Wellness Wednesdays: Wireless Edition!!!

Wow. So until about twenty minutes ago, I thought TODAY was wednesday. Dang. Apologies! I decided for this week's WW to talk about wireless technology, with an important emphasis on cell phones. This form of technology is a very recent development that we've seen only within the last two decades or so. And a rapidly expanding one at that. I remember when I was little, my parents would carry around the ever-so elegant brick phone. Now, cell phones are capable of so, so much. It is most definitely a symbol of my generation. If you're like me, your phone is not just some gadget you use to talk to others, it is like a vital limb used for social networking, e-mail, internet browsing, texting, instant messaging, music, and of course, phone calls. So, you can only imagine the sheer amount of desperation and panic that ensues after you mistakenly misplace or lose your phone. It is pretty much like the apocalypse - for your social life. You literally cannot FUNCTION. How sad is that? I think this is an extremely relevant issue that we need to be aware of because wireless technology is only going to expand in the future. So here are a couple tips to keep in mind.

1. Don’t allow children under 12 to use a cell-phone except in emergencies. Organs that are still developing are more sensitive to the possible influence of exposure to electromagnetic fields. A child's skull is thinner than an adult's, and every millimeter between the handset that's emitting electromagnetic waves and the child's brain cells can make an enormous difference.

2. During calls, do your best to keep your cell-phone well away from your body. (When the handset is held four inches away, the amplitude of the electromagnetic field drops to one-quarter of its full value, and it is 50 times smaller when the phone is a yard away). Use the "loudspeaker" mode whenever possible, and a hands-free mode or Bluetooth earpiece (which on average gives less than one hundredth of the phone's normal electromagnetic emissions).

3. Keep your cell-phone conversations short. The biological effects are directly linked to duration of exposure. Text as much as possible.

4. Avoid using cell-phones when moving rapidly, for example when in a car or train. (There's an automatic increase in power to maximum when the phone is trying to pick up a new -- or increasingly distant -- relay antenna).

5. Choose the phone with the lowest possible Specific Absorption Rate (SAR) for your needs. (The SAR measures the quantity of radio frequency energy absorbed by your body). Classifications of the SAR values of phones from various manufacturers are available on a number of websites.

More on this later. Family movie night.

Source: Anticancer: A New Way of Life (website)