- Lloyd Burrell, founder of ElectricSense.com, has been an advocate for electromagnetic field (EMF) safety and consumer education for the past 15 years
- First, educate yourself on EMFs to understand the potential dangers. Next, buy a meter and identify hotspots. Lastly, take remedial action to lower your exposure
- When remediating, first turn off or unplug devices emitting high amounts of radiation. If that’s not possible, create as much distance between yourself and the device as possible. As a last resort, implement shielding strategies
- Focus on lowering EMF exposure in your bedroom first, as many rejuvenating processes take place during sleep. Also focus on keeping your cellphone in airplane mode and/or in a faraday bag when not in active use
- If you need to shield against RF radiation, you can use a Faraday canopy over your bed, or install partial-room or whole-room shielding. There are a number of ways to do this, including using shielding paint
Electromagnetic fields (EMFs) can cause severe oxidative stress and biological damage. I discuss this in detail along with what you can do to protect yourself from them in my latest book EMF*D which is now available for preorder.
Here to address what you can do to remediate that influence is Lloyd Burrell, who has been an advocate for EMF safety and consumer education for the last 15 years.
Like so many others, Burrell’s interest and subsequent expertise was the outgrowth of facing personal health challenges. He describes himself as being EMF-hypersensitive, and had to figure out how to deal with living in the modern world, surrounded by wireless technology and electrosmog.
Burrell’s Journey
Burrell’s journey began in 2002, when he suddenly started having strange reactions to his cellphone. He tells the story:
“I remember very clearly the day … One minute I was fine; the next minute, I had this kind of bizarre, altered spatial awareness, slight dizziness, not quite sure what to make of it. And then it went from the bizarre to a rather unpleasant burning sensation in my ear, then all over the side of my face.
I was running a rental business at the time. The cellphone was great because I could work outside and take the calls. I wasn’t a particularly heavy user. I’d been using it about four years … But I did get quite a lot of calls for a certain period of the year to make bookings for these rentals.
It went from unpleasant to unbearable, literally in a matter of days … It got so bad that I actually went to see my doctor … He was very sympathetic. When he couldn’t find anything wrong with me, other than I’d gotten slightly high blood pressure, he sent me off to do various tests.
Over this time, it just went from bad to worse. He told me to take a week off work, which I did. I went away with the kids. I was fine. I came back the Monday morning. I answered my phone and then, boom, there it was again.
That’s when it began to dawn on me … Not only was I reacting to my cellphone, I was reacting to my computer. I was reacting to the TV. I was reacting to the radio in the car. I was beginning to react to everything electrical, even my corded landline phone.”
Identifying the Cause of His Problems
For the next two years, he sought help from a number of different specialists. Meanwhile, the symptoms turned chronic. “Fatigue, pain all over my body and digestive problems. I really was in a bad way, and it was just getting worse,” he says.
The medication he was given turned him into “a zombie” and ultimately didn’t help. Then one day he read a newspaper article about Brian Stein, a CEO of a big food group in the U.K. who, like himself, could not use his cellphone or computer.
“He was dictating everything to his secretary, driving around in a battered, old car with no electronics. He was sleeping in a room with no electricity. They gave a name for that. That was electrical hypersensitivity.
For me, that was like, ‘Eureka! I’m not going crazy.’ I literally thought I was going crazy because everybody, the people in the white coats, particularly, the authority figures, were telling me ‘There’s nothing wrong with you.’ Some of them were even ridiculing my story.
That was a turning point. That was when I began to look at this thing called EMF, which did not really interest me at all. I was just wanting to buy something and fix it so I could get on with my life. But it didn’t work like that.”
Burrell started a website, ElectricSense, in December 2009, initially simply warning people about the folly of allowing young children to use and carry cellphones.
“It was very amateurish at the time … I just tried to share the truth really. It was about letting off steam, this video. Immediately, it caught people’s attention. I started getting a lot of interaction on it.
It just grew from there. It grew into this mission of raising awareness and sharing solutions, because I realized I can’t be this guy going on and on about the problem. I need to share the solutions. That’s how it all started,” Burrell says.
Understand, Measure, Mitigate
One of the things Burrell now does is assess the value of various remediation strategies and products. For example, he offers guidance and recommendations for EMF meters, which is necessary to assess your EMF exposure. It can be a complex process, and he has created several excellent videos on this topic, explaining the different options available.
“To be clear, I no longer have the debilitating symptoms, so I’m able to live a normal life,” he says. Ultimately, this is the goal for anyone struggling with EMF hypersensitivity, and Burrell is proof positive that it’s possible.
“My approach could be summarized as follows: First, understand what these exposures are … I’ve been doing a podcast for about five years … It’s not something you can learn in five minutes. It takes a bit of time …
Second thing is to measure … Like I said, I just wanted to buy that gadget or gizmo that would make it all OK and I wouldn’t feel [EMFs] anymore. I never found that. Eventually, I bought a meter. Because I’m a bit of a cheapskate, I bought the cheapest meter I could find, which was worthless.
That led me down a garden path for six months to a year. Then I bought the Acoustimeter … It’s a great meter. The meter is super important … At some point, we need to get an EMF meter, or possibly two, because a lot of them are multifunction… Lastly, mitigate. Those are the three steps: Understand, measure and mitigate.”
As explained by Burrell, there are three main categories of EMFs that we want to assess: radiofrequency (RF) radiation; magnetic fields; and electric fields, plus dirty electricity, which is a subset of electrical fields. These are all on the electromagnetic spectrum and are measured in terms of frequency and wavelength.
Turn Off, Increase Distance, Shield
The reason you want a meter (or several different types) that can measure all four of these EMFs is because you want to be able to identify the hotspots in your home and areas where you spend a lot of time. Your bedroom is of principal importance, as this is where you spend a significant portion of your life.
Once you know where the hotspots are, you can figure out how to mitigate, i.e., lower the EMF level, in those areas. Keep in mind that there are no “safe” readings. Whether a reading is “too high” is rather subjective, depending on your sensitivity.
“So, in terms of the mitigation, we don’t have a safe level,” Burrell says, “but we’re trying to get to what I call benchmark levels … about 0.02 volts per meter … It’s not as if when you achieve those readings that it’s safe. There’s no ‘safe/not safe.’ Just get it as low as you can.”
One of the easiest ways to lower the EMF level is to turn off whatever is generating the EMFs. For example, you can turn off your cellphone when not in use, especially at night when you’re sleeping. Ditto for your wireless router. Ideally, hardwire your home and forgo wireless altogether.
Many “smart” devices can also generate high RF radiation, and you might not realize this unless you measure it. Your dishwasher could be giving off RF radiation, or your washing machine. If you can’t turn the device off, then increase the distance between yourself and the device. As a last resort, install some kind of shielding.
“That, in a nutshell, is my approach to dealing with these electromagnetic fields, these non-natural frequencies, this pollution that’s impacting all of us. On the mitigation: Turn off, increase distance and shield as a last resort.”
Do EMF-Shielding Gadgets Work?
Chances are, you’ve seen various EMF harmonizers or gadgets, that promise to protect you against harmful EMFs. The question is, do they actually work? From my perspective, they might be dangerous because they clearly do not shield you from the radiation. They may alleviate symptoms, but they do not address the biological damage occurring. Burrell weighs in:
“Some of them are effective. There are scams, and then there are not scams. There are people who are genuinely developing devices that work in this subtle energy realm [and] … some of these devices work to a certain extent. My view is that’s all fine and dandy, but what you need to do is this foundational … EMF protection.
This is what I’ve laid out [above] … Do the classic, rigorous EMF protection, and then if you want to add this into the mix, go ahead … But I know of no device that protects you from all the adverse biological effects at the cellular level, the DNA, the mitochondria.”
Source: Healthnutnews.com
