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If the drastic lifestyle disruptions of 2020 have taught us anything, it’s that having a healthy home environment is critical to our mental and physical well-being.
People are staying at home more than ever. Families are eating “in” more often than not, and entertainment is occurring in the home too (witness the huge resurgence of board games as one example).
Many of us are working and schooling from home full-time too.
Even without lockdowns, some of us may not leave home at all for days at a time!
When things hopefully start to drift back to semi-normal (?), the forced flexibility of work and schooling from home is likely to remain as options indefinitely.
A Healthy Home is Low EMF
If creating the healthiest home environment possible is something you are working toward, I would encourage you to take a look at the sources of electromagnetic radiation (EMFs) in and around your living areas.
Minimizing this exposure is something that can have an almost immediate and dramatic effect on your sleep and overall sense of well-being.
Reduced anxiety, deeper sleep, and a feeling of optimism and hope are some of the health benefits that make the effort worth it!
How to Minimize Home EMF Exposure (25+ suggestions)
If you’re wondering where to start in this process, below is my personal laundry list of EMF minimizing strategies to consider. I started developing this list decades ago and am constantly adding to it as new technologies emerge.
Don’t feel overwhelmed like you have to implement them all right away.
Do the easy ones first and work toward the rest as you are able.
The goal is to minimize EMFs… you will never rid your life of them entirely unless you live off-grid somewhere in a National Park.
- Get rid of all LED and fluorescent light bulbs (including CFLs) in your home. These types of bulbs emit a large EMF field compared with simple incandescent light bulbs that have none. Halogen bulbs are safe as they are technically incandescent. LED bulbs for outdoor lighting are fine. If you use a few battery backup LED bulbs around your home for power outages, minimize them as much as possible.
- Do not use an infrared sauna that has LED lights. Use only incandescent near infrared saunas.
- Replace all dimmer switches in your home with simple on/off switches. Dimmer switches produce a lot of dirty electricity! This includes ceiling fans. Use the chains to adjust fan level, not dimmer switches.
- Avoid using wireless headsets of any kind. Use an air tube headset like this one instead.
- Consider earthing products like a grounded blanket while you sleep or a mat while you work. This is especially important if you work or sleep on the second (or higher) floor.
- Go barefoot as much as possible especially outside on the grass or use leather soft-soled shoes around the house/patio/porch. This allows your body to release pent-up static electricity harmlessly into the ground. I recommend the book Earthing for more information.
- Turn off your wireless router at night or better, use ethernet cables for your connectivity needs.
- Unplug anything that is within 5 feet of your bed. This includes lamps and alarm clocks. Do the same when you are in hotel rooms. You’ll be surprised how much deeper you sleep!
- If you use an electric adjustable base for your mattress, be sure to unplug it each and every night before going to sleep. I suggest using a power strip to make it easy to accomplish this without moving the bed.
- Do not sleep with your phone near your bed. If you use it as an alarm clock, put it on airplane mode and place it 5 feet or more from the mattress before turning in.
- Do not use the bluetooth enabled speakers in your car if at all possible. If you must take a phone call in the car this way for hands-free safety purposes, be sure to shut off the bluetooth on your phone AND in the car as soon as the call has ended.
- Never use an electric blanket while you sleep. Avoid using an electric heating pad for pain too if at all possible. Use an old fashioned hot water bottle instead.
- Make sure your home does not use a Smart Meter or Smart Water Meter. Call your local power and water company and find out if you have already gotten one and if so, make sure to opt-out and go back to the analog meters. It costs a bit more per month, but it is worth it. If you do not have an option to get rid of your Smart Meter, make or buy an EMF blocking cover for it.
- Flip the circuit breaker to the house or to specific rooms at night. I recommend this over more expensive solutions at the electrical panel because it is literally free. For example, one of my children’s rooms shares a wall with the kitchen. We flip the breakers to the kitchen appliances at night as the bed is right up against that particular shared wall.
- Do not enable the WiFi option for smart appliances, gaming consoles or your TV. This has the added benefit of reducing spying on your home activities.
- If you use WiFi enabled security systems, switch to manual mode at night. It is fine to turn WiFi mode on while you are out of the house, of course.
- Do not use a WiFi enabled personal health device like a Fitbit or at least disable the WiFi functionality.
- Do not use a Wifi enabled smartwatch.
- Never work with your computer directly on your lap or on a table. Always use an EMF blocking pad underneath.
- Never use a cell phone near your head (use the speakerphone or an air tube headset like this one). You’re not still doing this are you?? ?
- Do not carry a cell phone in a pocket of your clothing (your bra is the worst!) or even your handbag while it is turned on. Use an EMF blocking phone case or privacy pouch instead.
- Do not use wireless, digital, or video baby monitors. Use the old fashioned analog monitors instead. You can find them (used) online or at garage sales.
- If you are planning to move soon, check that the home or apartment is one-half mile or further from a cell phone tower or antenna.
- Use an electric stove and avoid induction ovens, which emit a large EMF field.
- If you are especially EMF sensitive (estimates are that at least 3% of us are), consider an attractive shielding canopy over your bed to create an EMF free sleeping environment. This is important if you are in a small apartment and have neighbors who use high-speed WiFi.
- Avoid having any metal in your mouth. This includes metal braces, permanent wire retainers, titanium implants and silver fillings. Gold crowns are problematic too. Any type of metal in your mouth concentrates EMFs toward your head essentially making it an antenna.
- 5G is getting rolled out very quickly, especially in urban areas. Protecting yourself from this technology takes a bit of planning. If you are a member of Healthy Home Plus, here are my strategies for 5G protection at home.
Do you have suggestions for other ways to reduce EMFs? Please share in the comments below!
Hi, I am trying to protect my two toddlers bedroom as much as possible. We just moved into a condo that shares walls, so now we have smart meters on either side of our walls. They are on a second level up above the smart meters, however it is all on the back of the homes. I have a smart meter guard, but of course my neighbors do not. And we are renting. What are other options besides EMR paint for the interior walls, that I can do for my children’s bedroom upstairs above the smart meters as well as the kitchen which is right on the other side of the meters? Is there temporary options like wall papers, wall mounts etc.? If so, do I need to purchase enough to cover every inch of the walls or just enough to cover where the meters are? Also, does plugging any unused electric outlets let reduce dirty electricity? Plants, etc.? Open to all suggestions as I am a very sensitive person to EMF. And I don’t want my young ones exposed so much. Our smart meters are the latest digital smart meters. The company claims they are less dangerous than a cell phone. But I do not believe it. But I cannot opt out either
Plugging unused outlets doesn’t do anything and they are not a risk if not in use. EMF blocking paint or wallpaper is the best option for this scenario in my opinion. Seems like you are doing everything you can short of moving (which is what we did 30 years ago when our condo was too close to high voltage power lines).
Purchased a vacation home in Vero Beach and had the smart meter removed. Requested analog and they refused and gave me a digital “non standard meter” so they call it. After that was placed on the house I can barely stand to be in there. Horrible ear ringing, headaches, tingling in hands, etc. feeling absolutely horrible. Pleaded with Florida Power and Light and they refuse to allow an analog meter. I am having a perfect power box installed on the 20th and am hoping this will help. I am in the process of having a pool installed and I want to cry because I don’t want to be there. How can I demand that they give me an analog meter?
Have you measured the non-EMF smart meter? I have the same thing here in Tampa and the EMFs on it measure zero. We have a meter reader come to the house once a month to read it.
You can also paint EMF blocking paint on the inside walls where the meter is attached. OR you can request to have it moved to the garage side of the house (that’s where ours is … a long way from the living part of the house.) Hope these ideas help.
Hi Sara! I am interested in purchasing “air tube” head phones for my iPhone, but when I clicked on the link you provided in this article (I think it was going to the Radiant Life website) it said the page was no longer available. Do you have another suggestion for a good set of iPhone compatible air tube headphones for EMF protection?
Thank you!
Yes, this vendor has a good one. https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/go/defender-shield/
dose the router itself have alot of EMF ?
how do you protect yourself from the router itself ?
Turn off the router at night and have it in a far away nook in the house.
Any suggestions for emf tinnitus?
Try to mitigate the EMFs in your home. I don’t know of any other solution.
Hi, I don’t use my laptop on my lap, but you mentioned we should never use it on a *table* either without the shield underneath? Is that what you meant? I didn’t see that mentioned on either the Radiant Life or DefenderShield websites. The Radiant Life description said that as much EMF is coming out of the top of the laptop as the bottom, so it’s just your distance from the top of your laptop that keeps you safer from that, and I assume the same applies to the bottom of the laptop if it’s on a table — it’s as far away from you as the top is, so does it make sense or is it necessary to use the shield underneath a laptop sitting on the table?
Thanks for all your work!