I had a ‘healthy’ lifestyle.
I enjoyed an active life working in publishing. Bedtime to me was putting on my earphones to “zen out” to the latest news and podcasts. My favourite presents in my entire 20s were the tech devices that helped me do my work and accompanied me at work, on runs, commutes, at my bedside… I loved swimming and yoga daily and I ate ‘green’.
By my late 20s, my lifelong dizzy spells began to feel debilitating, especially on the train commutes. Mistakes at work began to happen. Unable to concentrate and feeling fatigued all the time, it felt like I was losing my ability to weave sentences together. Pretty embarrassing for an editor.
By the time 30 rolled around, I was feeling miserable. Yet, I managed—as my energy flagged further, I upped the hot yoga and ate even greener.
Being pregnant with baby.
When I got pregnant, I thought I was becoming gravely ill instead. I became hypersensitive to what seemed like everything in my environment.
The heart palpitations, tinnitus, and insomnia worsened. My bowels stopped. My dizzy spells were so bad that I could barely stand long enough to hold a toothbrush (or hold it well enough for that matter). I remember holding it with trembling numb hands as my head and entire body felt abuzz.
I struggled with going out at all as it sapped my energy, taking days for me to recover. Combined with the nausea, it took all my strength to just lie in bed, with little as possible external stimuli.
The gynaecologist assured me all pregnant women feel bad. One doctor diagnosed me with vertigo, which didn’t seem to be the root cause.
At the same time, I noticed I was forming odd moles, and one erupted and bled spontaneously in the office. A dermatologist dismissed the concern as “aesthetic”.
Finally, a naturopath listened to me for well over an hour:
“Your body is stressed and toxic. Even looking at your phone is a form of stress.”
My phone? I thought of how it, and other innocuous devices, were my whole life.
His herbs, pills, lifestyle advice helped me recover some energy.
And I needed to uncover the “stress and toxicity”.
The “pregnancy nausea” never passed, even after giving birth. But I soon noticed a pattern to my symptoms.
Some places made me feel worse. It could take me hours at best, days at worst, to regain balance.
During this time I commuted lots as an editor also working from home. I co-founded an arts platform and made many online connections... At the same time, I was adjusting to another new home. These experiences propelled my journey into understanding how our space affects our health…
Our invisible environment.
Since all I could do by this point was to lie in bed, I did just that. Reading made me nauseous so I listened instead—to hundreds of hours of health interviews and lectures.
A chance podcast about environmental pollutants rang another bell. What environmental stressors were around me?
Turns out it was a lot. I got consumed with tracking everything in my environment that could be “stressful or toxic”.
This was what I found:
We spend 90% of our lives indoors today. Our homes are 2 to 5 times more toxic than the external environment.
Our exposure to EMF radiation has increased dramatically. Especially since the 1990s as wireless devices became ubiquitous.
Babies are being born pre-polluted due to exposure to toxic environmental chemicals. Tests find more than 200 chemicals in newborn cord blood.
Millions of children (US data) receive up to 35 percent of their estimated lifetime dose of some carcinogenic pesticides by age five through food, contaminated drinking water, household use, and pesticide drift.
The average home contains about 40 litres of synthetic chemical products. Including indoor use of pesticides, cleansers, paints and varnishes and air fresheners (including candles and incense). None of these are regulated.
The current generation of children will, on average, for the first time in centuries, “live less healthy and possibly even shorter lives than their parents”.
The incidence of ADHD, Autism, and Asthma have skyrocketed in the last decade. All three have been linked to exposure to electromagnetic fields (EMFs), which has also risen dramatically in the same time period.
While 3-8 percent of populations in developed countries experience serious electrohypersensitivity symptoms, almost 1 in 3 experience mild symptoms.
These environmental toxins are often invisible. The effect on our collective well-being has largely gone unnoticed.
The quest for safe spaces.
When my daughter was born, I was determined to make our nest safe.
My health experiences had such an impact on me that I decided to learn about building biology, specialising in electromagnetic radiation.
My husband was onboard. So we flew/drove our way to New Mexico in the US—three transatlantic trips with baby in one year. It was an adventure.
The seminars are held at a monastery compound with little to no EMFs to accommodate some of the more sensitive people in the course, who also reside onsite for the duration of the course.
In that environment, I felt different. I could pay attention in class AM to PM, even with whole-family-&-baby-jet-lag, and I could stand without feeling dizzy or nauseous—no small feat as I suffered near blackout spells my entire life. The teachers warned about altitude sickness as we were at 7,000 feet, but I was chuffed that I didn’t even feel the slightest bit of nausea.
I felt like a brand new person, jet lag notwithstanding.
The lab experiments astounded me— one designed various “walk-in” EMF scenarios for us to assess. Walking into each field triggered the same symptoms I had been battling—on tap! I remember touching my aching throat and throbbing head in amazement.
I began to see buildings and homes are more than shelter or aesthetic. They can aid or impede our health. I began healing and clearing my environment, at the same time as my daughter was crawling and toddling learning about hers.
I am eternally grateful to have found my teachers and mentors at the Institute. Fellow course-mates—engineers, architects, researchers, doctors, mothers, spouses—shared their experiences and stories of living with electro hypersensitivity generously.
In my practice, I aim to pass on their enthusiasm and deep knowledge into the connection between human health and our environment.
Join me in creating better spaces
I share my story for this reason: all of our efforts at ‘fixing’ or bettering ourselves are an uphill if we live out of harmony with Nature.
We can avoid futility in diet and exercise…and avert chronic illnesses, from neurological diseases, weight issues, to cancer. By being intentional in your most personal environments, you can experience a profound improvement in how you feel and think.
When we create spaces where we thrive day after day, our children and grandchildren will have a much safer and healthier world, and a deeper, more meaningful relationship with their environment.
