Feeling stressed? Your house could be the culprit, says Edel Morgan

APPARENTLY MY house could be a hotbed of geopathic stress. I discovered this when I took my 16-month-old son for an allergy test for his eczema and was told that as well as being intolerant to a number of foods, his geopathic stress reading was the highest the practitioner has ever seen in a young child and she was amazed he wasn't narky, screaming and crawling the walls.

Upon arrival I knew little about VEGA testing, other than it was an allergy test and the person doing it came highly recommended. Conventional it wasn't. As well as crystal pendulums and a vibrating metal bar, the VEGA machine, which has its origins in homeopathy and acupuncture, supposedly diagnoses the food stuffs, supplements and environmental factors affecting a person's health by way of a metal rod which is held against an acupressure point.

It was explained that if a property in which a person spends long periods - be it a house, workplace, crèche or school - is affected by geopathic stress, it can be harmful to that person's wellbeing. It is apparently vital to clear the place you sleep in of geopathic stress because it attacks the body at night and prevents it from renewing itself properly.

Geopathic stress affects a property when the earth's vibrations are distorted by electromagnetic fields caused by subterranean running water, fault lines, underground cavities or mineral concentrations.

If at this point you're thinking that I must be geopathically stressed to entertain the notion that the earth's distorted energy could be affecting my son's skin condition, it is taken very seriously in several other European countries, particularly Germany, where there are geopathic surveyors in cancer hospitals who are dispatched to a patient's home to see if it is affected by geopathic stress. The theory is that recovery will be impeded if they are living over a geopathic zone.

Geopathic stress doesn't actually cause an illness but weakens the immune system giving you less chance of fighting any illness and repairing body cells, and preventing your body from absorbing vitamins and minerals. Long term it is believed to cause conditions such as diseases of the central nervous system, cancer, asthma, heart problems, hyperactivity, mental illness, ME, and even road rage (although can't see too many judges buying diminished responsibility due to geopathic stress somehow).

Most common symptoms are being run-down, nervous, and depressed, tired from restless sleep, feeling cold, tingling in arms and legs, grinding teeth, and nightmares.

If my son is affected by geopathic stress then the rest of us probably are too which means we can now blame all kinds of bad behaviour on the house.

Apparently a property affected by geopathic stress might have an uneasy atmosphere and feel unnaturally cold or damp. Plants won't thrive in them and divorce is more likely. The only one that relates to our house is a slight draughtiness at times and that has probably more to do with the poor insulation.

What did make more sense were the VEGA findings that he is also affected by electromagnetic stress caused by electrical equipment such as computers, mobile phones, and microwaves. Given the limited space in our house, my husband has been using half of our son's bedroom as an office during the day, something neither of us were entirely happy about and which we intend to rectify.

Next week the practitioner is coming to our house with her dowsing rods. Meantime she has asked us to place a 15-watt red bulb in a downstairs room and keep it on when we are in the house and at night. We'll be sure not to place it too near any windows. Suddenly being stressed out has a whole new meaning.