Steps to Reducing Electrical Sensitivity

The following has helped me manage my electrical sensitivity symptoms. It is what I have learned over years of trial and error.

Take your time with this – I realize it’s a lot. However, I wanted to give you the best of what we have learned thus far so that you have the best chance of healing.

Let’s get started…

1. The most important thing you can do is limit your exposure to EMF pollution. Here are the basic steps that will help you accomplish this as quickly as possible. It is my experience that without doing this first, the following steps will not be effective. I highly encourage you to read my book on finding and creating a low-EMF home. It is the quickest way to orient yourself to what you need to know.
2. Don’t panic. People do recover from this condition when they take the appropriate steps to heal.
3. Have your home measured for EMF pollution. A primary reason people become EHS is that they have a home or work environment that has high EMF pollution. I recommend this EMF meter to start with and that you have an analog home phone.
4. Give your nervous and immune systems a chance to rest. It may be advisable to go spend a few days, weeks or even months in nature (I have known many people, including myself, who have done this – with positive results). Spending time in nature will give your body a chance to get back to its set point of health. I personally enjoy going to natural hot springs and camping the most. There have been years where I have spent four months completely in nature.
5. Be mindful of chemicals, pesticides and mold. There appears to be a similar biological mechanism at work between Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) and EHS. Eat organic and use organic laundry detergents, cleaning supplies, shampoos and soaps. Also avoid perfumes, fragrances, cigarette smoke and air pollution.
6. Avoid chronic emotional upsets and stress. EMF pollution appears to stimulate a sympathetic response within the autonomic nervous system (it keeps us in a chronic state of “fight or flight”, rather than “rest and digest” mode). Thus, it is important to diminish as many emotional stressors/triggers as possible while you heal.
7. Some people who are electrically sensitive also have Lyme disease, heavy metal toxicity, autoimmune issues, thyroid problems and/or mold within their home. You may want to check these issues as they can exacerbate or mimic EHS symptoms. This video by Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt shows how mold spores and Lyme disease interact with EMF pollution. If you have the resources to visit an environmental illness health clinic, I have listed some of the best clinics here.
8. Educate your personal medical doctor. Here is information that you can give to your MD to help him/her understand electrical sensitivity. I also provide some suggestions of medical practitioners from around the world who understand and can help with EHS.
9. There are alternative healing therapies that may help with EHS. However, most are still experimental and unproven at this time [LENS (Low Energy Neurofeedback System), Bio-photon Therapy, EFT, LDN, etc]. Therapies that help the nervous, immune and endocrine systems come into balance are the most effective. Check with your local health practitioners to find what is available near you. A very popular and effective system that you can use in your own home is the HeartMath Institute biofeedback system and associated book.  Special Note: If you have any OCD or anxiety tendencies, then worrying about and implementing EMF reduction strategies can actually lead to worse outcomes. You must be aware of your specific thought patterns as the mind can make things worse through the nocebo response. There are two online courses that can help if this is your case. The Gupta Programme and the Dynamic Neural Retraining System have helped many people retrain the limbic system in order to reduce the severity of environmental illnesses. When people have any type of injury, there is almost always a component of the brain that needs help to unlearn the injury. Here is a presentation on this system.
10. Here are some strategies and nutritional habits that have helped me over the past few years. Note that it can take time to implement many of these. I suggest you focus on just a few at a time. I have listed what I have found to be the most effective actions first:

• • Wash your face/hands/feet with cold water throughout the day. This helps discharge any static charge on your body and helps with the skin/facial heating effect of EMF. Cold showers also help tremendously with symptoms. I sometimes take a couple throughout the day.
  • Exercise daily. Whether a brisk walk/hike/run, time at the gym, yoga or qigong, exercise is one of the most important activities that relieve electrical sensitivity symptoms.
  • Take a nightly bath with Epsom salts and clay. I fill a tub as hot as I can stand it and add one cup of salts. I also add baking soda or this Kaolin powder, which pulls acids out of the body and helps you detox. Stay in for 15-20 minutes and bring yourself to a sweat. I usually feel great the next morning. If you first want to reduce the chlorine in your bath water, I recommend that you use the “Bath Ball” filter.  Here is a replacement filter. You can also add a a few tablespoons of Vitamin C, which will reduce the remaining chlorine in your bath water. For showering, make sure you have a shower filter to remove the chlorine. A good skin brush is always beneficial as well.
  • Consider occasionally transitioning to a nutritional ketosis diet. The key is to shift your body from the glucose/insulin response from sugar and carbs to burning fat/ketones for your energy. This can be more efficient and healthy for your body/brain. It can initially take a couple months to make this transition, but clarity of mind, increased energy and improved mitochondrial health are the payoffs. To make sure you have transitioned to burning fat, you will need a blood glucose monitor and test strips, along with an Abbott blood ketone monitor and ketone test strips (Abbott also has glucose test strips). You can also test your ketone levels using a breathalyzer and pee strips, but these methods are not nearly as accurate as testing the BHB in your blood. I write more about a ketogenic diet in this article on brain health. Here is an excellent TEDx talk about the benefits of spending some time in ketosis.
  • If you drink coffee, add a few tablespoons of grass-fed butter and Brain Octain (good MCT oil) to your cup and blend in a NutriBullet. This is known as “Bulletproof” coffee. I find the coffee is less harsh on my body and I am less hungry using this method. Be sure to use an AeroPress (best coffee I have ever made) and mold free coffee.
  • I also recommend that you have a great blender for green smoothies, ginger tea and bullet proof coffee. The small, inexpensive NutriBullet is amazing. I also have a Vitamix.
  • Stay hydrated. This can help with the sensitivity. The best way to increase your hydration is the drink water first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. I drink 32 ounces of water like this before eating or drinking anything. Also drink mountain spring water or reverse-osmosis water if you live in an community with fluoridated tap water (add a liquid mineral supplement like ConcenTrace to RO water). Flouride is toxic in many ways.
  • I add turmeric paste to my tea. You mix 1/2 cup of ground turmeric to 1 cup of water and cook on low heat for 7 min until it becomes a paste. Store in a glass mason jar in your refrigerator. For a turmeric tea, add one teaspoon of the paste, one of ghee or coconut oil, some ground pepper and hot water. Green tea will add potency to it. Consider adding cinnamon and ginger. This is full of antioxidants!
  • Take a good DHA supplement – this is critical for your brain. I use this one from Nordic Naturals. I also enjoy a good poached salmon meal and a buffalo burger meal once per week.
  • Make sure you are using a good magnesium oil on your skin. We are all deficient in this vital mineral and the oil is the best way to replenish your body. Read “The Magnesium Miracle” and use these pure magnesium flakes to make oil in the most cost effective manner (you can also add these flakes to your nightly bath). The best magnesium supplement is ReMag, which is picoionic magnesium and comes from this company. Epsom salt baths also add magnesium to your body.
  • Some colleagues state that fermented papaya is excellent for environmental illnesses such as EHS. It is said to increase cerebral blood flow, boost immunity and acts as a potent antioxidant. Here is an excellent source.
  • Eat a lot of organic virgin coconut oil. I take 3-5 tablespoons per day. Oil pulling in the morning with coconut oil is also really good for us.
  • Use saunas (radiant or infra-red), Niacin (Vitamin B-3) and Activated Charcoal to help your body eliminate toxins. See the video below for this process and note that some EHS individuals react to the EMF of infra-red saunas. Be sure that you use a low-EMF infrared sauna with low magnetic and electric fields.
  • For detox, coffee enemas can be an important step. This is a good enema kit (you will want a 4 quart kit with an open top). And, this S.A. Wilson’s provides the best therapeutic organic coffee for enemas. Start with two tablespoons of coffee boiled in about 1/3 a gallon of water. Add the other 2/3 gallons of water to cool it to a temp you can use. I also use liquid chlorophyll instead of coffee every other day. This process, along with intermittent fasting and the use of saunas seen above, can really help your body detox and improve neurological function. Here is a great TEDx talk on the benefits of fasting.
  • I also use MSM (sulfur) to help my body detox daily. This brand is one of the best you can get.
  • Phosphadtidyl Serine is also excellent for the brain. Taken at night, it can help with sleep (it reduces nighttime cortisol as you age).
  • Ginko Biloba can help with mental clarity and blood flow to brain.
  • Vitamin C in the form of Magnesium Ascorbate is an excellent anti-oxidant. I take this with the MSM multiple times per day.
  • Tart Cherry Juice reduces inflammation, is a potent antioxidant and helps with sleep issues.
  • Take ½ – 1 mG of sublingual melatonin before you go to sleep at night. This may help with sleep issues related to EMF pollution, but I wouldn’t recommend taking it long-term. EMF will disrupt our own body’s natural ability to produce melatonin. If you don’t want to supplement, try using blue light glasses during the evening. They will naturally help your body produce melatonin – see #2 here.
  • Take an excellent organic trace mineral supplement. Preferably one from Atlantic seaweed or other marine algae because they have a similar mineral composition as our bodies and have not been depleted of trace minerals like soil-based vegetables have (Do not use Pacific based seaweed products anymore). Shilajit is also an excellent source of organic minerals. Click here to try this.
  • Regularly cleanse and detox the body. I take either Chlorella, Spirulina or Vitamineral Green with a few table spoons of ground chia seeds every day. It makes a green sludge that is good for you! Dandelion tea is also really good for detoxing the liver. Become well versed on detoxing the body as this will help your body deal with the EMF stresses. Our bodies need help detoxing with all the additional chemicals, pesticides and pollutants in our environment. The free radicals created by EMF lower out body’s natural ability to detoxify.
  • Redmond Real Sea Salt has many minerals that help our bodies.
  • I supplement with red ginseng, chelated magnesium, calcium, zinc, Vitamin D (liquid drops), B Vitamins (particularly B-12 and B-3) and this Glutathione Oral Spray. These may help with the cellular damage created by oxidation stress from EMF pollution. Whole food supplements are the easiest for your body to absorb.
  • If you are having mold/fungus problems, Saccharomyces Boulardii and Oregano Oil are advised to help your gut heal from the effects. Other things I do to help my gut when it is out of balance include taking Metagenics GI Sustain for 3 weeks and then a round of ADVA Clear for four weeks to help the liver. I also use Himalaya FlorAvani, Restore, Triphala and Milk Thistle.
  • It’s good to take an excellent antioxidant. Isotonix OPC-3 has been helping ES people and I am currently experimenting with it.
  • Since doing my DNA tests through Dr. Ben Lynch and Bob Miller, I also take L-Methylfolate.
  • Eat foods that reduce inflammation in your body such as green juices, green soups, phytoplankton, sea vegetables and lemon/apple cider vinegar teas. Avoid gluten, dairy and sugar if possible.
  • Remove any amalgam (mercury) fillings in your mouth. Make sure you have a qualified holistic dentist perform this procedure so that you do not get mercury poisoning from improper removal.
  • Detox your body of heavy metals, including mercury. This can be a complicated process, so do your research. Make sure you have a qualified health practitioner guiding you through this process.
  • As mentioned above, do your best to reduce the stress in your life. This will help your nervous and immune systems heal. Meditation, yoga, Qigong, massage, foot reflexology, exercise and long walks in nature with friends are activities that all help with stress reduction.
  • For the tension headaches that are so common with EMF exposure, try a cup of coffee, green tea or certain Chinese herbs (discuss with an oriental medicine doctor). These can provide temporary relief. For stress relief, also try Copaiba oil and this 136.1 Hz tuning fork, which I place at the point of head tension.
  • If you wear glasses, either switch to contacts or get a pair of glasses with little or no metal. Metal frame glasses can act as an antenna and increase the amount of EMF pollution that your brain receives. Contact Veo Optics in San Francisco for a pair of metal-free frames. Call the Valencia Street store and talk to James, the founder. Mention that you are looking for a frame for electrosensitive people (he has had a few of us come through). There is an excellent frame for about $300 that is all plastic with just two small metal screws. My pair is three years old and still looks new.
  • In order to ultimately heal, the mind has to be part of the equation. It is equally important to your environment and everything you do to help you body physically (nutrition, detoxification, etc.). I appreciate what Dr. Bruce Lipton is teaching. He states that the overwhelming majority of our genetics is determined by our environment and what we think (so called Epigenetics). I have spent time talking to him about this and he understands very well how toxic EMFs are for biology. Thus, it is vitally important to live in a low-EMF home and to have excellent nutrition. But, is is ALSO important to have a good mindset that can see yourself healing. I encourage you to read his best selling book: “The Biology of Belief“. I also recommend reading “The Brain’s Way of Healing” by Norman Doidge. Chapter 8 introduces the concept of “Listening Therapy”, which can help rewire the brain (via the ear) of people with visual and sound sensitivities. This form of neuroplasticity training has helped many people.

 

This presentation by Dr. Erica Mallery-Blythe about EHS symptoms and treatment is a must-see for anyone dealing with this condition.

I also want to share this video on detoxing. Our current understanding of electrical sensitivity is that it may be part of our body being overwhelmed by the number of toxins we are exposed to today (EMF’s create free radicals on top of the chemicals, pesticides, flouride and air pollutants in our environment). Detoxing is key to healing. The liver is important in detoxing. Coffee enemas mentioned above and the niacin flush detox in the video below can help. Also try a glass of fresh squeezed lemon juice each morning for 90 days. Your liver may function better over time.