Having safer living spaces is a major part of feeling safe in your home, thereby enhancing parasympathetic rest. There are a number of considerations to keep in mind when building or moving houses or purchasing a new home if you have MCAS or a complex chronic illness.
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Who is Betsy Leighton?
I’m a writer, blogger, and healer dedicated to helping individuals reconnect with their innate peace and wholeness by healing nervous system dysregulation. My personal experience with chronic illness called Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) shapes my work, and my content offers tools to empower those with chronic illness to improve their well-being and take charge of their health.
I created the Sacred Self-Healing Method and am a trained and certified Safe and Sound Protocol provider, an author, blogger, and A Course in Miracles Teacher. I hold a Master of Divinity in Spiritual Counseling and am a trained spiritual mentor, with certificates in sound healing, aromatherapy, nutrition, and Sacred Deathcare. I offer a self-study certificate program in the Sacred Self-Healing Method, provide spiritual counseling and coaching, courses, and supported subscriptions for the Safe and Sound Protocol.
What is MCAS?
Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) is a chronic condition that affects all organ systems. It can cause severe, disabling symptoms every day, including potentially fatal anaphylaxis.
The common triggers for MCAS are infections, toxic exposures including mold exposure and EMFs, trauma, concussions, and stress.
MCAS often occurs with other chronic conditions like Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) and Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome (POTS). Managing MCAS is challenging because many healthcare providers are unaware of it, and diagnostic tests can be unreliable. Treatments include antihistamines and mast cell stabilizers in the form of medications and supplements, along with avoiding triggers. Check out this post on managing MCAS.
Location
The one variable you can’t change once you purchase a home or lot is the location, so it pays to evaluate the site carefully beforehand. Are there high-voltage power lines nearby? Suppose they are within a block of your house. In that case, you will likely experience the effects of them, which can vary from an increased charge in the ground, which can affect how much dirty electricity is given off in your home, to the extent to which magnetic fields are an issue in your home. This building biologist recommends living at least 200 meters from high-voltage power lines. US studies have not linked proximity to power lines with cancer; a matched-case study in the UK showed that children living within 600 meters of power lines had an increased risk of leukemia.
Besides power lines, you will want to check into whether trains run within a few miles of your home. If you are sensitive to noise, trains can be significantly bothersome! DC electric railways also produce magnetic fields, both from traction currents and from leakage into the earth. Living close to train tracks may be detrimental to your health and you should consult a building biologist about your particular site.
Proximity to roadways is another environmental consideration when buying a home.
According to CDC, more than 11 million people in the United States live within 150 meters (or approximately 500 feet) from a major highway (Boehmer et al., 2013). The vehicle traffic on these roadways is a major source of noise and air pollutants, such as particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, and ozone, which are known health hazards (U.S. EPA, 2010a, b, 2009, 2008)
– Transportation.gov: Proximity To Major Roadways
You will also want to be aware of the types of businesses nearby to ensure you are not too close to toxic chemicals. For instance, commercial farms spray pesticides and herbicides on their crops, which can drift to your property. Additionally, traditional dry cleaners use harmful chemicals to clean clothes.
Tetrachloroethylene, also known as perchloroethylene, or perc, is the predominant solvent used for dry cleaning.
– The Lung Association
Other considerations when choosing a location to buy or build a home are:
Water Quality
Is the local drinking water safe? Checking your local water quality is especially important when you have a chronic illness, because even low levels of contaminants can add stress to an already sensitive system. Substances such as heavy metals, PFAS, pesticides, bacteria, endocrine disruptors, and disinfectant byproducts can worsen inflammation, immune dysregulation, gut issues, and detoxification challenges—problems many chronically ill people already manage. Knowing what’s in your water helps you avoid hidden triggers, choose an appropriate filter, and prevent additional physiological burden, allowing your body to redirect energy toward healing rather than constantly compensating for environmental stressors.
Non-native EMFs from cell towers
Are there any cell phone towers nearby? When you have a chronic illness, it can be helpful to check the location of nearby cell towers before buying a home because some people with complex, sensitivity-based conditions—such as MCAS, dysautonomia, or chronic neurological issues—find that strong or continuous radiofrequency exposure exacerbates symptoms like headaches, sleep disruption, fatigue, or nervous-system overstimulation. Understanding where towers are located allows you to make an informed decision about environmental exposures and choose a living space that supports rest, recovery, and overall stability.
Non-native EMFs from smart meters
Does the home have a smart meter installed? Smart meters emit radio frequencies. People with smart meters in their homes have reported a sudden increase in dizziness, ear pain, memory problems, heart palpitations, anxiety, and sleep problems. The US safety limit for RF radiation is 1,000 micro-watts per square meter. However, some smart meters produce up to 60 times this amount. That means the radiation from smart meters is equivalent to that of 160 wireless devices, such as cell phones. Smart meters continuously transmit data and emit RF radiation in and around your home. You can contact your local utility providers to request an exemption from installing a smart meter in your home.
Air pollution
Is the local air polluted? Chronic illness often reduces the body’s ability to tolerate additional inflammatory or toxic burdens, making local air and environmental quality a critical factor when choosing a place to live. Higher pollution levels—such as particulate matter, wildfire smoke drift, industrial emissions, or highway exhaust—can exacerbate respiratory issues, immune dysfunction, headaches, fatigue, and autonomic symptoms. Checking pollution data ahead of time empowers you to avoid hotspots, choose a cleaner micro-environment, and support your long-term health by reducing everyday exposures that can quietly worsen symptoms over time.
Age of the home
Your homes protect you from outside elements, but they can also harbor indoor factors that can negatively impact your health. These factors will vary with the age of the house, as different construction techniques over the years created unique air quality concerns unique to that time.
Older homes tend to have air leaks that can allow in dust and particulate, while newer homes are “too tight” and tend to hold in moisture and harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
Non-native EMF concerns in safer living spaces
There are many sources of man-made and naturally occurring electromagnetic radiation to which we are commonly exposed. The following is a summary from Building Biology Institute:
AC ELECTRIC FIELDS – Sources: AC voltage in electrical installations, cables, appliances, outlets, walls, floors, beds, high-tension and other power lines
AC MAGNETIC FIELDS – Sources: AC in electrical installations, cables, appliances, transformers, motors, overhead and ground cables, power lines, railways
RADIOFREQUENCY RADIATION – Sources: cell phone technology, RF transmitters, broadcast, trunked radio systems, line-of-sight systems, radar, military, cordless phones
DC ELECTRIC FIELDS – Sources: synthetic carpeting, drapes, and textiles, vinyl wallpaper, varnishes, laminates, stuffed toy animals, TV or computer screens
DC MAGNETIC FIELDS – Sources: steel components in beds, mattresses, furniture, appliances, and building materials; DC in street cars, photovoltaic systems
RADIOACTIVITY – Sources: building materials, stones, tiles, slags, waste products, devices, antiques, ventilation, terrestrial radiation, location, environment
GEOLOGICAL DISTURBANCES – Sources: currents and radioactivity in the earth; local disturbances caused by faults, fractures, underground water courses
SOUND & VIBRATION – Sources: traffic noise, air traffic, train traffic, industry, buildings, devices, machines, motors, transformers, sound bridges
Check out this post for more information on identifying and remediating EMFs.
The bucket theory
The bucket theory simplifies understanding symptom reactions with MCAS. Imagine your body as an empty bucket you don’t want to overflow. Reactions to various stimuli fill the histamine bucket at different rates, forming the total histamine level (how full your bucket is). More histamine means more symptoms. By managing triggers, reducing exposures, and taking medications and supplements, you can control your bucket’s level.
Know your typical symptom progression
Understanding your symptom progression during a flare is key to developing your rescue plan. This post discusses how to recognize symptom progression so you can be prepared to address them.
Get my free ebook, symptom log, and meal plan!
Want a tool to easily track your symptoms?
Ensuring building wiring safety
It’s important to check how a house is wired when you have a chronic illness because electrical systems can influence both safety and symptom stability. Older or poorly maintained wiring can create issues such as inconsistent voltage, overloaded circuits, or excessive electromagnetic fields (EMFs), all of which some chronically ill individuals find can worsen fatigue, headaches, sleep disruption, or autonomic symptoms. Ensuring the home has modern grounding, updated panels, and properly distributed circuits also reduces fire risk. It supports a stable electrical environment for medical devices, air filtration units, and other health-supporting equipment. In short, good wiring helps create a safer, calmer, and more reliable living environment for managing chronic health conditions.
Per the building code, the wiring in your home is intended to protect occupants from electric shock and fire. But if not properly installed, electric wiring can create its own hazards. Unshielded wires, dimmer switches, and improperly grounded electric systems create what is known as “dirty electricity.”
Dirty electricity is a ubiquitous pollutant. It flows along wires and radiates from them and involves both extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields and radio frequency radiation. Until recently, dirty electricity has been largely ignored by the scientific community.
– Electromagnetic hypersensitivity: biological effects of dirty electricity with emphasis on diabetes and multiple sclerosis
Reducing toxic off-gassing in safer living spaces
Reducing toxic off-gassing in your home is especially important if you have a chronic illness, as many building materials, furnishings, and household products release volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and other chemicals that can irritate the nervous, immune, and respiratory systems. Chronic illness often makes the body more sensitive to environmental stressors, so even low levels of chemical exposure can trigger symptoms like fatigue, headaches, inflammation, or worsening of conditions such as MCAS. Creating a low-toxicity living environment helps reduce the overall burden on your body, supports more stable daily functioning, and allows your system to focus its energy on healing rather than constant environmental defense.
Modern building materials, flooring, cabinetry, paints, finishes, and window treatments contain formaldehyde and other toxic chemicals.
Hazardous building materials include asbestos, lead, mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB), chlorofluorocarbons, and radioactive sources; they are found in buildings of any age or condition.
– Terracon
If you are building your own home from the ground up, you can have more control over the building materials used. But if you are moving into a newly built home, you may want to consider “baking” the house to help it off-gas more quickly before you move in.
“That new house smell is a mix of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) coming from the building materials.
Strategies to mitigate and reduce the VOC levels range from diluting the air, absorbing the VOCs, speeding up the off-gassing, sealing in the off-gassing, containing the off-gassing to create a safe room, and lastly chemical breakdown of VOCs.” – My Chemical Free House
Moisture concerns for safer living spaces
It is important to assess your home’s moisture levels when you have a chronic illness for several key reasons:
- Exacerbation of Respiratory Conditions: Excessive moisture (humidity over 60%) creates an ideal environment for mold, mildew, and dust mites to thrive. Exposure to these allergens and irritants can significantly worsen symptoms for people with chronic respiratory illnesses like asthma or COPD.
- Increased Infection Risk: Both very high and very low humidity levels can support the survival and spread of airborne viruses and bacteria, potentially increasing the risk of respiratory infections, which can be more severe for those with compromised immune systems or chronic conditions.
- Systemic Stress: High humidity (especially with heat) forces the body, particularly the cardiovascular system, to work harder to cool down, which can strain individuals with heart conditions or other chronic illnesses.
- Physical Discomfort: Extreme humidity levels can irritate the skin and nasal passages, leading to dryness and discomfort, and can exacerbate conditions like chronic pain or affect sleep quality.
Maintaining a moderate indoor relative humidity, typically 40% to 60%, helps minimize these risks.
To keep your home safe from mold growth, you want to make sure that water stays out and doesn’t build up inside through normal living activities.
Managing water entry points through the building envelope, by regular inspection and maintenance of the roof, and penetrations in the wall such as caulking around windows and doors is critical to minimize water intrusion. Cracks in basement walls and grading around the building will impact water migrating into the basement. Water leaks are the internal source of bulk water and all plumbing should be inspected for leaks periodically to ensure faucets are secure, caulking is in good condition around tubs, and toilets are secure to the floor.
– Managing Moisture Factsheet
Besides making sure to buy or build a home that keeps water out, another significant source of water issues is water vapor:
Water vapour can also severely damage a home, typically over a longer time frame. Kitchen and bathroom fans should be operational, used, and exhausting to the outside through properly installed hard, insulated ductwork.
– Managing Moisture Factsheet
If you discover a mold issue in your home, it is critical to address it quickly and mitigate the damage. See this post for more information.
Radon Gas
You will also want to test any new living environment for radon gas.
Radon in air is ubiquitous (existing or being everywhere at the same time). Radon is found in outdoor air and in the indoor air of buildings of all kinds. EPA recommends homes be fixed if the radon level is 4 pCi/L (picocuries per liter) or more. Because there is no known safe level of exposure to radon, EPA also recommends that Americans consider fixing their home for radon levels between 2 pCi/L and 4 pCi/L.
– EPA
Check out these circadian health tools!
I’m an affiliate with Bon Charge, a company that makes tools for circadian health, and you can receive 15% off your order with my coupon code BETSYL.
Bon Charge offers tools such as yellow– and red-tone blue-blocking glasses, red light therapy devices, PEMF mats, infrared saunas, and EMF-blocking products.
Sign up for the SSP!
I’ve found the Safe and Sound Protocol (SSP) to be the most helpful bottom-up healing strategy if your nervous system has been overloaded with toxic exposures, including mold or non-native EMFs, chronic infections, concussions, stress, or trauma. The SSP is a passive listening therapy that helps heal nervous system dysregulation. Many people with MCAS and other chronic conditions have nervous system dysregulation stemming from infections, toxic exposures, concussions, and trauma. The SSP is an easy-to-use app that lets you listen to specially filtered music for 30 minutes each day as part of a 5-hour cycle. Studies show the SSP has a profound effect on mental health and chronic conditions. Here’s a short podcast describing the Safe and Sound Protocol.
You can sign up for the SSP here!
Heal your mind!
While the SSP is a bottom-up, somatic therapy for healing the nervous system, the Sacred Self-Healing Method I offer is a top-down nervous system-healing modality that focuses on cognition, attention, perception, and emotion, using the mind’s higher functions. The SSP and the Sacred Self-Healing Method complement each other and together produce lasting results. Here’s a short podcast on my self-healing practice.
I provide one-on-one in-person and remote chronic illness and caregiver coaching, as well as Sacred Self-Healing Sessions based on the Sacred Self-Healing Method, a proven, novel co-creative healing modality detailed in my Books.
Order my books!
Here’s a short podcast highlighting my five books.
My latest book, Living In The Light: Healing with Forgiveness, Sound, and Light, is all about the tools that have been most helpful for me to heal: forgiveness, sound, through nervous system retraining using the Safe and Sound Protocol, and light, through entraining my circadian rhythm with the energy of the sun. Living In The Light is available here!
Rocks and Roots chronicles my solo backpacking journey on the Superior Hiking Trail and my efforts to overcome nervous system dysregulation, gut dysbiosis, and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome symptoms to complete the 328-mile hike successfully.
The Sacred Self-Healing Method ebook is available here and in most ebook retailers!
The Sacred Self-Healing Workbook is available for purchase here!
Betsy’s first book, Sacred Self-Healing: Finding Peace Through Forgiveness, is available here
Companion Recordings
The companion audio recordings of chants, guided meditations, and sound healing demonstrations that accompany the Sacred Self-Healing Method are available for free on my YouTube channel here
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Disclaimer
The preceding material does not constitute medical advice. This information is for information purposes only and is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, cure, or treatment.
