a lot of power to generate those microwaves. I'm talking about AC power, right? There's a really powerful motor in these things that consumes a tremendous amount of power in order to create these incredibly powerful microwaves. That is a whole separate and second source of EMF radiation. And we didn't get into the details here today, but it's the ELF or Extremely Low Frequency. It's the stuff emitted by appliances and power lines and so forth that is different from the radio frequency emitted by wireless communication. So a microwave oven is emitting tremendous amounts of this microwave radiation in order to cook the food and tremendous amounts of the ELF radiation in order to create the microwave radiation. And it is really, really tremendous amounts. Like if you measured it, it would almost certainly go off the scale of your consumer grade meter. It would read the maximum. And so I advocate against using microwave ovens at all.

But if you do use a microwave oven, get as far away from it as possible when it's on. Could you test this out?

Melanie Avalon
your microwave by not turning it on, but putting your phone inside of it and then calling your phone and seeing if it ranks. Uh-huh.

R Blank
It will. It will ring? Yes. Every time I've tested one and everyone I know who's done it, yes, it will ring. Awesome.

Melanie Avalon
That's reassuring about the microwave. So Mandy wants to know, you mentioned earlier like heating mattresses. She said, are there any heating blankets or mattress pads that are safe?

R Blank
Well, nothing is safe. I mean, I think I try to talk about this in the book. But I mean, I think that's the wrong framing. I understand the question. I'm not trying to condescend, and I will answer it. But to me, this is not just a discussion of semantics. It's a discussion of paradigm. There is nothing in the world that is safe. Everything brings some kind of risk. Leaving your home brings risk. You could get run over. You could get mugged. You could literally get struck by lightning. Staying home brings risks. Going out for a drive brings risk. Literally everything brings risks. So there is nothing that is safe.

Now, there are things that are safer. And that is what I know she is asking, and that is the question I will answer. But I do think it's important to emphasize that point. We're not talking about safe versus unsafe. We're talking about relative safety. What is safer in a world of complex trade-offs? The answer to, I believe you said, Mandy. Mandy's question is, I have seen one, but I've only seen it online. I have not had a chance to test it. It is from the same company that makes the lower EMF hairdryer that I do sell in the store and I talk about in Empowered. And that company is called Shield Life, and they do make, I don't think it's a full-size blanket, but a heating pad blanket that they say is lower EMF. And again, I just haven't had the chance to have that tested. Kathy, who we talked about earlier, the one who did my desk, and who also wrote the recipes in the book, she is the one who does a lot of the product testing for SYB as we vet things. I'm actually morbidly carried out.

Melanie Avalon
now because I do use an Euler pad. It doesn't heat up electrically. It heats up the water inside that heats up.

R Blank
the pad yeah that's probably i mean it's so when you use it it's not plugged in it is.

Melanie Avalon
Well the pad so the device is plugged

R Blank
Yeah, I don't know. You'd have to measure it. That would depend on how it's... I mean, it's possible that it's lower EMF. It's possible that it's significantly lower EMF by keeping the heating source much further away from your body, but it's also possible that it's not. So I would need to know more about the product and you could just test.

But I'll give an example here, which is something we talked about in overpowered. I did not talk about it in empowered. I didn't even think about it until just now. But radiant electric floor heating is a tremendous source of EMF. So that's when you have electric heating, but it's in the baseboard. It's in the floors of your home. I didn't know that was a thing. Yeah, that's a thing. And I actually had it in my home when I wrote overpowered. I stopped using it. And these are really, really, really high levels. But then there's another form of radiant electric heating that works by heating water. So it's electric and it uses the electricity to heat water. And then it uses electricity to pump that warm water through the piping in your floor. And so you still get radiant floor heating. It is still electric powered, but there is much, much less EMF coming from it. So that's the example that comes to mind when you talk about this blanket or pad that you use.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, and I like using this as an example because it comes down to like I sleep So much better with that oohler like it's crazy. I mostly use it to cool myself down not not heat not heat up so Even if it is emitting EMS like the benefit I get from that temperature regulation is just really profound So I've made like the conscious decision to keep using it

R Blank
You could also measure so you could make a more conscious decision.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah. And here's the thing where it's, and it's like, and this is just me being like completely honest. It's like, it's because it's one of the few things where it is that profound how much it helps my sleep.

I'm like, and if what if I measure it? And what if it's, what if it is really high? Like would I stop using it or would I just keep using it and now be stressed about the EMFs, which might be having a negative effect on my mental health? You know, like that's like the question with everything.

R Blank
I think, in general, I'm much more into denial than you are, but we're all out of search.

Melanie Avalon
amount. You said you're more in denial.

R Blank
into denial like just as a as a coping mechanism for life. I suspect that I am more into that than you are

Melanie Avalon
I don't know. I mean, I literally just said that I'm not.

R Blank
measuring it yeah well i said then i said but everyone's allowed their their own little amounts spectrum yeah for you it's the exception

Melanie Avalon
that proves the rule. I see what you're saying. Yeah. I don't know if I can measure it.

Maybe once I start getting my meter out and learn to use it and get really excited and I'm measuring everything. Well, speaking of sleep and night, Susan, how bad is using wireless earbuds at night?

R Blank
I mean, any time of day, any time of day. So that's like having mini Wi-Fi routers in both ears, which is literally centimeters away from your brain at a part of your head where there is no skull, right? Because the ear canal is a hole in your skull. So there's no bone to provide any degree of natural shielding. This stuff, it's linked obviously to brain tumors, but all sorts, I mean, leakage of the blood brain barrier is another big one that allows pathways for all sorts of bad things to be getting into your brain.

Yeah, I mean, if someone's asking me, should I use wireless headphones? I always say no. It's not one of those things where I'm like, well, it depends. It is one of the things where I always say no. Now, that said, I do know people, and I think you and I have talked about this before, who are very EMF aware. They're not EHS. They're not extremely sensitive to EMF, but they're EMF aware. They do reasonable things to cut EMF out of their lives. And in general, they won't use these headphones like AirPods, but they do at the gym because they are so much more. There's no wires to get on. You can run, you can throw weights, punch bags, without any interference, and music helps workouts, right? So that is one exception, at least I can understand it. I don't do it, but I can understand it. But in general, anything that you are wearing right on your body, that's a source of EMF.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, now if I can go on a soap box, this one, so this is why we created for my Avalon X line with you, the air tubes, which are, they basically convert from digital to analog. So it stops the EMF transmission from the phone to your head and, but this topic, well, first of all, I never, I never used wireless air, air, I don't even know what they're called ever. So I don't have the experience of using them. So I don't have the experience of knowing how much better apparently they make your life.

But the resistance I encounter from people, because I think I mentioned earlier how even in my biohacking world, there are still people who are skeptical of EMFs. But like you just said, there are also people who are totally down with EMFs being a problem. And still they cannot, they cannot stop using their AirPods. It just seems like completely, I can't even tell you how many times I've had this conversation with so many people that, and it's not like a conversation we're trying to convince them, we're just talking about it. People who are very much aware of the issues, but they just, they choose that. And the thing they always say is I just wouldn't be able to do my work with wired headphones and everything. And what I say back is I do everything with wired headphones. So I can tell you it is possible. And maybe it's a little, not a learning curve, but you do have to readjust to what it's like to have wires, but it's not that bad. It's really, really not that bad, I promise, once you get used to it again.

And I just think the cost benefit of, like you just said, basically having a router in your brain, right next to your brain is just... Two of them. Yeah. I just, I can't even, it's really, and I've said this before, I think, on this show, but it's very, very, very, very rare that I ever put the phone to my head. The only time it would happen would be like, I don't know, like...

R Blank
the airport and you get a call and you're juggling too many things. Yeah, that's, that's yeah, when I would do it too. But like the

Melanie Avalon
visceral like feeling I have when I'm doing it is like, ah, like I have such muscle memory to not, to not put my phone.

R Blank
to my head. When I see it happen in TV shows, that and putting it in your pocket, both of them, because everyone does it in TV. I mean, everyone does it in life. So everyone does it in TV shows.

And I just, I can't not notice it and cringe a little, because those are so, those are the two things that if you actually stop doing it, it, you can stop doing it, right? It doesn't change your life in any meaningful way. But you've, you've completely changed your EMF exposure profile for your entire life.

Melanie Avalon
Yeah, I think it's one of, I honestly think it's one of the most, if you're using AirPods right now and holding the phone to your head, it's one of the biggest habit changes that you can make that will eventually, I know it's hard at the beginning, I know it is, because you're used to like not having the wires and stuff. But once you get used to it, I promise it's fine.

And I think the return on return on investment is just amazing, like really.

R Blank
huge. Yeah.

And look, I don't know the demographic of your listeners, but I'm sure a lot of them did this before, right? They used to use wires. They know what it's like. They were very happy at the time to do that.

Melanie Avalon
And it's really funny though how hard it is for people. So one of my friends, he always would use the AirPods. I always gave him, he was the type of friend I could give grief about it. At one point I was like, just throw them in the trash right now. And he's like, I can't, they cost us money. I was like, I will Venmo you the money. Will you throw them in the trash? And he couldn't do it, but he stopped using them for a little bit and like his headaches went away.

He was like, I think it was the AirPods. I was like, quite possibly, but now he's using them again. And so in any case, and I will say when we, R was so incredible, we spent, I don't know, maybe two years developing the Avalon X line. And something that was really important to me was the sound quality. So I tested, we tested thank you for like securing all the samples, a lot of them. And I finally found the one I like the most for both for sound quality both ways. So like listening and then also speaking like so the person hearing you because they work like normal headphones. So you can make calls and listen to music and all the things. So thank you for going on that journey, adventure. Here's one, maybe one last one to end on. And it's very like high vibe, no pun intended as well. Teresa, what is the best way to protect our children? I have air tubes for them, but what else can I do to protect them while using their tablets at school in the car, et cetera? So future generations, how can we help the children?

R Blank
Yeah, that's a really, really good question. In my opinion, the best thing you can do for children today, so let's start with number one, is doing everything we talked about in your home, right? So converting to hardwire or turning off your Wi-Fi at night and doing all the smart basics that you would do for yourself, just do that, and then your child is growing up in a safer, healthier home.

So let's assume that that's not the thing she's looking for, Teresa is looking for in this answer. In my opinion, the number one thing you should do for a child today is teach them digital hygiene. And so this answer goes beyond EMF, but it has really big implications for EMF. These technologies are designed to be massively addicting. This isn't controversial to say. This is documented in court cases, it's documented by engineers at these companies, it's documented in the congressional record. This is not an out there controversial conspiratorial thing. These technologies are designed to be addictive. They are designed to make you want to use them and to feel like you need to use them as much as possible. And these technologies add a tremendous amount of value to your life. And so they also are a source of tremendous toxic forces in your life. And EMF is obviously the one that I talk about most, it's the one we've been speaking about today. But just to pick one other example is, you know, again, it might have been controversial 10 years ago, but it's not controversial at all today to say that social media is a massively toxic force. And we are all engaged with social media more because of our phones than if we were just doing it on our computers. These devices bring a tremendous amount of value, but they also bring a tremendous amount of toxicity. And if you teach children from an early age to be as mindful as possible with how they engage with technology, because today it's the phones that are the really, really big source of toxins in society. In 10, 15, 20 years, who knows what the heck device it's going to be? So you don't want to just teach them to have respect for phones. You want to teach them to have mindful engagement with technology, to realize that it is an incredibly powerful thing that adds an immense amount of value, but it can also be really, really harmful. And it is up to us as individuals, as consumers, to find where those lines are drawn for ourselves. And the more mindfully aware you are as you use these technologies, the better equipped you will be as you grow up and deal with an evolving landscape to make these decisions for yourself and your family, not just today, but as you grow into your 20s and 30s and 40s and 50s and onwards.

That's, I mean, I know that's not easy. That's an, like, so I didn't have a, oh, just don't get on the phone, right? That would be a much easier answer. But I think the more important thing, if I were raising a child today, I would be focused on teaching them digital mindfulness, technological hygiene, this type of awareness in how they engage with the amazing advancements that are all around us and will continue to evolve at an crazily stunning rate.

R Blank
I would also say, you know, like I started the question, the safer you can create your own home, the better off your child is going to be, because you effectively have no control over their classroom at this point in time. And so you, you know, teaching them to keep their phone away from their body, you know, that kind of stuff matters.

But more than that, I think, again, is, is teaching technological hygiene and that will have benefits far beyond their EMF exposure as we go through this.

Melanie Avalon
I love that so much. Kind of summarizes, not summarizes, but it kind of really speaks to how we open this conversation with the book, which is just the power of, you know, giving people agency and education and, you know, the ability to actually make changes in their lives. And so I am so grateful for parents like Teresa, who is raising her kids with this understanding from like the beginning. Really, really amazing.

Oh my goodness. This was a really awesome deep dive. Was there anything that we, that you want to touch on that I, there's like, and we only briefly skim the surface of what is in your book. Well, I know.

R Blank
No, I mean, we need, I think, 20 more of these conversations to even get half of what is covered in Empowered. I would just underscore for people, obviously, I think it's a good book.

I put two years of my life into it. But more than that, I would say objectively, it is the only book of its kind, right? So there are other books out there that will teach you about the EMF issue. There are books that will go into the science. They will go into the regulations, that will go into the technology. And there are books that do that and then also tell you some stuff about how you can reduce your exposure. But this is literally the only book that has ever been written that is a comprehensive guide to reducing your exposure. And that's the value that I believe it brings to the marketplace.

And that is why I want as many people to be exposed to the information as possible. Because there is a lot, I mean, we used the example before of ozone, ozone layer depletion, which thankfully, apparently has been reversed. But there are a lot of environmental topics.

Melanie Avalon
I just learned that. I was like, Oh, okay. There are a lot.

R Blank
of environmental toxins out there. And there's, you know, for some of them, there's some stuff you can do to reduce your exposure with, but not all, you know, not, you know, make a dent. With others, there's very little you can do and do require regulatory change, like, like, like with CFCs in the ozone layer, that was only addressable to regulatory change. And there was nothing you as a consumer really could do to make that difference before that happened.

But with EMF, it is an environmental toxin that is pervasive, that is growing every year. And it is one over which your exposure is really massively under your control, right? And it is it is kind of tempting, A, to ignore the issue, again, because it's totally invisible, and people are poo-pooing it and whatnot. And it's just in your you love the technology. And so it's easy to ignore. Once you care about it, it's easy to get really worried about the cell tower down the street. But there is so much that you can do starting just this very minute to really make a massive multiple order of magnitude difference in your personal exposure, and the exposure of your friends, family and loved ones that will reduce it now, but will have knock on cumulative effects for years and decades to come. There is much so much you can do that doesn't involve spending a dime. And, and, and having to buy anything and without waiting on the government to come around.

Melanie Avalon
Amazing. Thank you so much.

Our everything that you just said listeners that is what is in this book So get it now first of all, we have options for you. So you can actually get a free sample chapter So for that go to Melanie Avalon comm slash empowered So em p o w e r e d That is a landing page for the book. You'll be able to get a free sample chapter there You will also be able to buy the book on Amazon through that page And then you can also get 10% off site-wide for all of well So for ours personal shield your body products as well as my Avalon X EMF air tubes and my free air tubes 10% off with a coupon code Melanie Avalon for that go to Avalon X EMF Us that will be that will take you take you to the landing page for my air tubes and then from there You will actually be directed to the store where you'll see all of the products so again all the links for listeners Melanie Avalon comm slash empowered to get ours book as well as a free sample chapter and Avalon X EMF US to get my headphones my Avalon X Amf free air tubes as well as shield your body products and you can get 10% off site-wide with the coupon code Melanie Avalon, I think that's the links Okay. Thank you so much are for what you're doing. I just oh I can really this book is such a wonderful treasure trove of information for people and I can definitely tell that two years went Into it because it's really really incredible and it's so many people need it. So thank you

R Blank
Well, thank you so much for your support for helping me get the word out about empowered and previously about just shield your body in general. And also not just helping to get the word out about empowered, but for the amount of work you put into proofing an early version of what became empowered, I am eternally grateful.

Listeners, she read every single word, every single word of what at the time was a 500-page book. I was shocked and floored and overwhelmed and just...

Melanie Avalon
super appreciative. It was such an honor. It really, really was. I'm excited to see the the final version. I'm really excited.

R Blank
Yeah, I'll resend it now that tomorrow. Hopefully this one doesn't get returned to sender. I will, I will get it.

Melanie Avalon
And you might remember the last question that I always ask on this show, but it's just because I am so appreciative of mindset. So what is something that you're grateful for? I am grateful.

R Blank
grateful right now, well, for a lot of things. I learned recently that when you're having trouble going to sleep, I mean, there's a lot of tricks for when you're having trouble going to sleep, but one I learned that I took to really, really well is to start itemizing things you're grateful for, and I'd never done that before like last month, and I was like, wow, that really works, and it makes me feel so much better.

So it also has showed me like just every normal day, there's just so much, given this conversation and given the fact that I don't want to repeat an answer that I'm quite sure I gave you before, which is that I'm grateful for our relationship. I am very grateful for the kind words that I am getting about empowered. I think I'm a good writer. I mean, that's literally why my father brought me on to write overpowered with him is because I'm a good writer, and I thought that this was going to be a good book, but until you actually release it and put it into people's hands, you have no idea what they are going to say or think or feel about it. And some people whose opinions matter greatly to me have been incredibly kind about the things they have said about empowered. And given how much of my own personal value I assign to being a good writer, and given how much of my life this took, I am incredibly grateful and relieved that that is

Melanie Avalon
what is happening. That is amazing. Yeah, because listeners don't know this, but this actually released, as of our recording, it released yesterday. So it's like the moment of putting it out there, out there to the world, that's a gratitude moment for sure.

That must feel absolutely amazing. And I can echo what they're all saying, because it is eloquently and wonderfully written. And you communicate the science really, really well, because it's hard to, I think, take a scientific, potentially complex topic and make it understandable for people who don't have that language coming into it. So it does that while also being super unbiased, approachable, friendly, convincing without feeling like you are trying to just convince people. It's really great. I think my favorite part is probably just how refreshingly unbiased it feels. It really feels like, okay, this is what I need to know. This is what actually is going to help me. This is what's not going to. You're not just selling a product here. So thank you.

R Blank
Happy fuck. Thank you. It was I appreciate that

Melanie Avalon
All right, well, we'll have to have you back on in the future.

R Blank
This was really great. Next time, let's do a whole Q&A, like the whole two hours. Let's answer your listener questions. That would be really fun.

Melanie Avalon
fun. I love doing Q&A's because then you just get like really random like like really you know things that you wouldn't think of that I probably wouldn't have thought of to ask and let's do it. It'll be fun.

All right well have a good rest of your day and we will see you next week.

R Blank
we'll talk very soon. Excellent, thank you.

Melanie Avalon
too. Bye.

Thank you so much for listening to the Melanie Avalon biohacking podcast. For more information and resources, you can check out my book, What, When, When, as well as my supplement line Avalon X. Please visit melanieavalon.com to learn more about today's guest and always feel free to contact me at contact at melanieavalon.com and always remember you got this.