Electrical Fields

INSOMNIA: How to get major relief in 43 hours—without sleeping pills, herbs or vitamins.

by Sam Biser  1992

It sounds bizarre, it defies logic, and many will never believe it, but 'electronic pollution' in your bedroom can screw-up your sleep - and make life HELL!

Want a great night's sleep like you never had in years? Gut your bedroom of all electronic devices and high currents, - and you'll be stunned how well you sleep.

The solution to insomnia may be easier than you ever imagined. If you are tired of miserable sleeps, tired of lying awake most nights, and tired of waking up 'half dead', irritable and depressed in the morning - read these true stories.

"Because of electronic stress, the bedroom is often the most dangerous place in the home."  -- Wolfgang Maes, German researcher. Expert in electro-magnetic stress.

Case #1. A journalist in Germany did nor have a good night's sleep in almost seven years. The best medications, herbs and vitamins were almost useless. Twenty doctors could not help him. Finally, a scientist advised that he remove all the 'electronic garbage' from his bedroom - the electric radio, T.V, stereo, answering machine, electric clocks and a thick power cord directly under his bed. He was sceptical, but did it anyway. Only 24 hours after doing this, he got such a good night's sleep, he cried for joy when he woke-up.

Case #2: A family in South Carolina moved into a new home. For over ten years, no one could sleep well. They were up all hours of the night. Just two days after the electronic pollution was eliminated from the bedroom, the wife said, "This is the first time I can ever remember sleeping through the night."

Case #5: A dentist in Germany was living on sleeping pills for more than ten years. At most, he could only sleep five hours a night. Then he took everything electric out of his bedroom. Thai very first night, after ten years of rotten sleep, he slept 14 hours straight, till 9:30 - and he didn't even hear the hand-wound alarm dock!

These stories may seem hard to believe. But let's face it.  As far as medical answers for sleeping problems, there 'ain't much out there.'

There are from 20 to 70 million chronic insomniacs in this country, and perhaps millions more who rarely get a good night's sleep. Maybe you are one of them.

It is not only the nights these people suffer from, it's the days as well. After a turbulent night of tossing and turning, plus frequent nightmares, sweating, muscle cramps, and gritting of teeth, these people often drag through the day with exhaustion, sometimes barely being able to work at even half their efficiency.

God only knows how many car wrecks, train crashes and truck collisions are caused by poor sleep.

As far as a permanent cure goes, forget it.  Whatever remedy people take, this usually just 'covers-up' and suppresses the real problem. If they stop taking their favorite remedy, their problem usually comes right back.

People take sleeping pills for ten years straight, and they are often no closer to a genuine solution than the day they started. Many are addicted, and don't even know it. .

Sleeping pills are a "cure" that is often worse than insomnia. They can cause a host of problems --everything from high blood pressure and depression. to skin rashes, impaired memory, and impaired vision. just to name a few.

There has to be a better answer. And I think I have found it.

What the American health experts have totally ignored are the problems in the bedroom itself. So obvious when you think about it but nearly everyone missed it.  But German and Swiss researchers didn't miss it. They have known for over 25 years, that the bedroom is often the most dangerous room in the home. For decades in Germany, they have had professional "house inspectors" who check out your home for electromagnetic stress. People follow their advice, and usually, their chronic sleeping problems, and other ailments, start to disappear - frequently within a few days or weeks.

For this issue, we interviewed one of the top experts in Germany on sleeping problems caused by electromagnetic stress. His name is Wolfgang Maes, and for the last ten years, he has conducted over 3,500 house inspections.

Mr. Maes now teaches seminars in Europe and the U.S., on how to correct what he calls, "indoor electrical smog."

Mr. Maes is President of the Medical Institute for Bau-Biologie. The term 'bau-biologie' means building biology. This is the science of how a building or sleeping room can influence the health of a person.  We spent nearly a week interviewing Mr. Maes by telephone at his home in Germany.

"When the inspector said to remove all the electronics from the bedroom, I was highly skeptical."

UNIVERSITY: How did you first make the connection between electronic pollution and sleeping problems?

MAES: It was quite by accident. When I was 32,I was working as a journalist for one "of the largest newspapers in Germany the Rheinische Post. I was quite ill at the time. I did not enjoy a good night's sleep in almost seven years. Every night was miserable.

I always woke-up in the morning tired to death. I would wake-up and want to go right back to bed. That's how exhausted I was. I would say, "Good morning, and then turn around and say, "Good night."

I was a diabetic and had suffered two heart attacks. I was in intensive care twice. My life was going down so fast, that I tried everything - normal medicine, natural medicine, meditation, psycho-therapy, and everything you can imagine. Drugs, herbs, vitamins, homeopathic pills, I took them all. It helped a little, but not enough.

I was taking about 6-7 strong medications for my problems. I had gone to over twenty different doctors. None of them helped much. I had just started to take insulin.

One day, a colleague of mine came over. He was a house inspector, an expert in indoor electrical pollution. He checked my bedroom and said this was where my problem was coming from. He said to take all the electrical appliances out of the bedroom, plus to unplug the electric fuse going to the bedroom.

He was nice, but I was very, very skeptical. I didn't believe him too much. I didn't have a good feeling.

"I had so much electricity in my body, a special testing bulb lit up when I touched it"

UNIVERSITY What was in your bedroom that was so harmful?

MAES: Just a few inches from my head where I slept, were two radio-alarm clocks and an answering machine. I later learned that the electric fields from these were 4-5 times worse than the surrounding . field of a high tension line.

I also had a television set directly near the bed. Also, unbelievably, there was 150 feet of a high tension cord wrapped right under my bed. I needed this to get contact to a lamp which was only three feet away. I had this there for years. It radiated like mad!

Plus I had a magnetized spring mattress, with metal springs. The magnetic field from this was terrible. My bed frame was also metal, which made matters worse.

My house was very old and the quality of the electrical installation was totally damaged. I learned I had strong electric fields in all the walls. Plus, my bedroom had a very highly electro-statically charged synthetic carpet. All these factors came together.

I was living in an electrical stress-factory. Intense electrical pollution surrounded my head and body whenever I slept.

While I was lying in bed, this house inspector tested a device on my body to detect voltage. Normally, a person should have a zero level of an artificial electric field. But his testing bulb lit up when he touched my tongue. I was a living outlet!

My sleeping environment was extreme. I had more than 10 volts in my body, and when my electric blanket was on, this went up to 140 volts. This is more than a billion times larger than normal. In the U.S. outlets, you have 110 volts. So my body had thirty volts more than an electrical outlet. Maybe now you can see why I could barely sleep.

"The electro-magnetic fields in bedrooms are often worse than under high tension power lines."

UNIVERSITY Did you follow the inspector's unorthodox advice arid clean out your bedroom'?

MAES: I tried his recommendations, because they were so easy. I had nothing to lose. I stripped my bedroom clean of everything electric. I even yanked out the synthetic carpet.

UNIVERSITY Could you tell any difference after that first night?

MAES: That very next morning. I was weeping for joy. I had never slept that well in years. I could feel the difference. Right away, I could feel I was getting better a little each day.

I knew something was happening for the better. This gave me a lot of power and hope. I knew what I was doing was the right way. I knew I had missed this feeling for so long. For the first time in years I had a new positivity.

My sleep was sounder. I didn't toss and turn. I had a new quality coming into my life. Every night I got a little bit better. Day by day. In a few weeks, I would wake up and my mind was clear. I was there. I could work again. I was creative again. I had ideas again. I had desires again. All these things were gone from my life. Before I would just wait around for the day to pass by.

In six months, I felt so much better, my diabetes disappeared completely. I didn't need medications anymore.

UNIVERSITY: It seems preposterous that a serious disease like diabetes can be cured merely by gutting the bedroom of electronic pollution.

MAES: I can only say what happened to me. Everyone is different. Each disease has so many causes. For ten years now I have been completely free of all medications. I took maybe 4-5 aspirins in that time, but that's all. I have no problems with my heart either. None whatsoever. Plus I work fourteen hours a day.

I'm a positive workaholic. My bad health led me into this field. This is the reason I am in the profession today.  Without that experience, I would never have such a joyful job.

UNIVERSITY: Have you found people who had bedrooms worse than yours?

MAES: Oh yes. Many times.

"People are more than 100 times more vulnerable to electro-magnetic stress during sleep."

UNIVERSITY: Why did the electrical devices have such an adverse effect on you in the bedroom? Why don't these things affect people in the living room? Perhaps it was just your imagination?

MAES: Electronic pollution in the bedroom is the most dangerous environmental hazard in our civilization. This is because, when you sleep, the body relaxes and is unconscious. In this state, you are about 100-150 times more vulnerable to electronic stress than when you are awake. Many children are often one thousand times more sensitive when they sleep. Sleeping time is a highly sensitive lime. Daytime is not so sensitive.

During waking hours, people in modern offices are exposed to lot of stress - the fluorescent lights, the computers, the copy machines, the rotten air, and everything else. But this stress is nothing compared to the electro-magnetic stress many experience in their own bedroom while sleeping.

When I began ten years ago. I didn't expect this result, I always thought toxic gases like formaldehyde were the most dangerous hazards in our working and living spaces. After investigating over 3,500 homes, I found the average bedroom is more disturbing than the toxic gases we breathe.  Many people work in front of a computer all day. Then at night they sleep on a water bed, or with an electric blanket, or with a lot of electric current all around them. So you never interrupt the day's stress. The body is never given a chance to regenerate.

More damage is done to your health in the bedroom, than any other room in the house. This is from what I call "electronic smog." This is the grand total of all man made electro-magnetic pollution.

You must understand that each organ in your body has two modes. One is a daytime mode, and the other is a night time mode. But because of the electronic pollution in the bedroom, your organs never get to relax and rebuild during the night time. They are constantly bombarded by stress.

"You spend one third of your life in the bedroom. It should be a temple, not an electrical warehouse."

UNIVERSITY Why are these electrical fields so damaging to the body?

MAES: The electricity today is an artificial alternating current This type of current does not exist in nature. In nature, you only find a direct current. The Bau-biologists in Germany say the normal 'body voltage' should be under 20 millivolts. This is the limit. That's not volts - that's millivolts, which is l/1000th of a volt.

However, some people in their bedrooms measure 1-100 volts! It should be no surprise they can't sleep well.

UNIVERSITY: Have other people noticed the same experiences you did, when they cleaned up their bedroom?

MAES: All the time. One case involved a married couple. The husband was a medical doctor. The wife was a dentist. They lived near Essen, Germany, near the Rhine river. They both slept very, very badly. She worse than him. He was always down in the morning. But she just couldn't get out of the bed. She was always tired when she woke-up, so she slept an-hour longer.

When she got up, she couldn't look into the mirror. She said she was ugly in the morning. Her face was swollen, under the eyes and all over.

We eliminated the electro-magnetic smog in their bedroom. Now, they both are rested in the morning. They feel more awake, more alert. They don't toss and turn at night anymore.

Now, she looks in the mirror and her whole face is beautiful, just like when she went to bed at night. She is like a model. This excess water which appeared under her skin totally disappeared. She said she now looks totally different in the morning.

UNIVERSITY: What are some basic tips for improving the environment of the bedroom?

MAES: Let me say this. The first is, no metal in the bed mattress or the bed frame. Any metal increases the chance that the body will be exposed to artificial magnetic fields. These fields are highly stressful to normal sleeping patterns.

The second thing is, no plastics. No synthetics. No synthetic curtains. No synthetic carpets. Clear the entire bedroom of all synthetics, including plastic furniture.

Very often, these synthetic items create very high static electric fields. These fields go into the air and destroy the healthy negative ions. They make a very bad room climate. They ruin the quality of the air you breathe. It doesn't do anything to the body directly, like a magnetic field, but it so distorts the air, it is like you are breathing 'industrial air' when you sleep. Often, your bedroom air is even worse.

Also, get rid of anything with a plug on it. The problem is not the radio, or the TV, or the computer, it is the built-in transformer. These transformers always make quite big electro-magnetic fields.

If people did these things, many with sleeping problems would see a big improvement. You spend about a third of your life in the bedroom. It should be temple, not an electrical warehouse.

"Mommy, I don't like my bed anymore."- Nico, a four year-old German child.

A mother in Germany bought her little boy Nico a new bed. After two weeks, the child was waking up several times during die night. He was nervous, his head was wet, and he complained of pains in his stomach.

A few days later he cried, "Mommy, my head hurts so much!" He started to wake-up at 6 instead of 8. Plus he started wetting the bed. While he slept, he groaned. The local health department could find nothing wrong.

Finally an expert from the Bau-Biologie Institute solved the problem. The entire wall next to the bed had high levels of electric radiation. The boy's body was tested. It showed dangerous electrical levels. (One hundred times normal.)

Plus the bed had metal springs, which created a damaging magnetic field. The compass needle deviated 60 degrees from north.

Plus the floor was covered with wall-to-wall synthetic carpet. This caused the air to be dangerously low in healthy negative ions.

They corrected all these problems. Only one day later, all his problems started to disappear. He slept soundly without waking up, and his headaches vanished.

UNIVERS1TY: Do all electrical devices have transformers?

MAES: A lot of everyday devices have them. But not all. But why take a chance?

If you can run a radio with batteries, this is no problem. A battery doesn't need a transformer. A wind-up clock is better than an electrical one.

UNIVERSITY: Will most people clear their bedroom of all electrical devices?  It's hard to imagine a person in the bedroom without clocks, radios or lamps.

MAES: If you have a serious sleeping problem, this is ideal. I like what my colleague Helmut Ziehe in America said, "If you want the best sleep possible, live like a monk in the bedroom."

This means, live very simply and sparsely in the area where you sleep. All you really need is a mattress. You never can go wrong with that approach. You sleep at night. You don't need radios, TV and answering machines near you.

Of course most people won't go that far. If any electrical device has a transformer, keep them at least three feet away. Do this and you will have no problems. It is very simple.

But if the radio or alarm clock is only one foot away from war head, you have the same quality and quantity as the electro-magnetic field under a high tension line.

If you keep any appliances in the bedroom, make sure they are unplugged at night. The TV must go, whether it is unplugged or not.

"TV's screens can radiate all night long — even after you unplug them."

UNIVERSITY: Why does the TV have to go?

MAES: For most appliances, if they are turned off but still plugged in, the electric voltage will still create a field around the device. So you must unplug all electrical appliances.

However, for the television, this is not enough. The television and computer screen can radiate for hours and hours - at least a whole night long - even after unplugging it. This is because there is a high voltage in the body of the screen, some ten thousand volts. It can take 3-6 hours or longer, sometimes 2-3 days, to unload this voltage.

So it is not enough to have the TV in the sleeping room and simply switch it off.

The screen will radiate 'electrostatic loading' like the synthetic carpet. The screen floods the air with positive ions, which radically diminishes the negative ion count. At night, you breathe this policed air while you sleep. It creates a problem with the air you breathe, it is not a problem of radiation reaching the body.

One option is to screen the TV and ground it, but not many people will go to that trouble. Best to kick it out of the bedroom and not worry about it. You can't watch T.V while you sleep anyway.

"Avoid metal-spring beds.  Use a natural futon mattress instead."

UNIVERSITY: You say to avoid mattresses with metal springs, isn't that going a little too far?

MAES: Most of these beds produce harmful magnetic fields.  You can test this yourself. Take a simple compass. Put the compass on your bed, above your mattress.

Often you will find that the needle points to east in the head area, to west in the stomach area, and to northeast in the foot area. This means the whole mattress is so distorted, that a simple compass needle can't find the natural north anymore. This is something you don't find in nature.

The needle should point in only one direction -north. For the best sleep, make sure the needle doesn't move at all. In 50% of the cases where the compass needle fluctuates all over the place, the reason is the metal spring mattress. This is because the mattress springs are artificially magnetized. Most scientists knowledgeable in this area would agree that these magnetic fields are not healthy for your body.

UNIVERSITY: How many mattresses present this problem?

MAES: I would say 60%, or more. The best way to prevent this is to check out a mattress with a compass before you buy it. Another important point with beds is to always avoid metal bedframes, whenever possible. Get rid of all that metal around you when you sleep. This is very important.

UNIVERSITY: What should people sleep on?

MAES: Either a mattress with no springs or a natural futon mattress.

How to test your bedroom.

According to "Wolfgang Maes, it is easy to test your bedroom and even yourself for electrical pollution. You can test yourself for body voltage with a voltmeter. These are available in many Radio Shacks. However, they have to be adapted which gets complicated.

In Germany, there are almost twenty different brands. In America, there are few. I was going to recommend a cheap meter, but Wolfgang told me, "That meter is so bad. it could barely detect a field right in the fuse box!"

For a high-quality, professional model, called the 'Electro-Stress Meter.' write or call. The International Institute for Bau-Biologie. P.O. Box 387. Clearwatcr. FL 34615. (813 461 4371.) This can easily be adapted to detect magnetic fields.  http://buildingbiology.net/

UNIVERSITY: What about waterbeds?

MAES: They are very dangerous. Many people who sleep on waterbeds have extremely high levels of 'body voltage.' Often over a millions times the normal level. Quite often, these people light up the bulb on a testing device. I have heard numerous stories of women who had miscarriages who slept on water beds.

In Germany, people don't use water beds. It is very rare. The electric water beds and the electric blankets are one of the biggest electric smog producers in our sleeping rooms.

UNIVERSITY: How about electric heating systems?

MAES: If you have electric heating boards on the floor, you have to be careful. The whole room can become like an electric blanket. Keep a distance from them. Maybe at least three feet.

UNIVERSITY: Is it really necessary for people to get rid of their synthetic carpets in the bedroom? I doubt many people want to live like a monk.

MAES: Synthetic carpets, synthetic drapes and synthetic wall paper are more dangerous than you can imagine. They can destroy the valuable negative ions in the air. It's like sleeping in the ion-deficient Santa Ana Winds - the warm, dry winds of southern California. (The witch's winds.)

"In one case, a two year old child was very sick with headaches and severe muscle cramps all over her body. She was nearly dead. She was lying in her bed at night with a radio alarm clock directly under her pillow. The child took the alarm clock every night because it was so warm. She liked the temperature."

"The parents took away die radio immediately. She got better week by week. About 5-4 months later, the father called me and said about 80% of the girl's problems had disappeared."

The problem arises when the humidity is low. This results in 'electrostatic loading' on the wall or carpet. If a curtain, for example, is hanging beneath the heating system, it is always dry - and radiating like mad.

If you have a synthetic carpet, and you live in Florida where the humidity can often reach 80% or more, it doesn't matter that much. The humidity diminishes the electro-static loading. If you live somewhere else, and you have 30, 40 or 50% humidity, the same synthetic carpet or drape can make a very large, risky field. During the winter, the air in many people's homes is extremely dry.

Dry air by itself is not too bad. It is the combination of dry air, with synthetics, and electrostatic loading which makes the problem. This creates a very bad air ionization.  You have a very high air electricity.  You have a lot of electric smog in the air.

In a clean room, with normal wall paper, with a wood or stone floor, with wood furniture, without any synthetic material, the dry air is not the problem. It is becoming a problem because of our present civilization.

UNIVERSITY: Are synthetic blankets bad for the same reason?

UNIVERSITY: Will a humidifier help when the air is dry?

UNIVERSITY: If a person lives a near a high tension line, does that mean they must move?

UNIVERSITY: How can a person know if they are safe or not, when they live near a high tension line?

MAES: You have to measure that. You need a Bau-Biologie inspector. Or you can do it yourself with special meters. (Sec box on meters).

UNIVERSITY: In every hone, the high tension wire enters the house at one particular spot. Suppose a person sleeps in a room near this spot. What advice can you give?

UNIVERSITY: Does electromagnetic pollution have any effect on snoring, since this is related to sleep?

UNIVERSITY: If a person follows your advice, how long will it take them to notice an improvement in their sleep?

UNIVERSITY: What are the main conditions thai disappear when a person cleans their bedroom of electronic pollution?

But there is more than just eliminating sickness and disease.  When you clean up the bed room and get rid of the electronic smog, your quality of life is improved. You are more relaxed. You are more positive.  You arc more active.  You have more creativity.