My good friends, Sean and Tina, run their creative marketing and sound design business from their beautiful home high on a hill above California’s spectacular coastline. It’s truly idyllic. Recently, I stopped by for a visit — and since I’m susceptible to the invisible energy that powers all our wireless devices, from smartphones to Wifi — I could feel that their office space was especially toxic because of EMF’s, electromagnetic frequency radiation. It was easy to understand why: The Wifi in Tina’s small office was directly under her desk and about 8 feet from where I was sitting. After chatting for about 15 minutes, I got a headache and started to feel dizzy. I told her this, but like most people who aren’t as sensitive to the energy as I am, she basically looked at me and blinked. Clearly, it was time for a demo.
I went to the car and came back with one of my EMF meters. A nice one, that’s also pretty simple to understand because it tells it to you straight. Measurements of Low, Moderate, High, and Extreme are the only levels indicated by green to red LED’s. That broad measurement is enough to know whether or not you need to make a change.
Sure enough, Tina was sitting in a pool of “extreme” electromagnetic radiation. Even worse, her sweet lab Sugar, sat at her feet pretty much all day long — even closer to the wifi router. Tina and Sean said they had no idea. They immediately made plans to call the cable company to get the Wifi moved and switch to a faster, safer, wired ethernet connection for Tina’s computers.
Like many well-intentioned, but busy people, they forgot all about this invisible danger. Until something really striking happened. Sugar, the adorable lab that he is, had been losing his hearing. It got to the point where he really couldn’t hear them at all. Tina and Sean chalked it up to old age. Then, one day, Tina returned from a quick client trip and picked Sugar up from a few days at Doggie Camp. He was in the back of the car, and as usual, she was talking to him and watching him from the rearview mirror, but surprisingly, his ears perked up when she mentioned his name. He clearly heard her.
That was enough for Tina and Sean to connect the dots and realize that Sugar’s continual exposure to EMF from Wifi might be affecting his hearing. It motivated them to make the call and have the Wifi moved 60′ away from the offices and bedrooms.
There aren’t any studies on dog’s hearing and wireless exposure. Still, there are thousands of peer-reviewed scientific studies over three decades, proving without a doubt that what’s called non-ionizing radiation, the information-carrying radio waves we classify as EMF’s have a biologic effect on human tissue.
That’s why our most important Tech Wellness Way for any office is to minimize your exposure to these nasty EMF’s by hardwiring your computer to the internet. Tech Wellness Ways are a series of science-backed solutions for living safer and healthier with the technology that’s such a massive part of our lives. We address tech toxins that include privacy stealers and online security, electromagnetic radiation, digital light, and digital distraction.
If you are one of the lucky ones who can pursue your dreams from a home office, it also means that you have the unique power to control the environment in which you spend the majority of your waking hours At Tech Wellness, we believe that the tech toxins around us powerfully affect us. Still, we know that with intentional and easy changes, we can create a healthy space that allows us to thrive in the midst of the technology we need to be successful.
Want to feel better and make sure that your home office sets you up for fantastic productivity and success? Here are 8 simple Tech Wellness Ways:
1. Wire Up to Avoid EMF
It’s really best to eliminate the Wifi and access the internet via a wired connection. Your cable company or other internet provider will be happy to assist here so give them a call. For an extra-clean home office environment, add a few more easy steps: wired keyboard, wired mouse, wired smartphone – you won’t believe how much faster your connections are too. Here’s how to hardwire phones or laptops. Hardwired connections eliminate RF energy. A bonus is that your internet is faster, more secure. Make sure you toggle off the Bluetooth setting and the Wifi settings on your laptop or device while you’re wired up. The result: almost no EMF radiation.
Next, you can use this special shielded cable to assure you’re safe from what some call electro-smog. Unshielded cables can actually emit another type of EMF called dirty electricity, which has been known to affect people just like EMF’s.
2. Kill Your Wifi (When You Can) and Always Keep It in a Safe Spot
If your home can’t exist without Wifi, it’s super easy to turn it off when you’re not using it, especially at night. Anytime the Wifi router is off, it’s not sending a signal, so that means there’s no RF radiation, and it’s not using electricity. To make killing the radiation easier, use a low tech remote switch or timer, so you don’t have to come in close contact with the RF energy from the router every time you want to turn it off. You can turn the router off anytime and turn it back on when you need it . It’s best to be as far from the Wifi as possible as the radiation dissipates with distance. My rule: 20′ from the router is a minimum and 40′ is best.
3. Important: Laptops Should NEVER BE on Your Lap
Even with no Wifi or Bluetooth connection, there are magnetic EMFs oozing from it. Best to keep it on the desk, wired to a free-standing monitor and keyboard. If you want to sit on the couch or a chair, put some space between your lap and the laptop with a thick 12″ pillow or lap desk. Using a wired auxiliary keyboard and wired mouse is an excellent idea, so you don’t have to touch your warm mouse-pad with your fingertips. This head emanates two other forms of EMF energy: magnetic and electric. Make your stationary laptop set-up as comfy as you can so you aren’t tempted to break away and use your computer wirelessly.
4. Need to Do the Job Right? Make Sure Your Phone Is Out of Sight
Most people agree, their smartphones are distracting, especially when they need to focus on work. A new study shows that just having them nearby, where you can see them, takes up precious brain space and can affect our memory and intelligence. Even when phones were off, turned over and silenced, if the cellphone was in view, it’s “on your mind,” leaving fewer resources available for other tasks and undercutting cognitive capacity, according to the researcher, Adrian Ward. Be smarter and find a place to stash your smartphone when you really want to concentrate on the task at hand.
5. Manage the Light from Your Screens
All screens emit pulsing, artificial, digital blue light. It can cause eye-strain and vision problems. When you’re working from home (after sunset), it can suppress your melatonin production and stop it from being released in your body. Melatonin is crucial to our circadian rhythms and can help make sure we get a good night’s sleep. We mustn’t be exposed to blue light a minimum of 2 hours before bedtime. We recommend using orange or espresso colored glasses to block the blue light as soon as the sunsets. We keep these orange-tinted glasses on our desks to use anytime we want to let our eyes relax. The warm tones really help soften screens as well as block a lot of nasty blue light.
6. Avoid Neck and Eye Strain
My computer monitor is nice and big and is about 2 feet from my eyes, positioned so that when I look straight ahead — the top of the monitor is even with my eyes. The monitor is angled back very slightly because if I gaze down just 15 degrees, my eye muscles are more relaxed. When I need to scroll or text, I prevent dreaded tech-neck by using this great little adjustable stand.
7. Employ the Right Light and the Right Timing
I’m all about the 20-20-2 minute rule. Every twenty minutes, I take my eyes off the screen and look 20′ away for two minutes. Experts say just 20 seconds of looking away is all that’s needed to reduce eye strain, but I like to treat myself and think of two things I’m thankful for. I make it a point to adjust my computer screen brightness to the brightness of the light in the room to reduce eye strain. I love natural light and turn off any fluorescent lights I see, but even LED’s or nice halogen lights can make it hard for my eyes to adjust to the screen.
8. Because Your Business Is Your Business
There are many things you can do to protect your privacy online. Two fundamental but essential options are a Webcam Cover and a VPN. It’s incredible, but computer camera hacking is a very real and often used cyber-hack. It’s easily preventable by simply covering your camera. I love these Creep Blockers because they give me different options, they make me smile, and they even come with reusable covers for my laptop microphones. I like to keep my conversations private from microphone hackers as well. And finally, a Virtual Private Network serves as a temporary IP address and allows you to browse the internet without websites knowing your exact location. My favorite right now is Proton VPN because their entire line of products is designed specifically for privacy protection online.
Here’s to making your home office the best it can possibly be.
Be Well!
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