I’ve Been Sleeping With An EMF-Blocking Stone For The Past 3 Months, How Are You?

What's the deal with sleep? [Doing my best Jerry Seinfeld here.] The kids don't think they need it, the teens get too much of it, and the adults, well, we can't seem to get enough of it. We're living in a world where the only thing rivaling our burning desire to be constantly plugged in is the desperate need to unplug.

It's a tricky paradox because, as science-backed studies have indicated, a primary culprit of poor sleep is too much technology. More specifically, an over-abundance of electric and magnetic fields; also known as EMFs. This brings us to the solutions our sleep-obsessed society has concocted to combat the EMF background noise that can potentially impede a good night's rest; ranging from the $0 act of maintaining a technology-free bedroom to a $500 semi-precious stone claiming to harmonize the energy inside your space.

If you think the latter sounds like highfalutin’ snake oil, then I was right there with you. The suss device is called the Somavedic Harmony, and I, along with my deeply sleep-troubled partner, have been using it in our bedroom for the past three months to discern what effects (if any) it would have on our nighttime wellbeing. As a skeptic of shoppable sleep solutions living with an insomniac who will try anything to help him catch forty winks, this journey has been charged with intrigue, an appropriate amount of skepticism, and a LOT of obscure information.


But, before we get into all of the magic-stone-harmonizing stuff, let's quickly run through EMFs and how they tie into sleep.

What are EMFs?

Short for electric and magnetic fields, EMFs are invisible energy waves (aka radiation) thought to be most commonly emitted through the use of electrical power sources. It sounds ominous but, in reality, is less so because not all EMFs are created equal. According to the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, there are two types of electric and magnetic fields: ionizing (high-level, potentially harmful radiation found in X-rays or UV-light) and non-ionizing (low-level, non-harmful radiation found in common household devices).

Think of it like this: the heavy apron the dentist sacks you with before an X-ray protects against harmful ionizing EMFs; the blue-light baths you take from your TVs, tablets, and phones are non-ionizing EMFs that, while harmless to your immediate health, are thought to negatively impact sleep. If you haven't dozed off yet, then now we get into the good stuff: whether or not the $500 Somavedic stone positively impacted my (and my restless partner's) sleep.