I’m Micah Coffey, creator of PathwayMap. This subject is personal to me. I built this resource to help people learn, ask better questions and feel comfortable sharing their own experiences.
Looking back, I believe I struggled with what I now describe as nnEMF impacts for much of my life without recognizing a pattern. By nnEMF, I mean non-native electromagnetic fields—my shorthand for human-made exposures.
As a young boy, my time in school was miserable. But when I was outdoors—during school or outside of school—I felt fine. That contrast stayed with me.
At the end of the day, I would get called into the computer lab to use my sensitive ears to find a monitor a student had left on. People acted like I was some kind of psychic.
Hearing a monitor is an observation about sound; it is not a test of sensitivity to electromagnetic fields.
One living situation led me to sleep with my phone under my pillow. During that period, I felt like I had the flu every day at work. It is one of the experiences I now connect with questions about my surroundings.
I worked next to an airport radar installation. At the end of the workday, I struggled to see clearly on my drive home. That is another experience that made me question what I was around.
Riding in a hybrid vehicle, and then an electric one, helped me tune into the symptoms I associate with extended exposure. That familiar drained feeling gave me a way to describe experiences I had not previously connected.
Explore the vehicle measurements and their limits →After a flu shot, I felt constantly drained—like the feeling I associated with being in an electric vehicle, but 24/7. That is how I describe the experience, not a measured comparison of the exposures.
That period completely derailed my life. It changed how I saw the world I was living in, what I questioned, and what I was willing to take on trust.
“Rare” feels different when it’s your life.
Someone else’s idea of “rare” is not the same as mine when I’m the one living with the aftermath. A word about how often something happens cannot capture what it feels like to struggle day after day.
To me, it felt like a Trojan horse: I expected protection; what followed felt like my life coming apart. I use that metaphor to describe the sense of betrayal and the change in my trust.
I call it waking up. It pushed me to pay attention, ask harder questions, and listen differently when other people described their struggles. I would not be here building this resource and sharing this information if that experience had not changed me.
My story is why I care. The symptom research is a separate part of the picture, including controlled studies that have not found an acute effect.
I pay attention to light throughout the day. Here is what that looks like in my life.
I wake without an alarm and watch the sunrise. I eat fat and protein for breakfast while getting morning sun. I value starting my day outside and paying attention to the changing light.
I’m not trying to char myself. I’m trying to take ownership of my health.
My goal is to enjoy the sun while paying attention to my skin and how I feel. I also want to stop handing over my judgment to people or businesses whose incentives I don’t trust. I want to ask who benefits from the advice I’m given, understand the evidence, and make informed choices for myself.
I put my bare feet on the ground while I’m getting sun, and I aim for as much outdoor time as I can. I deliberately take frequent breaks to step outside for a few minutes.
Barefoot time is part of my routine. This account does not establish “grounding” as a treatment for EMF-related symptoms.
I keep the blue-light settings and brightness on my devices as low as practical, and check them throughout the day to suit the sunlight around me. I also use an e-reader-style tablet.
Explore the evidence on light and timing →After watching the sunset, I put my blue-blocking glasses back on for the evening. These are personal choices about my light environment, rather than a claim that a particular product treats illness.
My bedroom is cool to cold, dark and quiet. My cell phone sleeps in a different room.
I pay attention to the places and devices I spend the most time around. These are the changes I have chosen to make.
I grow trees and plants in my yard, partly with the intention of scattering outside EMF before it reaches me. That intention is not a verified shielding result.
I own an EMF meter and check areas where I spend a lot of time.
What a measurement can—and cannot—tell us →I avoid wireless devices where I can and use wired connections at home. I set my Wi-Fi transmit-power control to 25% and position the router to cover the places I need.
I cannot pick up my own Wi-Fi outside my small house, although I can see my neighbors’ networks.
A router setting or network list is not a measurement of total exposure or a health-risk threshold.
My phone is usually at arm’s length or farther away, and rarely in my pocket. If I use earbuds, they are wired.
I’m also mindful of the magnets in earbud speakers. I tried an expensive alternative intended to keep them away from my head, but those earbuds were stolen.
Concern about speaker magnets is a personal preference, not evidence that ordinary earbuds cause harm.
I have three 250-watt red incandescent bulbs that I lie under almost daily in winter and when the weather is poor. I choose incandescent because I don’t want LED bulbs, and I enjoy the heat as well as the light.
Explore light-therapy benefits and limits →I want this site to be useful whether or not you participate in the RFI. My hope is that my experience makes it easier for someone else to say, “Here is what happened to me. Here is what I noticed. Here is what I still want to understand.”
You don’t have to agree with my interpretation to explore the evidence or ask for better research. And you don’t have to make your health history public to help someone find this resource.