The Things We Can't Ignore If We Want To Be Well | Shirley Plant

00:00 - Shirley

Every single one of our cells has its own circadian clock, and so if you are not getting the signals from natural light, then that can't tell your body what to do.

00:16 - Michaela

Welcome to the Wave Forward, the podcast that dives deep into how technology shapes our health and well-being. From digital wellness to tech innovation, to the effects of electromagnetic fields, we cover the environmental, social and physical implications of technology. Ready to navigate the digital landscape with confidence, set your dial to Discovery and tune in. You're listening to the Wave Forward. Shirley. Thank you so much for being on the podcast.

00:44 - Shirley

Oh, I'm so glad to be here. Thanks for having me.

00:45 - Michaela

Okay, so give us a little background on you.

00:52 - Shirley

How much time do you have?

00:53 - Michaela

I know that's always a very big, broad question, but I know you are a nutritionist and you've written some cookbooks and I just want to hear how you kind of got on this path.

01:05 - Shirley

Sure. So when I was really young I was actually a travel agent and I got sick really in my late teens. That’s when it started. I had quite a serious trauma happen, and you know we now learn that traumas can set off health conditions. And it took me many years to figure out what was wrong. But you know, I'm not very young anymore and back then when I was 18, you know they really didn't know that much about chronic fatigue and fibromyalgia and food sensitivities and but I kind of just got labeled with all this stuff, you know chronic fatigue, fibromyalgia, environmental sensitivities, food sensitivities, like it just sort of got bigger and bigger and bigger and it got to the point where, like I couldn't work, I couldn't do anything and you know, back then we really didn't have specialists or even environmental doctors back then and I was told this is a condition you're going to have to live with and you're just going to have to adapt, and I didn't like hearing that. It was really depressing. So I worked for a while as a travel agent and then my body said no more and I had to go on disability. I was very lucky I had a dad that helped me and I started studying nutrition. Because I thought I started to pull out some foods that were bothering me and I felt better and I thought there's got to be something to this.

02:37

So I was at home and there was a little bit of stuff online. Like back then it was like a live academy, and so I just started studying nutrition. I found it fascinating and I've always been a seeker, so over time I just learned more and more and sort of incorporated it. And then I moved away and moved to Australia and I came back and I found an environmental doctor and she kind of confirmed everything that I had learned and I started doing the odd consult because I could work a little bit part-time and I really enjoyed it and I loved helping people figure out what they could eat, because for me it was like, well, you can't eat this, you can't eat this, you can't eat this, you can't eat this. I was like, well, I want to know what I can eat.

03:25

And I remember going to a dietician and she was just like, well, you have to follow the Canadian food guide and I was like no, I don't. You know I don't eat wheat and I don't eat dairy and I don't know. You got to have your cheese and just got into this, into the kitchen and I mean it took me seven years to do my cookbook, but I did it. You know I created all these recipes within the confines of sort of the most common foods. You know this would work If you couldn't have brown rice flour, you could try chickpea flour, and if you couldn't have eggs you could try flaxseed. And I just thought this was just such a concept. And so that was for quite a few years.

04:16

And then I got a little bit better and you know, I just did more and more consults.

04:20

I really enjoyed doing that, but I continued to study and it just took me in different places and I think, especially when I was seeing the environmental doctor, she started talking about our environment and at that time I was getting a lot of migraines and I kind of thought I was going into early menopause, which I probably was, and I went in quite young and I know that was affecting me.

04:45

I know the hormones but I knew there was something else, we had just moved here and I'm trying to think how many years ago it was and you know I had come from a like a rental and I had a landline and we had dial up. You know, like all these people are probably listening going “what, what's dial up?” And we moved here and we got Wi-Fi and you know there's a smart meter down here and we've got townhomes all around us really close and I got a portable phone cell phone, all the things that just kind of happened, and then you're like wait, I feel funny and my migraines got worse and worse and worse and worse, and you know.

05:38

So she said why don't you get rid of some of that stuff? And why don't you get an environmental guy in and, like he measured and it blew my mind the radiation, like I didn't know any of this stuff? We live behind a whole bunch of hydro wires, you know like. You know, it's not only the cell phones. And you know, all of a sudden, now we've got all these Wi-Fi and 5G and should they change the smart meters? And as I was doing consults, I found people were really complaining about chronic problems.

06:20 - Michaela

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06:24

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06:52

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07:28 - Shirley

And we know, you know, and I don't want to be negative about our medical system because it is good if you break your arm or you have an appendicitis or a heart attack, yeah, but it's not designed for chronic illnesses and we have seen such an increase in chronic illnesses and kids with autism and ADHD and you know all those things Like when I went to school, no kids had allergies.

07:59 - Michaela

We didn't have on the spectrum, we didn't have any of that that I hear that all the time from like previous generations, like we never were. There were never talks about food sensitivities or you know, like autism was like very, very rare, like very few people even had someone in school that was like labeled, you know, labeled that. So it is so interesting how common and how like almost as if it's becoming a very normalized thing, like, oh, that's just part of you know where we're at now and it's like wait what? What's happening?

08:34 - Shirley

Yeah, and even all the research that's gone into cancer and yet we still, you know, it just is on the rise, and so, I hired this guy and he came into the house and he made suggestions and we got rid of. You know, I have a landline right here.

08:51 - Michaela

That's awesome.

08:52 - Shirley

I'm, you know, I'm attached, I'm not wireless, I'm plugged in. We got rid of Wi Fi. I'm very lucky. I have a very handy husband and he put Ethernet in our whole house and for me it's a much better connection, like I did my summit years ago, probably about eight years ago, and I would be interviewing people and they'd be on Wi-Fi and it would go in and out and in and I'd be like, yeah, I'm on Ethernet. You know, like the gamers, they've got ethernet, they use old-fashioned ethernet because they want protection and they want fast.

09:32

And I noticed a difference. And you know I don't care if people say it's woo-woo when you're really ill and you're suffering or your child is suffering. And I think what really brought it home for me was I had a girlfriend that had moved from Calgary and I was doing my second cookbook, um, and she was taking the photographs and she had a little baby, Ethan, and they were renting a condo in Ottawa and she said he just won't sleep, he just he just won't, and she'd go home and visit her mom and dad and they lived in Calgary, they didn't have Wi-Fi and he would sleep, like they said, like a baby She'd come back here to the condo. It was a brand new condo, wi-fi on all you know the top of the condo. I said to her, here's my meter. You know my, my, um little gizmo that reads um radiation, and I gave it to her and she walked around her condo and she called me and was like, what am I doing to my child?

10:44

And I just said find a place that's the lowest and move the crib there, and she did, and Ethan slept.

10:55 - Michaela

Wow, that's so wild.

10:58 - Shirley

And she turned off her phone. You know, like I said, get a timer, turn off your wi-fi at night like you're sleeping, turn it off, turn off that phone. She had a baby monitor that was wi-fi. I said get an old one. So she went to some garage sale and she found an old plug-in one, because it's right beside your baby people.

11:20 - Michaela

I know, I know we were all with our babies. They were like, 100%, no Like. Would you have an x-ray machine going all the time with your baby there?

11:28 - Shirley

But I realize that people, you know, they say to me well, why are these products coming out and, well we want them? They make money, it's, you know. You can compare it to drugs when there's other alternatives. Sometimes it's money. But when I told her I think she thought I was really Lulu.

12:04 - Michaela

Yeah, I mean, that is the kind of normal reaction to it, because it's so out of sight, out of mind. And that was, you know, my journey started very similar to yours in a sense of like I got sick and really started paying attention to what was going in my body, like on a you know, on a food level, and that was like, you know, what I really focused on the most. And then, you know, I started thinking about like then it kind of trickle, it kind of trickles. You have this “aha” moment. You peek behind the curtain, you realize - oh, there's other ways and there's other things out there. And you start making connections that like there's not just one issue really going on. You know like, okay, my issue was that I had chronic sinus infections, but it didn't stop there. You know what I mean. Like there were other things feeding that all the time and I had to figure out what that was. And so I would, you know, I went through that process and I then that kind of trickled into my mental state and really being mindful of like my mind and what I was listening to and what I was thinking and the words and like all, and really noticing that like my own internal, you know, conversation really did, you know, affect my daily life and but I never really like. It was just like you, you kind of take it one step at a time and I just had I hadn't gotten there yet with the EMF stuff, because I hadn't really been thinking about like the outside environmental stuff yet, like I wasn't there, and so what really drew me to start thinking about it?

13:29

My mom was always really on high alert about the EMF stuff, but it was just like you know, everyone has to learn it for themselves and um, and so I had my son, my first son, and when I was pregnant with him I was eating all organic and you know I was like very on it with my pregnancy and, um, we ended up having some pretty severe issues where he had like no internal, like he had no middle intestines. Basically he had an upper and a bottom intestine but no inner intestine. So, when we he ended up having to have surgery and the surgeon basically just said like oh, sometimes this just happens, you know, it happens with the first couple of weeks of gestation Um, and like he kind of explained you know what happened, but he couldn't tell me what causes that to happen. And if I mind, you know, I tell this story and I'm always really like I try to be really cautious of the way I tell it, cause I never want to like shame or guilt a parent and thinking that they did something wrong, but in my mind it was that there was a connection.

14:26

I just wanted to know what it was Like. I wanted to know what the actual backstep, backstep, backstep. What was the initial thing? And I'll never know, but I know that in the first couple of months of my pregnancy, we were living in like this 200 square foot loft apartment and we were sleeping right by our wifi pretty much every night. So it was like that was the only thing and finding out that I had the MTHFR and like didn't know exactly.

14:53

You know, there were things I probably could have been doing at the time of my pregnancy because my second pregnancy went so much smoother knowing that I had that. Um. So those two things where it was like we'll never be able to tell. You know, I'll never be able to prove, but they're significant in my life because they cause me to pay attention to things that I think are going to have a huge impact on my kids and, like the future generations, like my kids, need to know how to contend with the future of technology in a basic mental health aspect of it, but also in the like the part of it that's not talked about. Like, right now, the, the um, the anxious generation is like the top selling book and we're really heavily talking about the mental impact of social media on children, and I'm in love that that conversation is being had. I think that's a really important conversation, but we're still not touching on the other impact that's happening, like the EMF impact.

15:45 - Shirley

Exactly, and you know, I truly believe that there is the EMF impact and you know, for me too, what I've been studying lately is is quantum biology and quantum health, which is all to do with natural light versus junk light, so, just as junk food and you know, you went into the food and you were eating all organic and, yes, perhaps your environment, your emfs played a role.

16:17

But I feel that today, adults and children live most of their lives indoors, especially if you live in our region, you know, ontario, canada, where half the year is cold and dark and and the whole circadian rhythm, in that every single one of our cells has its own circadian clock and so if you are not getting the signals from natural light, then that can't tell your body what to do. You know, so many people have IBS, gut issues, and it's ‘heal your gut.’ Take this to heal your gut, do this to heal your gut. Well, I'm sorry if you're wearing iPods and if you've got your cell phone here or here and you're not seeing the morning light, like if you're waking up and the first light is your cell phone or your LED light or your fluorescent light, that is sending the wrong signal.

17:23

Similarly, if at night or your kid is on his iPad all day and his computer all day, comes home, maybe he plays outside for half an hour and then he's on his iPad or TV before bed. Again, it's not sending the right light signal or dark signal. You know, especially we just came out of winter you know dark at 4:35 o'clock. If you've got all the lights on and you're watching tv until 10 o'clock at night, you're not making enough melatonin. And how many people go to the doctors and complain about sleep issues?

17:58 - Michaela

Yeah, I feel like the doctor writes them a prescription for a sleep aid.

18:03 - Shirley

And that's what happened to me, you know, 30 years on sleeping pills, pills, until my circadian rhythm, which meant getting the first light is natural light. So people get up and go outside, even if it's for five minutes, it doesn't matter. If it's sunny, cloudy, snowing, raining, get natural light on your eyes and if you are on screens, wear blue blockers, because that junk light, that blue light, sends chaos to yourself and it affects everything. It affects your mental health, it affects your digestion, it affects everything.

18:45 - Michaela

There really are like three parts to this. It's like the blue light aspect, so like the circadian rhythm, which I think some people like um, like Andrew Huberman, are kind of starting to talk about a little bit. And then I always kind of really pay attention like when's this gonna hit mainstream? You know, like, what are we gonna get? What are we gonna do?

19:01 - Shirley

Yeah, it's starting.

19:03 - Michaela

Just yesterday, was it? NBC did a whole like segment on wireless headphones and they ended up having an ER doctor come in and his response was you know, he basically said we don't know if eight to 10 years from now it may be an issue, but right now it's fine.

19:22

I'm like that's such a horrible thing to say. You probably should say we should be cautious until we know what this does over an extended period of time using them, because people that use wireless headphones I mean they have them in all day, especially like if you work at your desk and you got those headphones in and you go to the grocery store and you get those headphones in because you don't want people talking to you Like we've become very isolated and so headphones have actually become a big part of our kind of coping mechanism, so we have headphones in all the time. So he's basically saying right now it's fine, but extended use for eight to 10 years, we'll find out and you know, but keep using them as you would. You know, don’t people that wear those iPods, it breaks down the blood brain barrier and there's a rise in cancer. So it is there, right?

20:05 - Shirley

Yeah, I think it's important, you know. And and my nephew said, you know, I'm getting a pair from for for his son and I just think let's make it cool, but you go old fashioned you know, yeah, yeah, it's really not that old fashioned, but I bet what's going to happen is that it is going to become you know everything.

20:35 - Michaela

Every old trend comes back, and so that kind of like wired headphone, like will be a you know a thing, like it'll be like a trend.

20:42 - Shirley

Like the LPs have come back. The record Right.

20:44 - Michaela

Exactly Like, once they get beyond the new, you know, Bluetooth stuff, it's going to be trendy, hopefully, that's you know. But just a side effect is that it's healthier for you. But yeah, I mean there is research and like I, I know, like RFK Jr is a huge spokesperson on this, about how he, like you know, he deals with a lot of litigations with people who have tumors in their ear from using cell phones. I feel like I can feel it when it is at my ear, it's like a buzzing, it's like hot. I cannot hold my phone to my ear. And I just realized that I actually have the cell phone that was banned in France, like I have the 12, the iPhone 12.

21:24

So I'm like, okay, I'm taking my phone in, I'm getting a different one, let's go. You know, and I think all they did to, I think they reestablished that ban by just doing updates on the phone so that it like wasn't doing as many background things, but anyway, yeah. So like the research is there and it's so. You know, I was like excited when I saw that, you know, NBC News was doing a take on this wireless headphones and then they had someone who was so not qualified to talk on this subject. I mean, he's an ER doctor. He's not, you know, he's not a researcher, he's not like savvy on this subject and he's like, yeah, continue using it. You know, as far as we know right now, it's fine, and in eight to 10 years we'll find out. And I'm just like, why do we take this approach? Like really, you want to wait eight, 10 years and then you've got a tumor and like that what we just experiment.

22:13

Like we're literally just in this massive experiment right now and we won't know how this is going to. I mean, I think we do know on a very small scale how, you know, these implementations of 5g are going to affect us. Because we see, now we have these long-term studies that are coming out from like back when we had 1g, 2g, which was like 900 megahertz, and we're saying, oh yeah, we see this is causing cancer, like brain tumors in mice. You know, we're saying this now but at the same time that we're having these discoveries about a frequency that's like you know, is it hundreds of thousands or millions of times, you know, less than what we have now with the 5G. And I don't think people realize that.

22:55 - Shirley

Right, I really don't. I think they think that you know, 5g or whatever, it's just, oh, it's just faster, it's just. Yeah, it's just a slight increase. Yeah, they don't. I don't think they compute what that is and that, um, and I'm trying to think what is it? Is it body, invisible, or what is that book that? Anyway, I can't think of it. Um, body, electric or whatever that we are electric beings and so, yeah, you know if we're disturbing that, yeah.

23:32 - Michaela

With the frequency we don't really usually, we wouldn't really usually be communicating. You know, everyone tries to say like oh, you know well, EMF is everywhere. Why are we worried? Because everything has EMF.

23:45 - Shirley

Yeah, sure, like your hydro and your stove and your this and your microwave and yeah, yeah, and even natural things have a very small field.

23:53 - Michaela

But my thing is like, and you know, I talked to Dr Rusty, I don't know if you know him, but he is big on EMF and he was saying the same thing. He was really explaining like we are electrical beings, these outside communications. But not just that, it's that every time we have a new, like from when we go from 2g to 3g to 4g, to 5g and now, soon to come, 6g, we already are using it in the military. Like it's not. People really have to understand that. It's not like a 20% increase in frequency. It's not this, this, you know, small scale or small percentage that we're moving up. It's that we are increasing the frequency by like hundreds of thousands, if not millions of times. Every single time we come out with a new bandwidth, the frequency is getting that much faster. It's not just like, oh, it's a tiny bit faster, it's like, no, we're getting hit now so much more than we were back when we just had like 2G.

24:48 - Shirley

Yeah, and parents wonder why their kids are hyperactive. I mean, sure, we can look at the diet. That's always you know. That's the first thing I do is you know, are you feeding your kids colorings and additives and you know? And then we can talk about the whole glyphosate thing, yeah, but you know again, what? What is around them? Are they wearing those? You know bluetooth heads to watch? Yeah, is me, because you don't want to hear the movie. So you stick these things on their head and or do they have their ipad in their lap, or you know? There's so many things that we should really be. Yeah, I think. But again, until you know, like you, until you have a child or you get ill, I don't think you think about it.

25:37 - Michaela

It's just so easy not to think about.

25:40 - Shirley

Cause you're not seeing it pass through you, you know, you're not, you're not seeing it.

25:44 - Michaela

Yeah, I think it's easier for parents to recognize that, like when my child's on the iPad. You know, like an easy thing for me to recognize is if we watch a movie before we go to bed. It's going to take two hours to get my kids to bed because of the light like the, the diff, you know, like going from watching that. I've like really noticed that. So we really try to have like no electronics an hour before bed and we do like we have like red lights that we turn on and we turn the lights down and we try to get into that mode and it's really been helping and then we have that red light because they need like a light at night.

26:16 - Shirley

Yeah, a bed light.

26:20 - Michaela

Yeah, so we have a red bed light, and so that way if they wake up in the night, it's not this like bright thing in their eye. We just really started doing this recently, so we're still learning and we're still.

26:27 - Shirley

Oh, I'd love to hear, because I think it'll be huge.

26:30 - Michaela

Oh it's going to be huge. I already know it's already had an impact and I know that as we really start getting into the flow of this, it's going to change our life completely, because bedtime has always been really difficult and then getting outside, like really getting outside first thing. I really, really am trying to get into that flow because for a while there our kids were getting up and then they were watching morning cartoons before we go to school and you know like cause? I mean, luckily my kids go to like a nature school, so they're outside the majority of the day and that's amazing, but still we're kind of messing it up if we don't you know what I mean.

27:03 - Shirley

Yeah, yeah, and I don't think people realize that you know. Well, I just got up and looked at my phone for five minutes. Well, no, that totally changed your circadian rhythm. So, and you know. And then people say, well, you know, it's winter and I'm like okay, but you know you want to get rid of your migraines, you want to heal your gut, you want your kid to be more calm.

27:24

you know, and you can do something as simple as download. There's an app that you can download called the circadian app, and it tells you when sunrise is, it tells you when uva is present and uva lowers inflammation in the body, and I mean every illness is it starts with inflammation. So you know, even if you're working and I know people say, well, you know I work and I can't, if you can get out for a five minute walk during uva, like it's just little things that you can do, just as when we're talking about EMFs and you know our little Aries tech and our thing on the phone, yeah, little things that people can do that will just help them because, as you say, I mean, technology is here. We can't not everybody's going to want to go backwards, like me, and do ethernet in a landline, yeah, so how can we help people to enjoy their technology, enjoy their outdoor time and feel well?

28:24 - Michaela

Were there ever any things that you tried, that you were like? This isn't really working.

28:29 - Shirley

Oh, tons, I don't know what, but I mean, I've done every single diet. You name it um, and yeah, it's just. And then, you know, five years ago I got really, really ill and diagnosed with Lyme, and you know we found mold in our bedroom. And again, I had a little bit of a traumatic thing. And then I've just gotten diagnosed with mast cell activation.

29:05 - Michaela

So what is that?

29:07 - Shirley

So mast cell activation syndrome is literally you have mast cells everywhere in your body and really simply they go a little chaotic. So again I'm thinking because I got really sick and you know, again I was inside all the time because when you're sick you're inside, right?

29:26

And yeah, and I've always been the type of person that a doctor would give me a drug and I would react to it. Or, you know, I was given a sleeping pill and it would make me hyper. And so a lot of times, mast cell activation is you're reacting to things that most people don't react to. And you have all these mediators, one of them being histamine, which is what most people, when they hear mass cell activation, they say oh, you know you've got issues with histamine, which I do but there are hundreds of other mediators tryptase, histamine, you name it that, prostaglandin, you know, like there's so many things that literally can be set off.

30:10

And, I would burn, like I felt like I had the worst sunburn, but I didn't. My skin is, as you can see, white, but I would burn from head to toe, like I had been in the south and I had the worst. And I kept looking like, I kept saying to my husband do you see anything? Like I'm boiling, I'm burning, you know, and I’d end up in the ER because I also would get, uh, racing heart, really high blood pressure, and I've always had low blood blood pressure my whole life and I think, okay, I guess I'm having a heart attack.

30:43

Go to the hospital they'd be like there's nothing wrong, yeah, and then they'd say well, it's indigestion. The burning is indigestion. I'm like oh, my legs and my feet and my hands and my arms and my face it's indigestion. Okie, dokie, you know, they give me a prescription for whatever, take some tums.

31:02

So I had to again start doing research, and there was nothing in Canada. So I went to the states and paid big bucks and literally I think one of the first doctors he just like, oh yeah, you have that, and being exposed to mold can set off your mast cell. So again it all you know, lumps on top of things and again you know, and they. And then I came to this quantum and I thought the whole light. And you know that I had digestion issues and SIBO what's making connections?

31:37

I've been doing everything to try to get well. I just think it's the universe saying well, you just got to keep searching and you're gonna be able to help someone at some point.

31:47 - Michaela

Yeah, yeah, and you really, I feel like, when you are that sick, like you really can tell when something's working or not, you know know, like you really can tell if you're, if you're feeling better. We had mold toxicity, so I tested my youngest son because I was like, we've been in the house for my son's entire life, so I was like if my son has high mold, then we all know that we, yeah, so we tested him and his levels were so high and then we ended up finding it and we're actually moving now. But, I mean like there were so many things we tried that were not working and then they were like certain things that were like okay, like, zeolite and like some things that we really found were like really affecting their behavior. I could just tell the reason I got them tested with a mold is because the way they were. You know, I know everyone says like tantrums are normal and all of this stuff, but I was like, this is something more, they're not in control. Like it's not that they're just angry or anything, it's like their body is taking over and there's no reasoning with them. There's no, you know, and it's like you just have to like hold them through it. But it's like you know something deeper is going on. And so sad when you know something deeper is going on, but people just try to tell you that, like this is not normal.

33:03

I lived in Australia too. That's so funny that you did, but I was a nanny and I worked with a lot of different kids and it was so - to see that some of those really things that we just call normal toddler behavior, what were based because of, like sensitivities that the parents didn't realize that they had, and you know exposures that we didn't realize that you know. For us it was like, wait, we've tried all the food stuff, you know what I mean. Like we're really on it with the food. So something deeper is going on. And then we found out you know, high, high mold toxicity.

33:37 - Michaela

But it also is like the way that I think about it is, you have this bag that you're carrying around. It's like this really heavy purse, we always carry around the purse that still has empty packs of gum and receipts and just things that, like my kid, you know, threw that I just picked up and put in my bag. And it's heavy, like that's how I think about it. It's like you're carrying around this heavy bag and it's like you have to just dump it out and see and really give yourself permission to see the truth, because it's super scary but it's also really relieving.

34:07 - Shirley

It is, yeah, and then you can start with the binders and help them. And the problem for me with mast cell is you react to most things, so you react to drugs, you react to binders, you react to supplements and so you know. I think it's great that you were able to find that, because I think there are so many kids that are living in mold, living with too many EMFS. You know, as you said, there's so many kids that react to dairy and gluten and food coloring.

34:33

My gosh, they have the fruit loops in the morning and they're so hyper at school and you wonder why.

34:38 - Michaela

Well, those colorings are crazy, yeah oh, I always know when my kids come back from being, you know, with some birthday party yeah, or wherever you know. I always know like you can tell, you can look in their eyes and just see like, oh, this is like they've been drugged. You know what I mean? Like they've been basically drugged with artificial colors.

35:02 - Shirley

Yeah, so I think, there's so many things people can do.

35:06 - Michaela

I feel like - let's end with that. What are your recommendations for, let's say, someone is just having all of these reactions and they really don't know where to start, because it is really overwhelming, especially when there's all of these reactions that don't lead back to one thing. And it can be scary, especially if you're into like just Googling your symptoms and then all this stuff pops up. So, you know, what do you feel like first off? Okay, Like, of course, test. You know we can get testing and we can go do all those things. But, like, before that, what do you feel like the fundamental things that people should be doing?

35:53 - Shirley

Well, I think the first thing is to just look at your life and just look at your day. You know, when you're getting up, are you getting natural light, or, how much time are you spending indoors and on screens? Like, I mean to me that it's just huge right, because if your circadian rhythm is off, which I think most people's are, you know that can help to heal so many things. So you know, and I write about that, I blog about that, you know, if people want to know how to do that, that's, it's pretty simple.

36:19

Shirleyplant.com, and I'm actually just writing a blog about you know, you don't need another supplement. Try this first. Getting out into the light, when to get out using blue blockersers if you're on screen all day or under fluorescent lights all day or and then the darker ones before bed or, as you say, you know, no TV however much before. I think that's huge. I also think that what you're eating is huge too and, as you said, like I think most people now are aware of the issues with dairy and gluten.

36:57 - Michaela

Yeah, it's kind of becoming a trend.

36:59 - Shirley

I think but there's some people that still aren't, and food colorings, and to start to read labels. I mean, if you cannot pronounce it, why are you putting it in your body? You know, we don't eat anything really from boxes or cans. We just eat natural food. And even that, we've really got to be careful because glyphosate roundup is sprayed on everything and we have genetically modified crops and I'm sorry that plays a huge role in our health. Yeah, so I think, do what you can.

37:33

I know a lot of people say, well, I can't afford organic, I can hardly even afford groceries. And I get it, I really do. But you know, if you have a little corner and you can, in the summer, at least grow some of your veggies. You know, we have planter boxes, we have a tower garden, we have so many things that we grow our own veggies. So I think that's huge. Certainly your environment, as you said, your devices, your, you know, do you have Aires Tech on the back of your cell phone? I'm telling you, I'm not saying don't use your cell phone, just as you guys are not, but you know, put it down. I think a lot of people are addicted to it. Um, you know what was it? Four or five years ago, we had a wicked tornado come through here and we lost power for five days, and you know what? I think it was the best thing.

38:23 - Michaela

Yeah, I always love when my phone doesn't have service.

38:32 - Shirley

You know like, wow, people played puzzles. People were outside, people were talking to their neighbors cleaning out their freezer and sharing food.

So, can you turn your wi-fi off at night? Buy a timer, you know, when you go on a trip and you've got a timer for your light to come on, buy a timer and put it on your wi-fi router to turn off at 10 30 at night and back on at 7, or off for four hours. You know, put your phone on airplane mode when you're not using it. If you've just had a baby, reconsider having a wi-fi baby monitor, like right beside their brain. Or again, get technology like Aires Tech, to be able to change that wavelength. I just think that there's things that people need to start doing.

39:33 - Michaela

Yeah, I like the idea of like low hanging fruit. I always think about that it can feel so overwhelming, and sometimes cause I have so much going on, sometimes I get really like there's something really wrong with me, you know, and it's probably that I've been with, cause I work from my phone, I work from home, which I'm so, I'm so grateful that I'm able to do that. But also, yeah, like we just bought a house and the lady you know we're actually buying it from a friend and she was like, you know, I have to warn you cause I know that you work from home that like there is no service here and I was like, girl, that's the best thing that could possibly happen for me. Honestly, it's the best thing that could possibly happen for me is to have no service at home, like you know, because I feel so pressured to work whenever you know I'm there.

40:17 - Michaela

So that's the first thing is like low hanging fruit. It's like are you drinking water?

40:21 - Shirley

That's huge, everybody is dehydrated.

40:26 - Michaela

I mean, that's like my first thing, for me as the first, because I will carry around and stick some lemon in it.

40:31 - Shirley

Yes, lemon in it.

40:34 - Michaela

My mom started doing this, like she distills, she puts it in the moon and the sun and she vortexes it and then she brings it up and yes, she's. I mean so woo, woo, and I love it.

40:46 - Shirley

And do you fill your water with love? Do you have an intention?

40:49 - Michaela

She does all of that. I just receive it right now in the, in the, in the, you know, peak of toddlerhood. I'm so grateful for that because I've always had, um, just this weird thing with water, like I can't just go into a gas station and grab a water bottle like a plastic water bottle and like I, you know, I have to have spring. But it's almost like to a detriment because, like I won't drink water. So now I just am so grateful to have this because I carry it around and make sure that I'm drinking.

41:25

Then I'm like oh, I've been on my phone all day, I haven't gone outside, I haven't gone for a walk, haven't drank water, have you know? It's such basic things. And then, like the first, our first thought is like when we start really feeling sick is to go get testing. And then, like that testing usually leads to medication. It usually leads to uh, you know, if you're, even if you're going to a naturopath, it usually leads to like a whole, you know, thing of supplements.

41:51

And I have a cupboard full of supplements. But I'm similar to you in that certain supplements make me sicker and certain supplements do not help me at all and they sometimes even push me into like this kind of hard mental state, like it pushes this kind of fog to the front of my brain. So I'm very hesitant when it comes to supplements and so I'm always like the first thing is just basics.

42:17 - Shirley

Water, light food, sleep.

42:22 - Michaela

Yeah, getting away from the electronics, yeah.

42:24 - Shirley

And where is your wifi router? You know, I had a girlfriend and yes, right in their bedroom. No, please in the basement and I know a lot of people don't know they can turn it down, certainly in some of the older routers, you know, but like the newer ones, like there's some people that didn't, like my neighbor, her daughter was really experiencing mental illness and a lot of issues and and I gave her my little measuring and it was like and I just turned it down. And she's what do you mean turn? I said you could turn down your router. You, you still will get service and wi-fi, it will still be strong. It's just they have it on the max, you know. And and again they incorporated a few things and she kind of settled.

43:11 - Michaela

Yeah that's awesome. I didn't know you could turn it down, I always just unplug it. I'm getting an ethernet whenever we get into our new home. That is one thing that's like, because the kind of wi-fi that we have is like the one that is supplied through like the telecommunication companies, and it's like very strong and I put it as far away from where we do our day as possible and those you probably can't turn down.

43:36

They probably won't let you right, like I don't think it lets you, but anytime we're not using it, I just unplug it because I, I'm now, I'm in it. I know that people are gonna be like, well, that's because you research it all the time, but like, I started researching it because I felt that it was due, like I felt it. Like when I have a phone next to my ear I can feel it. It's like I feel like it is piercing my brain. I literally feel like that and like with the wifi I noticed so there was two times. It happened twice and I didn't have like any protection around me because I had taken my Aires Tech necklace off, because my string had broke, like this whole thing, and I didn't realize it. I did not make this connection at all until later, but I had sat down in the room and my sister had called me and I had talked to my sister on the phone for an hour, sitting probably within like three feet of the wifi, because I just got distracted and I wasn't paying attention.

44:33

And that night I was head in my knees, sobbing like in the shower, water running down, couldn't all lights off, like no sound. My husband had to take the kids out. I was literally sobbing. I was in, like my head was hurting, so I had such a bad migraine and I didn't make the connection until like the next day, where I was like cause I was going back in my day and I was like what happened? Like what happened? And then it happened again when I had like sat down to do calendar planning and forgot to unplug the wifi. And it was like right next to me and got a massive migraine, like a massive migraine. I'm like what is this doing? You know what I mean? Like a lot of my friends who are really about the email, they're like you need to, you need to take that and plug it in outside of your house, like go put it as far away as possible. But I'm like, but then it will. I don't know if it'll work.

45:25 - Shirley

Yeah, exactly, do you have a basement?

45:28 - Michaela

No, I know that's the one thing we don't have.

45:30 - Shirley

Really, in Texas, you don't have basements.

45:32

I love a good basement though, cause I'm from New York, so everyone had basements in New York, but yeah, so I would love to have a basement, but no, I think that's the direction we're headed with the new house.

45:43

We're kind of we're going more like acreage and we're going more, you know, just quiet and like really setting it up where our kids are safe to play outside and we feel cause that was another big part of why I ended up putting them in kind of a nature school, cause where we lived, I never felt safe like really having them outside. We have a lot of like dogs that kind of come around and you know just stuff where it was like we would go outside and go outside together. But I really wanted a place where my kids felt safe to just go outside you know what I mean? Like they don't have to have me with them all day, like no, I know we're all like hyper protective in this generation, but I think the best thing we can do is let our kids play, oh you, without being like imagination so far away from that.

46:30 - Shirley

And you know, and I know that a lot of people, you know they may be listening to it and saying Well, you know, I don't. She's saying she reacts when she has a headache like what she's talking about. You know, and I think some people maybe are really lucky, but maybe not because they are not as sensitive as maybe you and I. And to me I've always been called a canary in the coal mine. I mean, if we didn't have those canaries, those coal miners would have died.

46:57 - Michaela

Yeah.

47:08 - Shirley

And so I think, you know, on my really darkest days, I sort of say to myself well, you know, maybe I was brought to this earth to be super, super sensitive and and to be super, super sick, so that I can share knowledge and warn people, so that other children don't have to go through what I've gone through. Yeah, you know. Um, yeah, I understand the other side of of the spectrum when people say, well, I've got my wi-fi, I sleep like a baby, I'm fine, and I'm thinking, well, that's great, but your child may be different, or your sister may be different, or a friend may be different, and so could we just have compassion for them.

47:40 - Michaela

What's interesting is that even the WHO which we can, you know, we're not going to go into how credible they are, but like even they have acknowledged that electrohypersensitivity is real. Like that there are a very wide range of symptoms that people are experiencing because of EMF.

48:04 - Shirley

Yeah, and I wrote that in my article. You know, in Toronto we have the women's college hospital, which is a very well-renowned hospital, and they have a whole department geared to environmental and hypersensitivity. You know, EMF. Like the wait list is three years long. So don't tell me that kids and humans and adults do not react to electromagnetic or react to environmental issues, because if they didn't, there would not be this department in a well-known hospital and a three-year waitlist.

48:43 - Michaela

What's the hospital called? That's a three-year wait list.

48:46 - Shirley

The Women's College Hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

48:50 - Michaela

Wow, I did not know about that. That is amazing.

48:56 - Shirley

Yeah, if you want to read I thought there was an environmental one in Texas.

48:59 - Michaela

Oh well, I'm about to find out. That's my job. I got to find out. If you guys want to read Shirley's blog that she did on the wave, go to wave.airestech.com and it will be there at the time that this podcast is posted so you'll be able to go read all about her and her findings on EMF. She did like a really good deep, deep dive into EMF and shared a little bit about her story as well. So, if you want to go talk to her, where can they find you?

49:28 - Shirley

Shirleyplant.com.

49:28 - Michaela

Shirleyplant.com, and yes, that's her real last name.

49:32 - Shirley

Yes, that's my real name.

49:34 - Michaela

I love it so much. Thank you, Shirley, I really, really appreciate this conversation.

49:38 - Shirley

Thank you, it was fun and I hope we've helped and you know maybe educated some people out there.

49:42 - Michaela

And if you want any more information, you guys, we are constantly going to be here now telling, going deep, dive, going deep into the research on EMF, sharing EMF hypersensitivity stories and, yeah, bringing in outside experts in the field and surrounding fields, cause we're actually finding out that EMF is connected to a lot of other fields, like Lyme disease. So stick around, there'll be more. Thank you so much.