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Smart devices - the new Mercury?

How 'smart' are the new technology devices?

29 novembre 2021

The smart technology sector is booming with promises of convenience and instant-everything. All around us, all day and night, we have tech-products ranging from home automation and smart phones to fitness and sleep trackers, designed to alleviate our daily stress and hassles and increase our wellbeing. But how smart actually is this? 

If these handy devices really helped in lowering our stress levels, why are we still exhausted and tired and feel the need for a wellness treatment or get-away of some sort? Why is the wellness sector growing with the same speed as ‘smart’ technology? Is there a correlation?

In many of my VIP consultations I encounter ultra-tech environments: beautiful extravagant homes equipped with latest technology such as automated lighting systems, ‘Alexa’ always at their service for any questions or music requests, the most stylish designed home offices with super speed internet and fancy wireless devices. I have even witnessed built-in USB wall sockets next to the beds (or even next to the pillow), so the phones and tablets never run out of power for those reading kindle books or watching movies before bedtime. And let’s not forget Bluetooth sleep trackers placed on the sleeper’s wrist throughout the whole night to monitor their sleep. 

Despite all these apparent conveniences and ‘wellness’ devices, according to many of my clients, why do most of them still feel as though they can’t shake off their lethargy to leap out of bed in the morning. Why do they remain exhausted the next day and/or suffer chronic headaches?

The answer is actually quite obvious: they are tired not despite – but BECAUSE of all the technology surrounding them in their typical everyday environments. It is a well-known fact and scientifically proven that radiation from electro-magnetic fields (EMFs – caused by all electrically powered devices) and radiofrequency waves (RF- all things wireless) cause not only stress but severe health issues. I often hear justifications such as: ‘everyone is doing it and if it was unsafe governments and companies would not allow or manufacture it.’ 

Here some food for thought: 

Remember those movies from the Sixties, when doctors smoked during their patient consultations and considered it even a healthy daily habit? Was it safe because everyone smoked, even on TV? In 1964 smoking was linked with lung cancer for the first time. It took the governments almost 30 years until they ordered the tobacco industry to reproduce warning texts on the packaging of cigarettes and other tobacco products in 1991. Today we know smoking is detrimental to health.

My husband still remembers playing with mercury in school during chemistry class in the seventies – moving around this curious shiny silvery mass of chemical across the workbench. The common believe was – if the schools allow it, it must be safe! Mercury was banned only several decades later in 2013 when 140 countries agreed in a Convention on Mercury by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) to prevent toxic emissions.  

So, is today’s ‘smart’ technology the new mercury? 

Let’s do some investigation: the ‘Guidelines for Evaluating the Environmental Effects of Radiofrequency Radiation’ was issued in 1996 by the FCC (Federal Communications Commission). Did you know that it has never been updated since then? Back then the technology landscape looked quite different from today’s cell tower networks and high-tech devices in our hands and households. And with the installation of millions more cell towers at just about every street corner for the 5G technology, this will make matters only worse. 

Lots of (really smart!) countries have adjusted their guidelines to safer limits on their own initiative, and even Apple, Samsung and Galaxy devices recommend in their fine prints to never expose the phone directly to your head, or any part of your body! 

How many decades are we still going to expose ourselves to the health risk of EMF and RF radiation until it will be officially declared harmful, and we take it seriously? 

The proof for the claims is in the pudding. One of my clients used to complain regularly about headaches and exhaustion after a day’s work in his home office. He called me in for a consultation. I assessed his home and his home office. The results of the EMF and RF readings at my client’s desk were shocking! Extreme radiation came from two (very expensive due to very 'high quality') high-tech desk lamps. Equally high levels of radiation from his wireless printer, his ear pods, the poor-quality extension cable attached to the bottom of the desk and his charger cables for smart phone and tablet. 

We exchanged the desk lamps to low radiation lamps, the regular supermarket extension cable to an EMF-shielded one, switched off the printer at the wall switch when not in use, replaced the ear pods by shielded headphones and moved the charger cables to a safe distance. We managed to reduce the radiation at his desk by staggering 95% to a level recommended by German regulations in building biology for safe environments. He has reported that his constant headaches and extreme exhaustion are now long gone. With some additional recommendations for better sleep, he now wakes up afresh every morning with motivation levels he had last experienced before he set up his ‘Covid-19’ induced home office.

The moral of the story: if we want to improve our health and well-being, let us first remove or at least reduce the energy disruptors around us and adopt a really ‘smart’ use of the convenient technology available to us. Let’s not wait until official regulations tell us that surrounding radiation is harmful, and rather let’s learn from the moments in history and be pro-active! 

To quote Carl Sagan: “Science cuts two ways, of course; its products can be used for both good and evil. But there’s no turning back from science. The early warnings about technological dangers also come from science.”