Can Wi-Fi routers in your home truly increase any kind of health risks? Is Wi-Fi dangerous? And should we be more cautious when using it? How to reduce your daily EMF exposure?
Those are the questions we are hearing more and more often from our customers in recent years. Long story short, unfortunately, the answer is yes to all. EMF radiation (radiofrequency) produced by the vast majority of today's Wi-Fi routers is usually at least as strong as if there was a phone mast right next to your home. But no need to panic, there are things we can do and ways to reduce or even eliminate EMF produced by Wi-Fi routers in our homes. And the good news is, the most effective mitigation methods are completely free of charge.
But before we go ahead and discuss the ways to solve this issue, let's talk a little bit more about how Wi-Fi affects us and why should we even care about it at all. It is important to realise that the way our bodies get affected by EMF, in general, is very different, depending on whether we are awake or asleep. I am sure you are all aware of how important a good night's sleep is for us, so why would we knowingly do things to disrupt or disturb it? I think you are starting to suspect where I am going with this and you are right, it really is when we are asleep that matters the most. This is when EMF has by far the most impact on our bodies and the biological effects can lead to real health implications.
Let's talk about this in more detail. Why exactly is EMF affecting us more, or should I say in a different way, during our sleep? We still get affected during the day, however, there is very a specific reason why nighttime is so crucial. And that reason is called melatonin.
Melatonin is probably most known as our "sleep" hormone and this is true. Melatonin is directly responsible for the quality of our sleep, which has a direct impact on our DNA and cell repair processes. A perhaps less known fact about melatonin is that it also "mops up" free radicals in our bodies during our sleep. Free radicals are a by-product of when we burn energy during the day.
They are compounds that can cause harm if their levels become too high in your body. They're linked to multiple illnesses, including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer. Free radicals also attack our healthy cells and DNA, so in a nutshell, less free radicals in our body the better. You might be thinking, okay but how is all this related to my Wi-Fi router? That's where it becomes interesting. It is now well known and scientifically proven that high levels of magnetic fields or radiofrequency EMF can lead to reduced production of melatonin in our bodies. And given the fact that our body produces melatonin only during our sleep, we are now getting to the point where there is a clear link between biological effects on our body, caused by high levels of radiofrequency produced by a Wi-Fi router in your home. If we don't produce as much melatonin as we should during our sleep, our bodies will not be able to fight off free radicals as effectively and this results in a higher amount of free radicals in our bodies. And if this happens every night for a number of years, it can lead to our immunity issues, insomnia, headaches....... the list goes on. By the way, mobile phones have a very similar effect.
The second main impact of high levels of EMF on our bodies has got to do with high frequencies used by most man-made EMF. Humans, as all life on earth, have evolved to be in sync with our planet and its own natural EMF. There is a specific frequency called the Schumman resonance. That's the frequency emitted by the earth and sits exactly at 7.83Hz. The human body also uses that very same frequency of 7.83Hz to function. We ourselves use an electromagnetic field to live, neurons in our brain use electrical charges to communicate with each other and our whole body is a very complex electromagnetic machine. now, for example, our Wi-Fi router usually uses a frequency of 2.4
GHz. That's 2.4 billion Hertz. Our body is tuned and evolved to function at 7.83Hz. Now, when our body cells are exposed to frequencies of billions of Hertz, their natural reaction is to switch to defense mode, as they simply don't recognise such high frequencies and identify it as something harmful. Our cell membrane shuts off and this can severely disrupt the ability to get rid of all the toxins from our cells.
This was just a little bit about the link between Wi-Fi routers (high radiofrequency EMF) and their impact on our bodies.
As I mentioned at the start of this article, there is no need to panic, as there are simple ways we can resolve this problem.
Number one, you probably guessed it, is to simply switch your router off for the night. This reliably eliminates all EMF produced by the router and has by far the biggest positive impact on the EMF environment in your home. If you live in a block of flats or a semi-detached house, you are still probably getting some exposure from your neighbour's Wi-Fi. This can be tricky to solve, I always recommend trying to talk to your neighbours first, before spending money on any shielding materials. I know it can be a challenge to start randomly asking people to switch their routers off for the night without sounding a little crazy, but I think it's worth a shot. If they don't share your enthusiasm then don't push it, it's probably not worth risking good relations with them. Besides, there are other things you can do to reduce the EMF exposure produced by your neighbour's Wi-Fi.
A good start at this point would be to conduct a professional EMF survey, this will identify precisely what areas in your home are affected and uncover any potential EMF hotspots. And if you are lucky, you might even find out that there is no impact on your home from your neighbours and you can leave it at that. However, if the survey does uncover any areas that need addressing, you can apply various shielding materials, depending on the location. Again, this would be best discussed with a professional/EMF surveyor to make sure you are not purchasing products that might not be fit for purpose.