Identifying Your EMF Exposure Sources (2024)

Life in the twenty-first century is a wild ride. It sure seems like there was never before a time when our environment was changing as rapidly as it is now. Even in the span of just a few years, daily life can take on new and often unrecognizable forms, most of this change due to the extremely rapid expansion of technology and its role in our lives. Although many people are nostalgic for the simpler times of the past, this emergent phenomenon has its own momentum, and seems to have taken on a life of its own, which certainly has benefits as well as downsides.

As humans who are living out our lives during this unique time on Earth, our job is to become aware of what’s happening around us, so that we are capable of choosing how we want to participate in these changes. Our biological forms, which are innately skilled at adapting to gradual changes in our environment, may be considerably challenged by the unprecedented pace of change occurring at this time.

Even just the flood of “information at our fingertips”, being able to instantly discover events happening worldwide, and view snapshots of the lives of billions of other humans at any moment via social media and the internet, may sometimes feel like too much for our brains and bodies to handle.

Then when you add in the influence of the invisible and imperceptible electromagnetic fields that power this entire technological movement, and consider the effects the fields themselves have on our bodies and minds (which most people are still entirely unaware of), you can have more compassion for yourself and any struggles you may be experiencing.

To calm and balance our senses and nervous system, awareness of our surroundings and the subsequent ability to choose how we want to engage can make a huge difference in our health and well-being.

You live within a sea of electromagnetic fields, to a greater or lesser extent, depending on where you live and the lifestyle choices you have made.

Are you fully aware of your EMF exposure sources?

The most important place to become aware of your environment and its potentially hidden influences is your own home. Your home should be a safe haven where you can rest, regenerate and integrate your experiences in the world. Your nightly rest is the time when your body does the majority of its cellular repair, and when your brain consolidates memories of experiences into usable information. Sleep is vitally important, and your environment has a major impact on your sleep quality.

Your home environment also affects your family dynamics, and the harmony or discord you experience in your close relationships. Intentionally creating a space for your family to feel safe and healthy will likely impact your life more than anything else.

The EMF sources in our homes will affect us the most, since we spend the most vulnerable parts of our lives there, and the most time overall. What are the EMF sources in our homes that are likely to impact us the most?

Our houses are powered by 60 hertz (in the United States) home electricity, which runs through conductive copper wires in our walls and emerges from outlets and wired-in appliances, to be used for many different purposes. 60 hertz is in the extremely low frequency (ELF) part of the electromagnetic spectrum, and is one of the most well studied EMF sources known to affect human health. If you have an EMF reading device like the Trifield meter (a good meter for everyday home use), you can measure the electric and magnetic fields being emitted from the wires inside your walls, your outlets, appliances and devices. If you do this, you will notice that the electric field is highly concentrated right next to the power source, and loses power exponentially as you move further away from the source, often dropping off to zero on the meter about 2-3 feet away. Some appliances will produce higher readings than others, but even an empty outlet with live power will emit an electric field. Appliances and devices with motors, like fans, heaters, air purifiers and many others, will also emit a measurable magnetic field, sometimes with very high readings.

Getting your own EMF meter and measuring the fields in your house is quite educational, because since the field itself is invisible, the readings allow you to “see” the fields to visualize the areas of your home (and the people and pets) that will be affected by them. This gives you the power to adjust your beds, chairs, couches and other parts of your home where you spend a lot of time to be further away from the most intense electric and magnetic field zones. It’s best to spend your time in a “zero” field, but since that is an ideal and is not always practical, Trifield recommends keeping electric fields below 50 V/m (volts per meter), and magnetic fields under 3mG (milligauss) where you spend most of your time, although they admit that “absolute safe levels have not been established”.

This meter also measures radiofrequency (RF) fields. Radiofrequency radiation is emitted by wireless communication devices, including:

Measuring RF with a meter will look a lot different than the way electric and magnetic fields read. If you’re near an RF source (or somewhere in its path anywhere in your house) and you have the meter tuned to the RF setting, you will notice rapid “spikes” when these pulses of radiation are emitted between connected devices. Sometimes the numbers will be relatively low, but you will probably also see spikes that exceed the levels the meter can pick up. If you stand next to an active Wifi router, these spikes will be continually “off the charts”. This indicates an area of your home where you do not want to be sitting for hours per day.

Trifield’s recommended “safer” levels of RF are field measurements under 0.200 mW/m² (milliwatts per meter squared) average field reading, and measurements under 1.000 mW/m² for the peak measurements. You will likely find that close proximity to RF emitting devices vastly exceeds these levels.

If you use so-called “smart” devices in your home, such as wireless doorbells, ovens, beds, baby monitors, wireless voice assistants like Alexa and Siri, and so many more gadgets that are flooding the markets these days, those devices are occasionally or constantly producing wireless radiation so they can transmit and receive information from other wireless devices, like your cell phone.

Another wireless radiation source that affects the majority of homes at this time are “smart” meters. These are a type of electric meter that transmits information about your electricity use to and from the electric utility company, and also communicates with other in-home “smart” devices. For a more detailed look at exactly how these meters work, check out our article on the health, safety and privacy concerns of smart meters.

Smart meters, as well as many other modern devices (including fluorescent lighting and dimmer switches), also produce what has been popularly termed dirty electricity. This refers to high-frequency voltage transients that contaminate the 60 hertz AC power of our home electricity, due to the inability of certain devices to use 60 hertz power as-is. Anytime a device or appliance has to convert 60 hertz AC power to another form so it can function properly, power inefficiences occur, which remain inside the power lines and actually circulate throughout the house. These can be measured by a device called a line EMI meter (EMI means electromagnetic interference).

Wifi is a networking technology that uses radiofrequency radiation to provide wireless high-speed internet access. If you and your neighbors use Wifi in your homes, you will likely notice that your phone and computers are able to pick up several Wifi signals.

Most often, Wifi operates at 2.4 GHz (gigahertz), which is right around the UHF (ultra high frequency) portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. However, many companies are now also using 5 GHz and even 6 GHz signals to improve speed and data transmission. If you see a Wifi connection on your phone, you may see the name of the network, then an identical one with “5G” or “6G” at the end. This means 5 or 6 gigahertz, and is not the same 5G that refers to 5th generation wireless technology, or the marketing term 6G that is the proposed next generation of this tech. However, a lot of the current 5G cell deployments are close to the same frequencies of all of these Wifi bands, and the 6 GHz to 24 GHz bands are currently being widely used for 5G.

The amount and type of these devices you utilize in your home will influence the total load of electromagnetic fields you’re exposed to.

Strong radiofrequency and electric fields from sources outside your home will affect you, as well. This includes power lines and electricity transformers near your house (and especially high voltage power lines), as well as nearby cell phone towers and antennas. The density of cell towers and antennas in the vicinity of your house is directly correlated with the population density of where you live. Higher population centers require higher numbers of cell towers, installed closer together, to support the wireless communication use of larger numbers of people. You will also have higher exposures if you live within a couple miles of an airport, because of the large number of radar communication towers used by air traffic control.

One way that we help people determine which Blushield home device will best suit their living situation and needs is by assessing the overall EMF density of where they live. The tool we use for United States addresses is the Antenna Search database. If you haven’t already, go to this website and plug in your address, and it will show you all of the cell towers and antennas within a 3-mile radius of your home, including the exact location of each tower and antenna, details about what it’s used for, who owns it, and exactly which frequencies it’s emitting.

You may be surprised by the number of cell towers near your house that you weren’t aware of at all! Cell towers and antennas are often cleverly hidden or disguised, so people often aren’t aware of these massive RF exposure sources.

If you want to learn more about how to recognize cell towers and antennas in your environment, even the hidden ones, you may find our Anatomy and Function of a Cell Tower article to be very informative.

When you leave your house, you are exposed to a new set of electromagnetic fields. For many people, their vehicle may be the main EMF source to consider. This is especially the case with modern cars, most of which use high frequency radar sensors for various safety features, like advanced driver assistance and autonomous driving. These radar sensors operate in the extremely high frequency (EHF) millimeter wave spectrum, the same frequency band as the more intense and high powered 5G transmitters. Although they operate at fairly low power levels compared to 5G phones and antennas, their close proximity to your body while driving warrants some concern.

Most vehicles produce high levels of electric and magnetic fields from the internal combustion engine, the effects of which are exacerbated by the fact that you’re basically sitting inside of a Faraday cage (the metal frame of the car), which concentrates EMF sources within the vehicle and doesn’t allow them to dissipate as easily. This is especially a concern when using your cell phone inside your vehicle. Because of the metal cage of the car, the phone needs to try harder to make a connection, so it will ramp up its power levels to effectively maintain contact with the nearest tower. One study found that the EMFs from cell phone use inside of vehicles were three times higher than the same sources used outside the vehicle, because of the Faraday cage effect.

If you drive an electric vehicle (EV), you’re adding a whole extra exposure source to the ones we already discussed. The large battery that runs the car emits static electric fields, and the inverters and motors that convert DC from the battery to the AC needed to power the electric drivetrain produce both electric and magnetic fields during operation. When EVs are being charged, the interaction between the battery and the charger (especially high powered fast chargers) produces high levels of EMFs. The electric control system and computerized components of an EV (as well as other modern vehicles) also emit EMFs.

Most people now use GPS (Global Positioning System) services from their smart phones to navigate on the roadways. GPS connects to satellites to provide real-time navigation, using radiofrequency signals that are usually around 1500 Mhz (megahertz) in the microwave spectrum. These radio waves follow your vehicle for the duration of the trip, to continuously read your current location.

Every time you pass a cell phone tower while you’re driving, you’re moving within close proximity of its strongest radiation zone. In cities, we usually pass by many cell towers even while running the most routine errands.

Consider that every vehicle around you is also emitting EMFs from radar sensors, cell phone use, Bluetooth connections, calling upon GPS satellites, and emanating from the vehicle itself. The roadways are basically an EMF soup.

If you work outside the home, especially around a lot of computer equipment, your workplace is probably a stronger EMF source than your home. Often, workplaces are in higher population areas than living spaces, making them more concentrated overall exposure sources.

Our EMF protection product line includes several options for stationary home and portable devices. Choosing a device based on your overall EMF exposure levels will give you the best results, as we have different strength models for different exposure levels.

If you start by learning the total number of cell towers and antennas within a 3-mile radius of your home (to determine the EMF density of your area), then add in any unusually high exposure sources inside your house, you will be able to choose the most effective EMF protection for your needs.

Carrying a portable device (like the T1 Portable, or the wearable W1 Watch) will go a long way in protecting you from the high levels of road travel EMFs. If you spend more time than usual in your vehicle (for your work or leisure), you may consider plugging a strong Blushield stationary device (like the Phi 03 or U2 Premium Ultra) into your car by getting an Auto Adapter Cord to use instead of the wall plug the device comes with. These devices fit very well in the center console of most vehicles, and will emit a strong, biologically coherent field to protect you from the worst of your travel exposures.

For step-by-step instructions on choosing the best home and portable devices for your needs, check out our Blushield Product Guide.