What are Environmental Sensitivities?
Environmental Sensitivities (ES) describes a family of disorders in which people are more sensitive than average to environmental exposures such as light, sound, smell, taste, vibration and electromagnetic fields.
- Multiple Chemical Sensitivity (MCS) and Electrohypersensitivity (EHS) are two common examples.
- The cause of ES is uncertain.
- Causes may include a combination of pre-existing vulnerability, such as genetics, growing up in an adverse environment, having a more responsive central nervous system, and exposure to large amounts of sensory stimuli either in large dose/s or repeatedly over time.
- Neuroplasticity may play a role in ramping up symptoms over time and making it difficult to recover through avoidance of exposure alone.
- Reversing neuroplastic brain changes seems helpful in many.
Many professionals falsely attribute ES to emotional or psychiatric causes. This adds to the suffering of people with the condition.
ES is real and can be extremely disabling and isolating.
Online Courses
Self-Study Course
Healing Through Neuroplasticity
Learn to reduce or eliminate environmental sensitivity by rewiring your brain. Decreasing your sensitivity is possible. Neuroplasticity works!
More DetailsLive Online Mentorship
Neuroplasticity In Action
Learn to individualize and optimize your neuroplasticity practice with the connection, validation and support of a mentor and small group. In these live sessions, ask your questions about how to use neuroplasticity to decrease sensitivity.
More DetailsSelf-Study Course
Pathways to Improvement
Learn to take charge of your health to help you feel and live better. Find out what is making you sensitive and work to decrease external and internal stimuli. Self-management works!
More DetailsLive Online Mentorship
Pathways In Action
Learn to individualize and optimize your self-management with the support of a mentor and group. Ask your questions in the live sessions about how to decrease environmental sensitivity.
More DetailsMembership to Live Sessions
Live! with Dr. Stein
Evidence-based presentations and Q&A with Dr. Stein. Credible, science-based and cutting edge information about how to live longer and healthier.
More DetailsWebinars (recordings)
Vagus Nerve
Dr. Navaz Habib explains how the vagus nerve controls essential body functions like breathing and inflammation. He shares simple exercises to activate the vagus nerve and improve your health.
More DetailsCauses & Treatment
Dr. Neil Nathan explains how to solve underlying causes of ME, CFS, FM and ES. Learn strategies to recover from mold and infections that make people sensitive and reactive.
Making the Invisible Visible: A Visual Guide to EMFs
Mitch Marchand, building biologist, explains the different types of human-made electromagnetic fields (EMFs) from wireless tech and electricity, the potential health effects and what you can do to reduce your exposure.
More DetailsBooks
Let Your Light Shine Through
In this manual, Dr. Stein shares the strategies she has found to be the most successful for patients in her 35-year medical practice working with ME, CFS, FM, ES, chronic pain, and more recently, long Covid. Readers are guided through a 286-page, 4-month program specific to these conditions. Let Your Light Shine Through is filled with practical, no-to-low-cost management suggestions, tools and resources. Formats available: hardcopy coil-bound and digital download.Â
Recommended Free Videos
Neuroplasticity of the Brain Meetup
In this presentation, Dr. Stein gave a detailed summary of neuroplasticity, how it causes pain, how we can leverage it to heal from persistent pain, and the neuroplasticity boosters that allow practice to be more effective. The presentation is 45 minutes, followed by a very engaged Q&A session with the attendees.Â
MCS and Anxiety: Dispelling the Myth, May 6
On May 6, Dr. Stein was a guest speaker for The ASEQ-EHAQ - L'Association pour la santĂ© environnementale du QuĂ©bec / Environmental Health Association of QuĂ©bec as part of International Awareness month. From her 20 years + experience as a psychiatrist treating patients with MCS, Dr. Stein explained why, although some people with MCS (as with any medical condition) can have mental health symptoms, MCS is not a psychiatric disorder. When patients with MCS are misdiagnosed as having a mental health disorder, their physical symptoms are dismissed and they are offered incorrect treatment.Â
The content is published in text and audio on Dr. Stein's blog page.Â
Interview with the Environmental Health Association of Québec / L'Association pour la santé environnementale du Québec
- March 12, 2022
The National Institute of Public Health Québec (Institut national de santé publique du Québec – INSPQ) recently published a report on MCS concluding that anxiety and not chemical exposure is the cause of multiple chemical sensitivity (MCS). This a conclusion reached without consultation with people with lived experience, or experts in MCS.
The Chemical Sensitivity Podcast
Episode 8: MCS is Not an Anxiety Disorder with Dr. Eleanor Stein
Dr. Stein was featured as a guest speaker on this show hosted by Dr. Aaron Goodman, PhD. The Chemical Sensitivity Podcast is aired twice per month. Its purpose is to amplify the voices of people with MCS and to highlight the critical work that researchers and clinicians like Dr. Stein are doing to further the cause.
Articles and Peer-Reviewed PublicationsÂ
1999 International Consensus Definition for Multiple Chemical Sensitivity
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