5 Easy Ways to Reduce Your Cell Phone Radiation

Use a Wired Headset

This is the simplest and most effective way to keep the radiation away from your head. A wired headset keeps the antenna far away from your skull, allowing you to use your phone without worrying that you might be cooking your brain. A Bluetooth wireless headset will also reduce your exposure somewhat, but you'll still be absorbing some radiation. Most decent earbuds that you'd use to listen to your iPhone or other music-playing handset will also include a microphone for speaking.

Get Used to Texting

The kids already know this: actually using a cell phone to talk is so 20th century. A Pew Research report from 2010 found that kids aged 12 to 17 sent and received an average of 50 (!) texts a day, while fielding just five calls. Two-thirds said they were more likely to text their friends than call. (In fact, just about the only people teens are actually talking to on the phone are their parents.) Texting keeps the handset away from the brain, reducing the risk from any radiation. Txts r gr8!

Don't Use Your Cell Phone as an Alarm Clock

This one is a no-brainer — or at least it should be. If you use your phone as your wake-up call, you'll likely need to keep it close to your head, perhaps on a night table next to your bed. There's still radiation emitting from the phone even when it's not taking calls, so that could mean many extra hours of your brain being bathed in electromagnetic waves at night. Just get a real alarm clock.

Don't Carry Your Phone in Your Pocket

It's not just brain cancer that worries some doctors. There's also some preliminary research to indicate that men who carry a phone in their pocket all day or clip it to a belt pocket could be putting their fertility at risk. By the same token, women who carry their phones in their bra could be increasing their risk of breast cancer. If possible, keep the phone on your desk or a table when you're not using it, just to be safe. And carry it around in a bag or in your coat rather than in a pants or shirt pocket.

Use a Radiation-Blocking Case

The good people at Pong Research offer a case for iPhones and BlackBerrys that they say can reduce cell phone radiation by two-thirds. Sounds a little fishy, but in an independent test witnessed by Wiredmagazine in 2009, the claims checked out. The cases cost $30 to $50.