Safe EMF Radiation Levels: How Much EMF Exposure Is Safe for You?
The concept that EMF exposure causes adverse health effects is no longer a matter of “belief”. Thousands of high-quality, peer-reviewed research studies have confirmed that prolonged exposure to electromagnetic fields can cause problems ranging from minor sleep disorders to chronic diseases like cancer.
That said, we can’t deny that EMF emitting devices are a significant part of our lives now. That’s why experts recommend EMF mitigation (to make it safer for you to enjoy technology) and not its elimination. But is there a specific number that you need to bring your EMF exposure down to? What is the safe EMF radiation level?
This is what we’re going to answer in this post, along with other various important topics.
So, let’s begin.
A Short Introduction to EMF
EMF is basically a field of energy, composed of both electrical and magnetic energy, that is generated when electricity flows. It’s invisible to the naked eye, but it surrounds us everywhere in our daily lives.
It makes our calls, messages, and internet possible, and it doesn’t need any wires or cables to go from point A to point B.
When most people say EMF, they’re referring to radiofrequency (RF), the kind of EMF that your cell phone uses. But RF is not the only type of EMF present in the electromagnetic spectrum. In fact, there are dozens of EMF types ranging from the extremely low magnetic field of the Earth to X-rays, gamma rays, and nuclear radiation.
If you want to learn more about EMF, you can visit my post, “EMF in simple words.”
Beginning of Human-made EMF
The huge amount of EMF that we face today comes not from nature but from the sources we built for our convenience. Looking back to a mere 200 years ago, there was no concept of human-made EMF. And even though 200 years may seem like a long time to us, it’s a tiny blip in the evolutionary scale.
Humans have been evolving for almost 7 million years. At no point in history have people faced the amount of EMF radiation we’re facing today.
To be clear, radiation did exist before our gadgets and appliances. There was the earth’s low magnetic field, EMF from lightning strikes, and the sun’s UV rays.
But humans, like all living things, evolved to deal with them across millions of years. We even benefit greatly from the earth’s magnetic field (read my post on “Grounding” to learn more about this).
Then came the light bulb, and the electricity structure to support it, which marked the beginning of human-made EMF on earth. Since then, we have built more and more EMF-emitting devices and the infrastructures to support them, which is why we now have so much EMF pollution in our environment.
Natural Vs. Human-made EMF: What’s the difference?
Humanity has gone millennia without any exposure to human-made EMF, and suddenly, we find ourselves being showered by a massive amount of it. If you put natural and human-made EMF side by side and compare them, you’ll find virtually no difference in their building components. So, what makes them different from each other?
Frankly, the only difference between natural and human-made EMF is that our bodies are equipped to deal with natural sources through millennia of evolution. And what we’re facing right now in a massive amount is foreign to our DNA and our biologies, which is why our bodies aren’t able to build an effective shield against human-made EMF.
The tech and telco industries have been telling us for a long time that the EMF levels in our environment are completely “safe.” In reality, this couldn’t be further from the truth. Decades of research has shown that our bodies are extremely sensitive to human-made EMF, and they react adversely when exposed to it for a prolonged period.
As the BioInitiative Report explains:
“Bioeffects are clearly established and occur at very low levels of exposure to electromagnetic fields and radiofrequency radiation. Bioeffects can occur in the first few minutes at levels associated with cell and cordless phone use… At least five new cell tower studies are reporting bioeffects in the range of 0.003 to 0.05 μW/cm2.”
It’s not only the BioInitiative Group; hundreds of scientists in their research papers say that EMFs operating on as low as 50 to 60 Hz frequency can lead to negative health outcomes. And the World Health Organization lists this type of EMF as a Class 2B Carcinogen.
And as the power and amount of EMF increase, the health effects increase too.
If you want to learn more about EMF’s adverse health effects, be sure to visit my EMF Health Effects page.
The Good News
Undoubtedly, the health effects of EMF are adverse in nature. But the good news is that our bodies are incredibly resilient machines, which allows us to cope with a fair amount of EMF-induced damages.
In fact, our bodies suffer damages every single day. As we wake up and move, our muscles and tissues tear to a certain degree. But since we’re used to it, we won’t necessarily feel those damages at the end of the day. And when we sleep, the body’s healing mechanism repairs those damages and prepares us for the next day.
The same thing happens with EMF-induced damages; they get healed by our body’s healing mechanism. But there are limits.
The healing system can only handle so much damage before becoming completely ineffective. Think of it like when you cut your skin. If it’s a minor cut, it will be healed in no time. But if it’s a major one, the body may not be able to heal it without additional help.
Studies say that some of the immediate effects of prolonged EMF exposure are oxidative stress and DNA damage. Now, if your exposure is for a short while, you may feel nothing. But prolonged exposure to massive EMF can multiply these problems to a point where your healing mechanism collapses, leading to more critical issues in the future.
So, at what level should you keep your EMF exposure to ensure lower health risks? Well, that’s what our international safety standards are there to answer. Or are they?
What are the International Safety Standards?
Countries worldwide have set their own EMF safety standards, primarily based on the safety guidelines from the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). Here’s what the ICNIRP guidelines look like.
And here’s what guidelines from many countries around the world look like:
The problem with these guidelines is that most of them only consider EMF’s thermal effect and concurrent exposures. Here’s what those terms mean.
The Thermal Effect
All types of EMF can be powerful enough to heat tissue. In fact, that’s exactly how a microwave oven works. A microwave oven emits microwave frequency EMF with high enough power to cook your food.
That heating response is called the thermal effect. And it is very harmful. Because when your body’s tissue is heated, it can burn your skin, damage your DNA, and kill your cells. That’s bad stuff.
The ICNIRP safety standards– and other regulations based on them, like the FCC’s cell phone radiation limits– are based on the thermal effect. In other words, if a cell phone doesn’t emit enough radiation to heat your tissue, it’s safe.
And, to be clear, it is very good that we have safety standards designed to protect against the thermal effect of EMF.
The problem is that a large and growing body of science demonstrates a wide array of negative health effects, at exposures lower than what would trigger the thermal effect.
In other words, science shows us that even doses of EMF that are insufficient to heat your body, can damage your health.
That’s a major flaw in our EMF safety standards.
But wait, there’s more.
The second flaw with our current guidelines is that it only takes the effects of EMF on a short-term exposure from a single source into consideration.
Concurrent Exposures
The limits you saw earlier not only see the thermal effect as the only health effect of EMF, but they also don’t take the background radiation into account.
For instance, the limit regulates how much EMF you receive from, say, your microwave oven or how much EMF you receive from your cell phone. But it doesn’t factor in the amount of EMF you receive from both devices, let alone from other devices in your home like laptops, WiFi routers, smart meters, and electrical appliances.
This is what I call the fundamental flaw in EMF safety standards because all of these are tested in a laboratory with specific EMF sources, which doesn’t replicate real-life situations at all.
And you must also know that when these guidelines are set, only the industry-funded and heavily marketed studies are considered most of the time.
What Levels Do the Experts Recommend?
The Building Biology Institute (BBI), which has been studying EMF’s health effects for a long time now, generated recommendations to help people understand what the “safer” levels of exposure are.
Here are the guidelines from the BBI:
So, you see, the current EMF safety standards are not adequate for public protection. ICNIRP, however, updated their guidelines in 2020, but the new ones are no better, say EMF experts. You can read more about this in my post “Current EMF Standards.”
It’s clear that the current safety standards set by governments and international agencies are seriously flawed and are vastly insufficient to protect your health. So, turning to them and asking, “How much EMF is safe?” is not helpful at all.
So, what is the safe radiation level?
What is a Safe Radiation Level?
Well, the only truly “safe” level of human-made EMF is none. That is the only level of exposure that will avoid all the risks associated with EMF.
But of course, in this day and age, that is not possible. In order for that to happen, we’d have to give up not just cell phones and WiFi, but also light bulbs and refrigerators. We’d have to go back to the 1850s
So, the best way you can go about it is to try and mitigate your EMF exposure as much as possible, which in turn reduces your risk of developing EMF-induced health problems.
Here are some of the things that you can do.
· Turn off your WiFi router at night.
· Stop carrying your cell phone in your pocket.
· Stop sleeping with your phone.
Essentially, what you’re aiming for is the lowest level of EMF exposure you can achieve while still maintaining a fruitful and healthy relationship with technology.
If you want to learn more about reducing your EMF exposure, be sure to visit my “Healthy Living Tips” page. You can also refer to my previous posts here on Medium, which contain actionable tips on how you can reduce your EMF exposure and live a healthy life.
Final Thoughts
The tech industry, the network industry — they’re profit-centric. So, they will tell you everything they need to in order to make you buy their gadgets.
What I suggest you do, beginning today, is to start educating yourself on the subject of EMF — how it works, what its effects are, and how you can reduce your exposure while still enjoying the convenience of technology.
You can find all of these and more on our website ShieldYourBody.com. I recommend you start from our “EMF, Health & Protection” page.
