How To Reduce Your RF Exposure

In our increasingly connected world, we’re surrounded by radio frequency (RF) radiation from our smartphones, WiFi routers, cell towers, and all sorts of so-called “smart” devices. While these technologies have become essential to modern life, growing research suggests it’s worth taking sensible precautions to minimize unnecessary exposure.

AI generated. The idea is that there are many RF emitting devices in the home.

This guide presents evidence-based strategies to reduce your RF radiation exposure without necessarily giving up the convenience of digital devices — simple, practical adjustments that can help you make informed choices about how you use your devices.

1. Make Distance Your Friend

RF radiation is very dense at the emission point (the antenna). But as the radiation moves away, it gets more and more dispersed:

💡 Inverse Square Law

RF radiation follows the inverse square law - doubling the distance reduces exposure by 75%.

• Keep phones away from your body.
  • Don’t stick them onto your ear.
  • Don’t keep them in tight pockets either.
  • FCC guidelines recommend at least 15mm from the body, but surely you can do better than that!
• Place WiFi routers at least 2 meters from regular sitting/sleeping areas
  • Better yet, put them in a closet
• Use wired headphones (reduces head exposure by 98%)¹
  • Using bluetooth earplugs may make things worse as they emit bluetooth extremely closely to your brain, possibly closer than if you hold your phone at a few centimeters from your ear. This would need to be measure more precisely though (which is hard because earplugs turn off if they are next to a meter rather than inside an ear)

2. Measure Your Approach to Technology

• Use airplane mode more often:
  • Use full airplane mode at night (reduces nighttime exposure by 100%)
  • Use airplane mode when network is not needed (do you need your Kindle to talk WiFi during all the hours you’re actually reading?)
  • Airplane mode alone does often not turn off WiFi nor Bluetooth. Take the extra steps when you don’t need them.
• Prefer wired connections:
  • All computers can connect to the internet through an Ethernet cable connected to your router (sometimes you need an USB-Ethernet adapter)
  • All iPhones and Android phones can also connect to the internet through Ethernet (you definitely need an adapter)
  • Use wired headphones (reduces head exposure by 98%)¹
• Change the way you view the Wi-Fi signal indicator:
  • It’s like volume on headphone. If it’s too low, you can’t really hear. But if it’s too loud, you actually damage your ears.
  • 3 bars: the signal is too strong! You are too close to the base station. Put it into another room or reduce its power.
  • 2 bars: perfect.
  • 1 bar: the signal is too low! You are too far away from the base station. There can be transmission errors that require retransmits. This will lead to suboptimal performance and additional emissions.
• Change the way you place and receive calls:
  • Use speaker mode for calls (reduces SAR exposure by up to 90%)
  • Reroute your calls to a landline when you are at home or at the office.
    • With most carriers, this can happen automatically when you go into airplane mode (e-g: Orange Luxembourg, Orange France).
    • Some carriers have a broken implementation on this though (Post Luxembourg… shame on you). Reduces exposure by 100% if you are in full airplane mode.
• Reduce the emission power of your devices when possible. Shout out to Fritz!Box which makes this a fairly easily accessible setting.
• Turn off connected devices when they don’t need to be on.

❗ ATTENTION when turning OFF Wi-Fi

If you mindlessly turn OFF you WiFi box (base station) at night but leave ON all the devices that normally connect to the WiFi network, you have a 50% chance of actually making the situation worse!

Most of these devices are dumber than a box of rocks. If their connection gets interrupted, they go into panic mode and start emitting like crazy in the hope than some other WiFi base station will respond. “Talk to me!!! Anyone?? Talk to me!!! Anyone out there?? I need someone to talk to me RIGHT NOW!!”

Better ways to do it:

• Turn off the devices
• Reduce the power of the box (base station) (FritzBox makes this relatively easy)

3. Modify your environment

One common desire is to move away from cell towers and other permanent sources of RF pollution. This makes sense but only if you diligently implement to reduce the RF pollution inside your own home. If you have your cell phone in your pocket all day, your bluetooth headset on half of the day and then sleep with your phone on the night stand (or even under your pillow as some do)… then the nearby cell tower is actually the least of your RF concerns…

Another common desire is to use shielding materials, either in the from of specific clothes, specific curtains, window films, special paints or even specific building materials (concrete is good at absorbing, metal is fantastic at reflecting…)

However, all these methods may be conter-productive in environments where you have emitters inside the shielded area (which is typically the case of homes, offices, cars, trains, planes…).

• Any materials designed to reflect RF signals in order to keep them out will also reflect inside sources towards the inside and thus double their intensity inside!
• Any materials designed to absorb signals in order not to let them through to the inside will also make it harder for inside phones to communicate with the outside, hence they will lead the phone to auto-increase its emission power! (yes, they really do that)

The Bigger Picture

While we can’t completely eliminate RF exposure in modern life, scientific evidence supports taking reasonable precautions to minimize unnecessary exposure. The key is making informed decisions based on peer-reviewed research rather than unfounded fears.

Remember: These precautions aren’t about avoiding technology entirely, but rather about using it more mindfully based on scientific evidence. By implementing evidence-based practices, we can continue to benefit from modern technology while minimizing potential risks.