(Breather) After a great show with Bordeaux Kitchen author Tania Teschke, we keep recording and I start to get freaked out over the health concerns relating to radiation from “Smart” utility meters and also excess artificial light and digital stimulation from various blue-light emitting sources like digital screens and LED light bulbs.

Get Over Yourself Podcast

Brad: 00:00 Welcome to the get over yourself podcast. This is author and athlete, Brad Kearns, discovering ways to be healthy, fit and happy in hectic, high-stress, modern life. So let’s slow down and take a deep breath. Take a cold plunge and expertly balanced that competitive intensity with an appreciation of the journey. That’s the theme of the show. Here we go to get over yourself.

Brad: 00:33 The title of that Beyonce song is ring the alarm. And that’s kind of what Tania is doing because she’s an extreme health enthusiast, investigating all the potential dangers that are bound in modern society. And I know that a lot of us like to discount these or rationalize, but I think it’s really important to listen and reflect and do the best you can to mitigate these dangers. Some of them we don’t even know that much about because of they haven’t been around for awhile. Mike, our constant exposure to these screens that he met, blue light on the UV spectrum and disturb our hormones, our mitochondrial function, and especially our sleep cycles. So, uh, after we finished the formal recording, we got into it a little bit. Thankfully I pushed the red button again and Tania started to talk about the dangers of the LED light bulbs, which I’ve taken over for the traditional ones, the old time tungsten light bulbs, which were far less offensive to our circadian rhythms.

Brad: 06:17 So something to think about. Maybe going retro, I know they still sell them. I looked on home depot after this show, then she was talking about the smart meter, which she says is a disaster. That’s the a municipal utility, uh, meters that we all have on our homes. Uh, monitoring your usage of energy and the smart meter is something that emits a constant dose of radiation into your living situation. Hopefully your bedroom is nowhere near the meter and do the best you can to do things like unplug your Wifi in the evenings, keep the devices away from your head because the exposures exponential when it gets close to you. Uh, disturbing stuff. Obviously some people more sensitive than others, but it’s a concern for all of us, especially since we don’t know the longterm repercussions. And going on from there, she talks about the toxic exposure to a sensationalist media and how it can put us in a bad mood and increase our stress levels. So a short tidbit show about being aware of some of the health disturbances around you and doing the best you can more from Tania Teschke.

Brad: 07:25 Okay. So Tania’s got me freaked out about the, the smart meter and then the LED light bulbs. And so the LED, this is now tagged as the best new fancy light, but what’s going on, um, below visible perception is this constant flickering that’s messing with the brain without us even knowing it.

Tania: 08:03 It’s flickering. Same also with fluorescent lights, which is more of a green cast. And I remember doing homework with my fluorescent light, you know, things shine on my and having sleep problems and now, you know, I look back and I think, hmm, I, I think there was a connection. Um, but the, the tungsten light bulbs from, you know, that they’re being phased out, those are completely round like the, the orange glow light bulb on the cartoon instead of the swirly ice cream cones, the tungsten. Those are what we want to bring back, if at all possible. They, you know, they might, they actually, they last, they last a long time. Um, you know, and um, it’s, it’s not, um, let’s, you know, they want people to buy more light more frequently. Um, but this and it might take something a little more. Yeah.

Brad: 09:01 More energy efficient. That’s right. Tungsten ones even know there’s a frosty white covering inside is that orange glow that’s illuminating. And that’s far less offensive to our circadian rhythm than the Blue Light spectrum of the LED, the fluorescent and the new bulbs.

Tania: 09:19 Well, if you think of, you know, how a hundred watt bulb by would be the same amount of light as a hundred candles, you know, we used to have candles and um, the watts, um, you could kind of equate that to number of candles. You know, it’s really the candle light, the orange glow that, that or from from the fire or, or candle that, or a torch, you know, in Medieval Times that we sort of evolved with. Um, and these LEDs are this very, you know, the noon light, um, this blue light, uh, that we’re experiencing at all hours of the day. Not at just that noon. Um, you know, you see them on bike lights, they’re on automobile headlights, just everywhere.

Brad: 10:08 Flash flashlights.

Tania: 10:09 I mean it’s, it’s really hard to get away from, but there is, you can buy online now they’re called turtle lights, the red, orange and orange spectrum or the Himalayan salt lamps. Those, yeah. So those things, you know, and, and the other thing is, it’s not just, we’re not just ruining our own eyes, it’s, and, and rhythms. It’s what about the birds outside who have the streetlights all night long and a lot of the streetlights are going from orange to blue as they are replaced. This is in Europe as well. So that’s definitely something to, you know, think about it. And, uh, and then the smart meter, well that’s,

Brad: 10:54 That’s the meter on the side of your house. If you’re not familiar with that term. We all have those meters that the utility company is monitoring our usage and they’ve recently converted and what the past decade to these things calle smart meters since about, um, 2009 as a part of Obama’s, um, kind of re-injecting the economy, um, was this sort of electricity, energy savings plan package where there was a bunch of money put aside for the electricity companies. Um, to revamp the system and get everyone on this smart grid. Um, you know, so they were really gung Ho and they had to install these, um, smart meters everywhere in order to, I think, qualify for the program and get this injection of, of, of cash from the government. And I may have my story wrong, but this is what, um, I’ve been learning about. And anyway, so you know, you can’t really point the finger at anyone to say, well this is, this is a terrible move, but we have to understand that this is, um, it’s radiation. And even though they say it’s only on for four to sec, four to six seconds a day,

Brad: 12:14 the smart meter?

Tania: 12:15 Yeah, that might only be, but actually it’s, it flickers again, we have this flickering issue of between 10,000 and a hundred thousand times a day in millisecond form. So it’s basically like you have your, um, microwave on all day long and if your bed is near or your head or your, you know, office is near the smart meter, you’re getting it. It’s again, just like cell phones, it’s a matter of a distance. And if you can distance yourself, you have, um, you know, exponentially less exposure. However, you know, children are more susceptible, for example, and

Brad: 12:59 developing brains. So the wall not withstanding. So if your, if your bed is right next to the, the wall, the smart meter, you’re screwed. Move the bed, move the bed.

Tania: 13:10 Well, they have now smart meter covers, um, or if you haven’t had one installed yet, you can put, um, special bars, uh, over your original analog meter so that they actually have to come and, um, face you and say, we’d like to replace your, and then you can hopefully voice your opinion and say, no, thank you. I do not want this. Um, it’s funny, in Germany they have a rule where, um, you, you might get a smart meter, but if it’s broken off, you know, you take your baseball bat and you just knock that thing right off. They come back, replace. You do it again, they come back one more time and you do it again. And the third time they’ll just put the analog back in.

Brad: 13:58 And that’s that.

Brad: 13:59 And that’s that. And, and you know, for Switzerland, I just heard a read recently that by the end of this year, they want to have installed smart meters in private all private homes. And I can’t tell you how, how distressing it is really for, for me, um, to know these kinds of things because our, our children’s sleep is already sometimes, um, disrupted it. And sometimes I wonder if it’s not the, the breaker, the fuse box that’s below their bedroom. Um, you know, you’ve got to just be aware and learn about these things and, and do what you can to protect from really what amounts to a radiation. Unfortunately,

Brad: 14:43 This is the electromagnetic radiation, just like the microwave. Is it the same as the router, but the smart meter is more, more intense, like the low by, um,

Tania: 14:52 you know, that’s a good question. And that’s something that I, I don’t, um, I don’t know. Uh, the Wifi is a very strong signal and you should turn that off at night at the very least, or when you’re not using it. The smart meters, it’s this constant low, frequently frequency pulse, which as it turns out, um, you know, is, makes for example, parasites, uh, more virulent because it’s vibrating at frequencies that, you know, that makes them angry, let’s just say. And for our own, um, cells, you know, we’re not, we didn’t evolve with these frequencies. So, so we are getting 10th for the smart meters, for example, 10,000 to 100,000 times a day, kind of rattled with, um, a message frequency that we don’t know really what to do with, um, you know, our Mitochondria don’t know what to do within ourselves. And so it’s very disruptive as you can imagine. So, and some people are more susceptible than others and children are definitely, you know, they being made of more water than a, when they’re small, they have more, uh, water content. Um, you know, and water, what, what do you do in the microwave? You know, you’re heating up the water molecules when you put something in the microwave you can’t put in metal cause it’ll, um, create fireworks in there. But anyway, it’s just something to keep in mind.

Brad: 16:25 And so with the, the light bulbs scene, can we switch out to orange bulbs and wear the UV protective lenses is yellow or orange color. So we can see plenty. Well likeAli G checkin on his videos. We just saw some of those with this, with this yellow lenses, he was an early adopter. Is that going to provide a measure of uh, help against the negative aspects?

Tania: 16:48 I would say wearing blue light blocking glasses definitely helps. Um,

Brad: 16:54 that’s anything with the UV rating. Like all sun, most sunglasses will have that unless they’re fake from the beach vendor for $5 and has a UV sticker on there, probably not. But the good lenses are treated with UV protection taking get, like at the home supply store you can get safety goggles that are yellow but it have UV protection.

Tania: 17:13 Yeah. You know, the UV issue I’m actually not sure about, but it’s that color. Um, you know, I, you, you may be right.

Brad: 17:23 But for sure the experts are saying, okay, if it has UV protection then it’s doing its job for the blue light spectrum. Yeah. Indoor light. Yeah. So, yeah.

Tania: 17:34 Well, and I think the best measure is to try to, you know, restrict your screen time once the sun goes down too. Yeah. And just good. No go to bed. When it starts though in a place, for example, in Moscow where we lived for a while, um, it’s probably too many years, uh, the, they didn’t go on the daylight savings time and you know, the sun goes down at 4:00 PM, you know, it doesn’t rise until 9:00 AM, you know, and you’ve got to get to work and you know what, there’s no way to live without the in a place like that without artificial lights. So there, there are definitely a limitations to living in certain latitudes, but you know, you do what you can really, that’s just be aware and protect. You know, some people wear or wear protective clothing in front of their screens or they’ll sleep under, um, what’s called a Fairday cage, which is basically like a mosquito net, which will keep out some of the frequencies. But you know, everyone has their, their, their hacks. But it’s definitely something to think about.

Brad: 18:44 I think most people dismiss it because they’re too busy and there’s too many other things to worry about in daily life and the insight that some people are more sensitive than others is highly accurate, but my concern is that if we keep piling these on so we have risk factor here with the smart meter; risk factor with the light bulbs; risk factor with the crappy food we eating; risk factor with the lack of sleep; risk factor with your exercising too much and then it starts to pile up and then you’re rolling the dice with your health and your future diagnosis of cancer, macular degeneration, cognitive decline now being tied strongly to excess sugar consumption and things like that. I feel like, you know, putting the odds in my favor and making painless, painless sacrifices. You’re not asking us to overhaul our lives. You’re saying, hey, put some orange lenses a hundred try to get your screen. Use a done in the early hours of the night. It seems fair to to ask everyone to be more aware of this.

Tania: 19:46 Yeah, yeah. There are little things you can do at least to, to mitigate some of the potential damage. Um, and, and I think it starts just with, you know, being curious about it and motivated to change and, and, and just aware. So keep, keep your feelers out and keep listening and, um, rather than being sort of duped and, um, you know, allowing the media, um, to steer your thoughts. Um, you know, I know with, um, all of the things in the, in the media with Trump, it’s very distracting. For example,

Brad: 20:24 How’s he going over in Switzerland? This is not a political show, but I wonder how, how he’s embraced there. When’s his next trip there too?

Tania: 20:33 Oh Wow. That, I don’t know. Um, but, um, you know, yeah, he’s, they just kind of carry on and hope, you know, hope for the best. Um, but I think people are easily distracted, you know, were eat, we get that dopamine hit when we see something in the news that sort of peaks our interest or, you know, on our social media. But I, I think if we could just, um, just make a little effort to turn away from the directions that the media and other, you know, I don’t know, celebrities or people are trying to turn us and look at the story that’s not being told, that’s not being focused on, I think we can have better, more sound judgment and not be kind of carried down this stream of distraction. Um, and, and have continued unawareness of the real things that are affecting our lives. Like who’s talking about smart meters? It’s just a fringe.

Brad: 21:35 Oh No, let’s call up and record, uh, when we call customer service at the local utility district. And they’ll say, yeah, it’s fine. And that’s the part that gets me, uh, lit up over the course of my life, realizing how much I trusted conventional wisdom and the trusted sources of authority to keep us healthy and, and all those things. And now they’ve turned out to be disastrously wrong. And you know, we were eating margarine when I was a small child instead of butter because my dad was a very thoughtful, well meaning health conscious physician up on all the research, reading the magazines before his time. I mean he quit smoking in 1964 when the surgeon general said, oh, smoking’s bad for you. He goes, oh, and he quit, right? And so we switched to margarine. We tried to lower our fat because we were a healthy eating family and all these things. And I bought into the prevailing mode of athletic training at the time where you try to get more and more miles in as a runner so you can go faster and it turned into a disastrous dismal failure. And then you wake up and go, wow, you know, I’m a little, I’m a little lit up that I trusted these authorities and they led me down the wrong path. And then I guess I better take responsibility for my health and my choices and all these things. And then you’ve take a few baby steps in that direction where you, you care like Tania Teschke.

Tania: 22:50 Oh thanks. Thanks for giving us this little middle.

Brad: 22:53 We call it a breather show so we can take a deep breath. Watch out for wayward, uh, presidents, electromagnetic fields and light spectrums, all three of those and more. Thank you for listening.

Brad: 23:07 Thanks. Mm, mm hmm. Yeah.

Brad: 23:11 Thank you for listening to the show. We would love your feedback@getoveryourselfpodcastatgmail.com and we would also love if you could leave a rating and a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. I know it’s a hassle. You have to go to desktop, iTunes, click on the tab that says ratings and reviews, and then click to rate the show anywhere from five to five stars and it really helps spread the word so more people can find the show and get over themselves because they need to. Thanks for doing it.