166: Henry Eckstein, Top Building Biologist: Crafting an EMF-Free Haven (Including CPAP!) for Optimal Sleep

Welcome to the Sleep as a Skill podcast. My name is Molly Eastman and I am the founder of Sleep as a Skill, a company that optimizes sleep through technology, accountability, and behavioral change. As an ex sleep sufferer turned sleep course creator, I am on a mission to transform the way the world thinks.

Thinks about sleep. Each week, I'll be interviewing world class experts ranging from researchers, doctors, innovators, and thought leaders to give actionable tips and strategies that you can implement to become a more skillful sleeper. Ultimately, I believe that living a circadian aligned lifestyle, Style is going to be one of the biggest trends in wellness, and I'm committed to keeping you up to date on all the things that you can do today to transform your circadian health.

And by extension, allowing you to sleep and live better than ever before.

Welcome to the Sleep is a Skill podcast. We've had a number of building biologists on the podcast, and for good reason. Most of us are spending a ton of time indoors. We know that this is hitting at a number of aspects of health, including our circadian health and some of our sleep results. And so it makes a lot of sense to ensure that these areas that you're spending a lot of time in are conducive to your health and wellbeing and of course your sleep results.

So one of the reasons that I wanted to have this. guest on is I really appreciated some of his thoughts on certain things that might be in your environment that you might not have considered that could be hitting at some of your sleep results. For example, one of the things that he noted was if you are dealing with sleep apnea and you have a.

CPAP machine. One of the things that we're seeing is that those CPAP machines might be off putting a large amount of EMF right next to your head while you're sleeping throughout the whole course of the night. But don't worry, there is an easy fix and he goes into all that and more. Now as a quick aside, if you're listening to this, and either if you have sleep apnea or you know someone that has sleep apnea, please forward this episode to them so that they can learn about some of this information and more.

Okay. And if you are thinking that you may have sleep apnea, I am on a mission to see a future where all of us are tested to ensure that we're not stepping over the many sleep disorders that are present and often undiagnosed. And sleep apnea is a wildly common sleep disorder that often does go undiagnosed.

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That's on our store at sleep as a skill. com forward slash store. Make sure you use the code sleep as a skill at checkout to get a discount. discount. Again, I want the whole world testing for this, but that's a quick aside. So back to our guests. Henry Eckstein is the founder of Healthy Indoor Consultants.

He is committed to sharing his expertise as a building biology Institute certified electromagnetic radiation scientist. specialist, environmental consultant, and new building consultant to help you live free of fear, stress, and pain related to your indoor home environment so you can stop feeling scared in your own home and start living the peaceful, healthy life you deserve.

He graduated with an M. D.  MSEE from the University of California, Berkeley, and worked in the aerospace sector for many years specializing in telecommunications protocols, and then as a chief information officer for a large risk services company. I think you're going to really enjoy this conversation.

And as always, if you have any questions, please don't hesitate to reach out. You can reach us on social or you can always reach me and my team at team at sleep as a skill dot com or head on over to sleep as a skill dot com for lots of actions you can take to improve your sleep right away. And we're going to get right into the podcast.

But first, a couple words from our crucial sponsors that really keep this whole podcast running. So please check them out. I only partner with sponsors that I really truly believe in. So please take a look at them and then we'll get right into the podcast.  If you're listening to this podcast, you're likely looking to improve your sleep.

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And welcome to the Sleep as a Skill podcast. This is really going to be a treat because I'm alluding to building biology at different points in different conversations and podcasts. And yet this, I think, is going to be a unique, deep dive when I hopped on the call with Henry. I was replaying how we originally had gotten linked up and I believe that one of the origin points was I was really impressed with Henry's knowledge across the board in the world of building biology, but he had pointed to some things for us to think about even in the world of how we're managing things like our CPAP in our bedrooms and the air quality that's in there and the EMFs that might be giving off.

He's just bringing a level of thought to your environment that I think is rare and not seen often at all. So this is gonna be a treat. So thank you, Henry, for taking the time to be here. You're very welcome, Molly.  It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much. Well, Henry, maybe we could start at the beginning of how in the world did you find yourself such an expert in this field?

Well, my wife and I, uh, had a bad experience and, uh,  many years ago  and we, I, we were taking care of my wife's mother after her father passed away and we moved down to West Palm Beach.  We didn't permanently move, but we rented a  condo right next to her. And we thought we had  got the best deal of the century to be right next to her.

And then, Very soon afterwards, she was getting these just lightning flashes through her head and,  uh,  and she's familiar with EMFs. She's a doctor and  dealt with this stuff before, but she couldn't figure out what's happening. And I was getting arrhythmia.  And we,  someone recommended that we hire, Um, a building biologist who is an electromagnetic radiation specialist,  uh, not far from there, which we did.

And we found out we were living over 24 smart meters. It was right outside our window.  And  we ended up paying off the lease and moving somewhere else and getting him to test the place before we moved in. And the symptoms seemed to diminish after that.  And I was looking for my next, um,  Profession, I guess my background is, um, uh, electrical engineer and computer science and I was in the aerospace for many years and then, uh, a CIO senior executive at a large company for 20 years.

And  I thought, well, or my, actually my wife, Lisa recommended that, well, maybe I should become an electromagnetic radiation specialist. So I ended up spending a couple of years taking the courses from Building Biology  Institute. And there I became one and I thought it would be a piece of cake. I thought it'd be really simple with my background.

Found out it's really going down rabbit holes, very complex. Uh, and you can delve into very specific areas  and just go on forever.  It's quite,  and also enormous amount of  information and, um,  studies done on it that I'd never heard about, but just thousands of peer reviewed studies around the world that do not get  much attention, I guess.

Absolutely. And well, one, I'm so grateful that then you went in this direction and then are able to share about this now on the other side, because one of the things that we reference on this podcast quite a bit is the old EPA study years ago, where, you know, discovering that the average American spending was 93 percent of their times indoors, broken down to buildings and automobiles, but spending all this time in these confined environments.

So it makes all the sense in the world for us to consider a bit more thoughtfully around what type of environments are we in and is it serving our biology or not? And when we think about sleep, I know before we hit record, you had mentioned that Often, you're spending a lot of your time with your clients in their bedrooms to really break down what that looks like.

You noted that a third of our lives is spent there. So, I'm so curious now that you've been in this space for so long, what you are seeing for people and what are some of the kind of ways that you help people think about the bedroom and, and beyond for sleep? That's very true, Molly. Uh, building biology just as when we learned the protocols for not only measuring electromagnetic radiation, but I also became certified as an environmental consultant and for.

New building consulting with architects and, um, contractors.  And  our focus is always mostly on the bedrooms, because as I said, we spend a third of our lives there and it's where  if we get great sleep,  then our body manufactures melatonin, which helps heal ourselves and the stresses of the day.  And if we don't get the sleep, we don't, the body just doesn't  do as good a job with that.

And, and I know there are supplements you can take melatonin. The body just apparently doesn't absorb that stuff very well. So,  uh,  what we learned is this is where you spend most of your time looking for,  uh, any abnormalities that can be remedied.  And what are you seeing that's, there's a good point too, because when we think about, okay, so you're coming into someone's home, looking to help them optimize, and or to your point, maybe working with architects even before it's built, to hopefully from the ground up be thoughtful in this manner, but sometimes Maybe retroactively after it's already been built.

So you're going in and you're in someone's bedroom. Is there sort of a protocol or guidelines or ways that you're thinking uniquely about these spaces that the average person just like doesn't even think about? Absolutely. Yeah. And yeah, there is a standard protocol. I'll just summarize that, uh, that we're taught.

And the people aren't aware of it because there's no, uh, great awareness these days about electromagnetic radiation. For one thing,  we can't see it, we can't taste it, we can't smell it, uh, some people can actually feel it if they're  usually people who are not Chemically sensitive, uh, or electro hypersensitive.

And they sort of go together people with, um, problems with their immune system, et cetera,  but to most people, it doesn't exist and you don't see it in the media and you don't see it talked about much. And when it is, everybody says that it's not a problem.  And as I mentioned to you earlier, that it's a very, very.

Cool technology out there. And so  most people don't want to hear about this because they you don't want to give up your toys Yes, but the  the truth of the matter is you don't have to you just have to understand where the Issues are and how to deal with them.  Anything else? So when we go in to, for example, a house, um, we're looking at 4 and most people don't realize this.

They know about when you talk about E. M. F.  which are electromagnetic fields or E. M. R. electromagnetic radiation.  People immediately think of a few things. They think about cell towers,  cell phones, WiFi, smart meters.  These are the things they, they're always calling about. Well, I've got a smart meter, is that a bad thing?

Whatever it is. But there are really four different types of man made electromagnetic radiation that are very, uh, different from each other.  The ones I mentioned are all radio frequency radiation, which is high frequencies.  So, uh, your cell towers, your cell phones, your Bluetooth, all of that  is just one  type.

And  the man made  EMFs and, uh, EMR,  that they, all these types  study, peer reviewed studies have shown, if they're very high off the scale, that they should be. Can do damage to our health, significant damage. So the other three types are, uh, related to the power in our house.  So, uh, in this country, in the United States, we have, everybody has, or most people have 120 volts, 60 cycle a second, and that's,  sent to our house,  uh, through the electric companies, or if you have solar, then it's, you, you can manufacture some of that there.

And it's, it's basically ultra low frequency. Like I said, it's 60 cycles a second. And at that very low frequency,  The electromagnetic breaks into two parts. It breaks into electric fields and magnetic fields, and they're very different. And one doesn't affect the other, meaning one can be high, the other can be lower, vice versa.

And,  and then the, that's, that's type two and three and the type four is. What's commonly referred to as dirty electricity. Sometimes it's referred to as electromagnetic interference. Um,  there are different names for it, but people know it as dirty electricity. And what that is, is  when higher frequency.

Energy jumps onto the electric lines, and it could be through the transmission lines, distribution lines for neighbors or stuff you bring into your house,  and it creates these spikes on that nice, neat  60 cycle sine wave, and those spikes are different frequencies and voltages, and they act like jackhammers just hitting away at your cells, and, uh, we are electromagnetic beings.

Everything about us is,  uh, electrical impulses at the very finest level of the level of the cells. Our cells have millions of transactions.  Every second, every cell in our body, and, um,  you know, our heart, our heart,  if you go into a doctor's office and you get an EKG, it's measured in thousandths of a volt, very minute voltages, that if you get a EEG of the brain, it's millionths of a volt, and of course, the time of death is when electrical activity stops in the brain.

So, we're very, very sensitive to  these.  this radiation, even though  the government  pretty much denies that it has any impact unless it's so, so high,  uh, such as x rays, where it actually heats up the skin. So they say if it doesn't heat up the skin, it can't possibly hurt you. And yet studies, thousands of studies have shown that it's absolutely not true.

And the, the, the studies that they've used, if any, are from 1984. They're before even cell phones.  And, uh, the, their latest, the FCC, the, the latest. information they put out was from 1996.  So all this newer technology is just not, is just ignored. It's so true and it's such a big topic and it comes up a lot naturally in this conversation around sleep and to your point around we're spending just such a dearth of our time in these particular environments and even for the naysayer that's says, you know, is kind of bought into more of this approach that, Oh, it's not this big of a deal.

Yet. Yet. Yet. Yet. Yet. Even if that was the case, and we know that to your point, and we can certainly point to many, many pieces of research that would go against that. But even if that was the case, part of what I like to bring in for people is. We're not utilizing these things, presumably, while we're sleeping.

It certainly, one, would serve us to remove those things out of our space in general, even if that is the case. And then, certainly, we can also go to town on the amount of research that we have, to the contrary, anyway. But either way, either bucket you're in, I feel like it just calls for removing of these possible concerns, because why?

We're asleep. We don't need these things, right? Absolutely right. In fact, the, the steps we take,  uh, when we go at and we measure and we, there are certain numbers we're looking for that are,  gee, these are no concern. These might have slight concern if someone's very sensitive. This is more moderate, you can call it severe.

And then there's the extreme level where you want to get the heck out of there or do something about it. And the first thing  try to do is.  get rid of the source. So that means unplug something, turn something off, keep it out of the bedroom, at least when you go to sleep.  Um,  it could be, it could have to do with turning circuit breakers off in your bedroom if you don't need anything in there that,  uh, that has to be plugged in.

Um, and if you can't do that, the next step is just can you maintain a further distance because all of this radiation.  Diminishes most of the time exponentially with distance. So the further away you are from a cell phone,  if you have a cell phone  and you measure it with a  professional RF, or even a consumer grade RF meter.

If you put it right against a cell phone, it's the worst source of EMF, electromagnetic radiation you could possibly see anywhere. It's worse than the cell tower down the street. It's worse than your Wi Fi router, which are all can be  very, very dangerous.  And then people put it right against their heads, or they carry it in their pockets.

Um, so distance is always the friend for, and very often the, the levels of the radiation will diminish exponentially,  uh, in some cases, not actually, and  I can mention that in a few minutes. Oh, sure. The third thing is. Can you shield? Can you  put a Faraday cage around something? Can you put some material up?

Will it stop it? And in some, in most cases, or three of those four types of EMF, yes, you can. One of those types, and that happens to be the magnetic fields.  it's next to impossible to shield. It'll go through everything. It'll go through metal. It'll go through concrete. Um,  it, there is some very expensive things you can do, but they're very ineffective.

And so that, in that case, you either need to get rid of the source or have distance, which can sometimes be a problem. If for example, your house is right next to a substation, electrical substation or you have high transmission lines right next to your house. Wow. So interesting. Yeah, absolutely. I know.

I've got a Faraday cage in our space and that was the same thing I've heard from other building biologists, the magnetism piece. being just a different category from what I've gathered. So with this, we're in the bedroom and you're looking at some of these common sources and you, I thank you for illustrating just how concerning the phone is that so many people are bringing into the bedroom you know, leading it on their chest or whatever and reading at night and whatever's going on that close proximity.

So certainly that goes without saying or should be clear that we want to get that out of the space. But what are some of those other things? Certainly the CPAP I thought was so interesting your breakdown of that as a common potential source and other common sources that you see. Yeah, the CPAP is interesting because If you're, gee, it's great.

I'm going to go to sleep. I'm going to turn all the circuit breakers off to the bedroom and the nearby rooms. And oops, my CPAP doesn't work anymore. Cause I need to have it  plugged in. And, uh,  I know a number of brands, a very common brand is made by,  uh, ResMed, uh, it's called an AirSense 10 or AirSense 11 there.

And one of the,  it has a couple of features. That  are useful, but  can be very, very bad when you have a CPAP machine, it's because you're, you have sleep apnea and you're trying to heal  and not have that.  And there are two problems with this machine. One, one is  they have a.  A Wi Fi feature so they can constantly broadcast the information to your sleep provider.

And, uh,  the good news is you can turn that off. There's a, there's a very easy way to go in and say disable that. And just once you're awake and go to work, you can just turn it on so it can send the information to the provider. But if you leave it on and it's right next to you, it's blasting you with just high radiation all night long, which.

Defeats the purpose of this. If you have heart issues, et cetera,  the other thing that they do, which they seem to want to help you out is these things have air tubes. So they have these plastic tubes that go to a mouthpiece or a full face mask, whatever it is. And it's.  pushing air, make sure that you're, you don't stop breathing, basically.

That's what they do.  And they go, well, it'd be nice if the air was warmed up.  And so they put a little,  the tubes are like little, have spirals so it can bend and they run a wire through it. And guess what? That wire is heated up and it creates  Electromagnetic radiation. It creates electric fields. And usually that thing is lying right across your chest  getting bombarded.

And the, the trick there is just, you can ask them for one of these tubes without that element or where it plugs into the machine, there's usually a tab.  So that's how the electricity gets onto that wire. You can just cut that tab off. The machine's still going to work, it's just not going to heat up that wire, but  Oh, interesting.

Okay. So we want to kind of audit our machines, make sure that one, we can opt out of that or to kind of cut that tab off to eliminate that concern. And then the Wi Fi one, as you noted, then we can disable. And then how about the unit itself? Is there anything that you do as far as placement there or any tweaks?

Yeah, it's, it's good not to have it right now. Usually the tube is pretty long, so you want it away from you. The other thing that you can do, I found out, is you can buy battery, rechargeable batteries. They're very expensive. They're a few hundred dollars.  And you probably want two sets so you could charge one while you're using,  you know, one night so that you can have another set for the next night.

And uh, they can run off batteries. And now you don't have any of that, um, 120 volts. It's just then 12 volts DC doesn't have the same impact.  Interesting. And so you don't have to worry about all that stuff. It's Ooh, okay. It becomes a non issue. That's great. Yeah. Again, it's, it's. An extra cost that you don't,  you know, that's not advertised, but it can be done.

So that's and with the two rechargeable sets, then you can kind of keep that going. So while you invest in that on the front end, The big battery that will last all night long. Okay. Cool. That's great. And then any call outs about the air that you like, that maybe you're mindful of for people that especially are using a CPAP and then the type of air that's then shuttling into them throughout the whole course of the night?

I mean, for all of us, obviously looking at the air quality piece, but are there any special things that you think about for people with CPAP machines or? I'm not aware if there is something, if they have some chemicals in there that create toxic air. I don't know, but it's basically taking your room air.

Yeah.  Dumping it through. So, um,  I'm not, like I said, I'm not aware of that. Okay. So still just like your general protocols that you would do for the air quality. Speaking of other, other things of concern,  children and especially  babies are far more sensitive.  to electromagnetic radiation than adults.  Their bones are not formed fully.

They don't,  they're much more unprotected than adults.  And  baby monitors, actually there's a lot of things happening now with this technology. So they're even putting  Wi Fi, Wi Fi transmitting sensors inside baby diapers. And on bottles, uh, baby bottles, so they can see if,  you know, the milk is all gone and the baby wet itself, whatever.

And, um,  very, very dangerous. And of course, baby monitors that,  that are in the room can be transmitting.  And the unfortunate thing is you used to be able to get baby monitors where the  station that the parent can see what's going on is connected by a wire.  Which. Is not going to be as bad as sending out Wi Fi right next to the baby,  but it's the only way you can get those these days is through eBay.

Mm.  Wow. Everything is, because everything is just. Wi Fi this, Wi Fi that.  And uh, and smart homes. The worst homes I've been in have been multi million dollar  condos in the Miami area. You know, dozens  of cell towers coming in windows from the west and the east because they have these big apartments and, and they're, they're all smart.

Everything is Wi Fi and no, they don't want to get rid of it. They want everything to be healthy for their kids. But.  When you recommend, well, turn off your Wi Fi at least at night. No, can't do that because  Whatever. Oh my gosh. Wire up here. And the solution for that is with the RF is, is  just wire your house, you know, all the things, the TVs, the computers, the laptops, even your cell phones and tablets,  um, can be attached to your router.

You can have the wifi turned off and everything goes through internet cables that are shielded that you can get shielded and rounded internet cables. And, um,  even your cell phones, there are adapters that you can plug into the cell phone, into your internet, through a cable, and you can have your air, um, your cell phone in airplane mode, your tablet in airplane mode, and nearly all the apps will work, except the cellular.

You won't be able to make a call when it's in airplane mode, but you can run all your Google and email and everything like that. Oh, that's interesting because we do a lot of hard wiring in here. And, but I haven't done that for the phone. So I guess I need to look into that. And the adapter for iPhone, they have a thing called a lightning adapter.

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You're investing in your health, wellbeing, and quality of life. So again, go to you block out spelled the letter U block out. and use code sleep as a skill for a discount. Okay, so for the listener, it's one of our messages is being really thoughtful about the bedroom and what are in those spaces while you're sleeping, doing that audit and working with a professional to really understand one, what are the things that are within your control, shielding, And then some cases, maybe it's like, we might want to look at other options and maybe we want to move and just, you know, making informed choices, not trying to scare the listener exactly.

But it's at the same time, I think it is really, really important for us to also get the message that our environment has an effect on our biology. And whether we like to hear that or not. And to your point, the, the Miami nice. apartments and the places and all the things. There are times where we need to make those informed choices and certain simple things as you're pointing to that you can also do to optimize your space.

Did I leave anything out with that or is there any thing that we want to make sure we underscore for the sleep piece? Yeah, and in general, I see you have this beautiful, you're in a beautiful high rise of a beautiful and there's an advantage. To that in that by there's a thing called the national electric code, and when they build any kind of commercial structure or a high rise  by code, the wiring in the walls, and this is a very, very big part when it comes to the dirty electricity and the electric fields.

They require that they use what's called metal clad cable, which is the cable runs through a metal tube and that metal tube will shield from the electric fields and the dirty electricities,  which is a huge part of  issues. And assuming there's no wiring errors,  um, that's a whole other  story, can create horrendous magnetic fields that do not diminish quickly.

Uh, Engine and assuming which most of the time to, you know, they'll  these places are fine.  Um,  in houses in private residences, almost always they build with what's called Romex, which is a plastic cable, which does not shield. And so that in individual houses become can become a very big. Issue because the head of the bed is right against the wall, probably wires, not only from the bedroom, but from the adjoining rooms.

And the worst case is if they have put a bedroom in a place where the,  uh, circuit breaker panel is right on the other side of the wall that, you know, or a refrigerator or something that  can  create the 1 other thing. I don't want to forget to mention.  That you're, I'm sure you're aware of the body when it comes to making melatonin  darker.

It is  the better the body. is at making the melatonin. So blackout curtains  get as much rid of as many light sources as you can when you go to sleep.  If you get blackout curtains, do that. So important. Yeah, absolutely. We actually just signed with a new sponsor, uBlockout,  that does total blackout. So they're about to be coming in and doing our bedroom space.

I, I right now I did it in a really just not so pretty way. I've basically had like crazy papers and all kinds of stuff to get a total of blackout, but this will be a prettier version. But you're so right, that piece is so huge. And to your point around just how nuanced this topic can get and depending on the time when the building was constructed and certain regulations and all of that, yeah.

That was one of the really crazy things that we discovered here in our space. When we had, um, a building biologist come, what we discovered was, so first of all, it's the choosing of where you live is so crucial because we're right in downtown Austin. So we're getting pummeled with EMFs when you walk out on the balcony.

It is, so what we discovered was the balcony was like Wildly bad, and then you close the door and in here was like a better haven now it's still got EMFs, but it was much markedly better than just walking outside in the outside air which is so problematic because so much what I'm talking about is the importance of outdoor living, and so then that's at odds of the fact that you're dealing with all that when you're outside so it's, it's, there's some topics there.

And it's actually part of what one of our thoughts. and the way we're thinking about some of our next places that we're going. But to your point, it was interesting and a bit of a relief, sort of, that at least knowing that the build and the way it was constructed, I'm sure they weren't necessarily thinking about building biology per se, but the way, like, one of the building biologists said, postulated that also the windows to be energy efficient, something as far as that construction is likely blocking some of the EMFs in the way they're set up.

So there's a lot of thought that goes into this. Exactly what you started with. There's rabbit holes galore. And I think if available for people being able to work with someone like yourself can just really help eliminate a lot of the question marks is a big, big topic. Now, One thing I shared with you that we have every person that comes on the podcast, we asked four questions around how you're managing your own sleep.

So I think that might be helpful for us to further learn from you how you're thinking about these areas. So the first question is, what might we see for your nightly sleep routine right now? Well, one of the things is very simple. Um, there's a few manufacturers of what are called remote,  um, cutoff switches.

So the first thing we did when we bought this  condo and we'd move from another place in Boulder where we did the same thing is,  um, part of the protocol is finding out which in the bedrooms,  which circuit breakers. Do you have to turn off to get the  electromagnetic, uh, field, specifically the, the electric fields, um, and the dirty electricity down to as close to zero as you can,  because that the thing about electric fields, it's caused as opposed to magnetic fields.

The electric fields are caused by voltage, and even if everything is turned off,  there's still a voltage on those wires. So, turning all your lights off, unplugging everything, the wires in the wall are still going to be putting off electric fields.  In the high rise with the M M M M M C metal clad cables.

That's not a problem in a, in a house, big problem because it's, it's there unless you turn the circuit breaker off, not just to the bedroom, but adjoining rooms, or it could be even a room on the other side of the house. You don't know where the wires are coming from  circuit breakers, by the way, are not made to be turned on and off 365 days a year they'll break eventually.

So these remote cutoff switches.  Use a little remote control, like a keychain kind of thing.  Open the door of your car  and  it's set up. You need an electrician to install it, but right by the circuit breaker panel and  next to my bed  is the little remote control. And when we go to sleep.  Uh, and it's lights out.

I just pushed the button. Now all the circuits in that room and some adjoining rooms  get shut off.  If you absolutely need something, uh, maybe you need a fan in there and  just turned off your ceiling fan and you're in Florida and super, super hot. You can always get a floor fan and then you can get extension cables that are shielded.

and grounded and run them outside the room to a place that didn't get turned off. Same thing with the CPAP machine. You can connect it somewhere so that you're not  turned, you know, you're dependent, you know, and there's certain health.  Devices that you're, people are dependent on,  so you can, you can still keep those alive and there's always an option there if the budget holds.

Ah, great. So that's, that's the number one  thing we do. Also, we make sure all the  windows are blacked out. Yes.  Simple. And do not bring cell phones into it. The cell phone can be charged outside the room. You don't need  little battery powered clock instead of an electric lock clock.  Absolutely. It's very inexpensive.

So, Yes, these thoughtful kind of initiatives. I think in people hearing this in case they're like, Oh my gosh, so many things. It doesn't have to be so overwhelming because as you're breaking it down, it's like, we're really looking at this bubble of your bedroom and what's in that close proximity and just eliminating some of those things.

And to your point, then taking those Steps if available for people to then have the settings so then they can turn off the circuit breakers So then you don't have to think about a lot of this really good now What might we see in your morning routine? And we call it kind of morning sleep routine with the thinking that how we start our day can impact our sleep Well, the first thing I do when I get up is push that button again Yes It all comes back.

Okay  And, you know, I am not hypersensitive. Yeah. So,  to me, I can be bombarded pretty, to some extent, without  feeling the effect. I do know that a lot of the impact of this stuff  happens,  over time. So some, often I'll get called by a client and they say I've been living here  for a few years and now I'm starting to get tinnitus.

Thinking it might be, and sure enough they're,  there's,  they've been living with this stuff for years and then the body finally  gives up. Uh, I don't do anything special that I'm aware of.  Um, what I do  pay attention to is, uh, I don't wear these. Smart watches. I don't,  you know, I don't. And I certainly, I keep my cell phone in airplane mode.

My wife won't even turn it on.  She gets, you know, she's very sensitive. And sometimes when you need to go on to a certain websites, they want to send you a  A text code and she won't even turn that on sometimes she'll come in and say, I'm sending it to your phone. You tell me what it is  love it, but you definitely don't want to keep it in your back pocket in your breast pocket.

If you're a woman, you don't want to put it in your bra. There have been many cases where. Uh, women have gotten breast cancer and when they look at the pattern, it's like a little rectangle. Oh, I've heard of that too. And that soft tissue being more vulnerable. So, right. Okay. So you don't, and don't put it against your ear.

You can, uh, we have these, um,  headphones that are called air tube.  As opposed to earbuds, which are Bluetooth, so Bluetooth, not great. Um, and speaking of that also, the, if you have,  regular telephones,  get rid of those decked phones, those remote  phones that you can put in a base station and gets charged and then you can walk around the house with it.

Those things are like having little, those base stations are like having mini cell towers in your home 24 7.  Very, very. Right. Really paying attention to these things. And then, you know, you think these through on the front end. And then on the back end, though, it's like we clear out all these and then we get to live in an environment that doesn't have all of this in our space.

We don't have to think about it. So really, really helpful. And now I'm assuming we probably touched on some of this. The third question, which is what might we see on your nightstand and assuming given what we shared about kind of minimalism and cutting back on some of these things, I'm guessing. Not a whole heck of a lot in form of technology, but you can let me know if we're missing anything.

Well, I actually have a tablet next week. I like to read, but it's in airplane mode. So I, you know, I have stuff downloaded if I want to read at night. I do, I do have, um,  a lamp and we'll tell people if, if they don't cut off the circuit breakers, at least unplug. things. There's a very inexpensive way to unplug, particularly your TVs.

The flat screen TVs they make these days, and a lot of people have flat screen TVs in their bedroom. You can turn them off and the Wi Fi is still being transmitted. From the TVs, you can even turn the Wi Fi off or you think you've turned it off through their system. Yeah,  you can still measure it. It's still there.

They just some of the newer Samsung flat screens are like that.  And the only way to really get everything turned off is to unplug it. Well, you can for Between 20 and  30, you can get these, um,  little remote, it's called BN Link on Amazon. So for 28, you get five of them, and you get this  little remote control device that  Oh,  very neat.

For anyone that's listening, then just, it was a click of a button. And it's convenient too, because if I want to get more light, I don't have to stand up and, but you can have your TV plugged in. And then  when you go to sleep at night, at least unplug that. Um, Totally. Yeah. I have kind of outlet that, you know, like those charging strips and you can select which ones that are kind of on this timer and then they turn off at certain points.

And yeah, to your point, like, and they don't have to be expensive. It's like from Amazon. Not that crazy. And just the kind of. Yeah. Taken the time to set it up front end because that was yeah, those smart TVs. Oh my gosh, they really output something Okay, so what we're aware of what might be in the space and to your point then if you have certain piece of technology Like the tablet or what have you then we're just being mindful and making sure that they're in airplane mode Or so that we're just not dealing with extra stuff that we really don't need and if a person's  Electro hypersensitive.

Yes. You might start recommending  other things like getting a remote keyboard and that doesn't transmit any, you know, that's plastic doesn't transmit through your fingers or there's even gloves you can wear that. But there's, there's extremes you can go to and the protective clothing you have to be careful about.

Yeah, right. Shields will also reflect And if the energy is coming in, let's say you're wearing a cap, and it's coming in from underneath, it could be reflecting and bouncing around.  That is my concern with some of this. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know and I don't know the answer to that. It's layered. I don't think it's bad or good.

I just. You want to be thoughtful about it.  And real quick, not to tangent us too much, but do you feel like similar rules might apply the thoughtfulness for things like grounding mats and right in the, especially in the bedroom, people get those grounding bedding options. Right. Right. Right. Once that grounding is.

One of those rabbit hole topics,  because you have a thing called your  system ground, which is your house. So that's that third prong that goes, that little round prong. Yeah. That's, that's your house ground or your system ground.  Um, which is a good thing.  It's not at the same electrical potential as the earth.

So  also when you say it's an earthing pad, well, you plug it in there. You're not actually in the earth. It can be a few volts different. In fact, if you put rods into the earth in different places, very often there's a different  potential from one to the other. I won't go into that because that's a long topic.

That's a long topic. So earthing, that, those things.  Um,  and it's, it's great if you, if you're by the ocean  or by a body of water and, or anywhere where the earth,  you know, has some kind of moisture. Uh, grounding yourself is great. Walking barefoot,  um,  that that's a whole  different topic. The other, the other topic that is  interesting is a lot of  people are buying  these,  uh,  Alternate, I don't know what to call it other than, um,  these energy devices that are supposed to protect you from EMFs.

So pendants, yes. And um,  uh, ski o devices, uh, spooky tubes, all this stuff. Uh,  the body's very subtle, so some of the studies, some of these.  manufacturers have done have shown  that, for example, the blood cells don't coagulate.  as much if you're wearing this particular device or whatever.  Um, if you measure it on the gross level with the instruments we use, you won't see any change in electromagnetic radiation.

It's not like,  whether it's powered or not, a scalar device, um,  you won't be able to read any difference if it's there or not. However,  uh, it might be doing some people good, but you want to deal with the  main sources of this thing. You don't want to just completely rely on wearing a pendant or something like that.

And that's the building biology take on it. And different people respond differently to these, um, devices. So something that makes one person feel really good can make another person just either not feel anything or  feel sick. So we always paint when we're, when I'm doing a.  assessment, I'm also paying attention if the person is sensitive  to, are they feeling anything when we do this,  making them feel better or worse, are they, Most people don't notice any difference, but sure.

No, that's really good point. And I think that's important too, to caution, because I think sometimes we'll see like a false sense of security where people, and sadly, they might have invested a decent amount. Some of these things can get so pricey and then they have them next to their beds and then they are like, Oh, well then I can have the super smart bed.

That's just a mid extensive EMS and they got the phone on them and the whole thing.  That's not necessarily the direction we want to go. So right. Okay. Very good. Yeah, right. Oh, geez, it's concerning. So i'm grateful that you can help guide people in the right direction So the fourth question would be Uh so far in your life all these things that you've learned What would you say has made the biggest change to how you're managing your own sleep?

Well, I think I think prior to  studying at Building Biology Institute and learning this stuff, I didn't have a clue. Yeah. I didn't feel this stuff. I didn't know. Totally. And um,  so actually  every time I meet with other building biology people or just people who just happen to be interested in this stuff and research, I'm always learning something new.

And  It's, um,  the  things, some of the things I've done, it's made a huge difference. Uh, like I said, we are remote cutoff switch. The other thing is the dirty electricity.  Uh, you don't shield from that. You have to somehow filter it out. So you put in a device that takes out those high frequencies.  Um, and, uh, we ended up putting one in because we had high levels of that.

And. That made a big difference and very often it  does but yeah, so good uh, so important and and I appreciate what you're sharing too because Certainly the average person does not know half of these things. I know when I went through my own So my back story is that I went through kind of a sleep breakdown And that was what created this whole company and entire different pivot to my whole life in a good way, in a positive way.

But the part of the source point, I lived in Manhattan in New York City and had all kinds of everything not to do I was doing. So people like yourself that can help and guide us in the right direction, I think is just so, so important and so appreciate the work you're doing. And then even getting at the source point, I've been working with architects and helping to make this more of a household name that we understand that we can design our environments, whether We take from Singapore comes to mind of how they're bringing in so many more trees that environment into their building design, you know, there's a lot of things that we might be able to see more in the future and thoughtfully put this together.

So just so appreciate the work you're doing and you taking the time. So how can people follow the work you're doing or work with you? Uh, well, uh, I do have a website, it's, and a company, it's, my company is called Healthy Indoor Consultants, and the website is HealthyIndoorConsultants, one continuous word, dot com, and, uh, people can, uh, actually sign up for free Appreciate it.

Short  consultation where they can talk about their issues. Uh, I do  work on site,  um, in Florida. I don't travel outside the state, but they're building biologists all over the world really, and you can find them on the building biology Institute, at least the ones in the U mostly in the U S you can find on building biology Institute.

They have a list of their certified.  Uh,  uh, electromagnetic radiation specialists or environment consultants or  new building consultants,  uh,  and, uh,  I also do, uh, when I'm working with architects and builders, most of the time I'm working remotely with zoom calls. So we're discussing things.  And uh, so I also do that.

Oh, so great. Well, I'm looking forward to a very near future when this is just a booming industry and we're seeing more and more of people like yourself getting this message out. So again, appreciate it. And we'll make sure to put all the information in the show notes so that people can have that availability because often people are like, well, where do I even go?

What do I do? Who do I talk to? So thanks again for that and appreciate the time. And just the message that you're getting out is a big, important one. Yeah. And I want to thank you, Molly, because what you're doing is huge.  That's the most, one of the most important things  for our health. I mean, diet, of course, and exercise is important, but  getting that deep sleep, that deep rest is so critical.

Oh, well, thank you for saying that. Oh, well, I appreciate it. I learned the hard way. That's for sure. Yeah, right. Oh, that thing is pretty important. That thing we do a third of our lives. Okay, let's let's take some time to facilitate that appropriately. Well, thank you again. Appreciate that and appreciate the time.

Have a great one  you've been listening to. The Sleep Is A Skill Podcast, the top podcast for people who wanna take their sleep skills to the next level. Every Monday I send out the Sleep Obsessions newsletter, which aims to be one of the most obsessive newsletters on the planet. Fun Facts. I've never missed A Monday for over five years and counting, and it contains everything that you need to know in the fascinating world of sleep.

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