Feng shui is an ancient Chinese practice centered around the balance of elements and energies. According to the principles of feng shui, the way energy (chi) moves through the space of your home actually affects every aspect of your life, from love and wealth to health and vitality. There are specific things you can do to create positive chi in every room of your house, but I’m going to focus on the bedroom here.
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In her book, Feng Shui, Arranging Your Home to Change Your Life, author Kirsten Lagatree discusses the feng shui belief that the quality of the hours you spend asleep will have a strong influence on how you feel throughout the next day. Tranquil sleep = peacefulness, and productivity. A night of restless sleep = a long day of anxiety and irritability.
So how do you use feng shui to turn your bedroom into a peaceful oasis that will optimize that third of your life you spend sleeping? Give these 8 tips a try, and see how your life and sleep improve!
How To Feng Shui Your Bedroom
1. Get rid of clutter and unnecessary items
We all know that decluttering is the first step to a peaceful, organized home. But it’s particularly important to getting feng shui right. Chi can’t flow easily through your space if unnecessary items are blocking its path.
Don’t use your bedroom as a storage space. Every item in your home carries its own energy, and too much stuff will fill the room with too much stimulating energy. The same goes for visual clutter, such as walls covered with too many pictures or shelves full of books or knick-knacks.
Even though using under-bed space as storage sounds like a genius life-hack, it can actually disrupt your sleep. For example, storing shoes under your bed can cause restless sleep, as they are strongly associated with movement.
Don’t keep any items with a negative emotional charge in your bedroom, and certainly not under the bed. Any photos or mementos of past partners should be stored elsewhere, as should any sharp or potentially dangerous items.
2. Remove technology
The energy of computers, televisions, and smartphones is definitely too stimulating for the bedroom, and ideally, none of these items should even be allowed in there. The artificial “blue light” these devices emit actually sends a signal to the brain that it’s still daytime. This can do major damage to your body’s circadian rhythms.
Remove the TV from the bedroom, set up your computer workstation in a different room, and give yourself a smartphone curfew. Stick it on the charger in a different room, and don’t look at it again until you get up in the morning! If you need to break a bad habit like watching television or browsing Pinterest before you go to sleep, try swapping them out with a good book and a cup of chamomile tea.
3. Be mindful of mirrors
If you have any mirrors in your bedroom, be sure that none of them face your bed. The ancients believed that a sleeper’s spirit rises from the body at night and that seeing its own image in the mirror would be unsettling! Either way, mirrors do have stimulating energy and should be removed or re-positioned. If a mirrored feature can’t be moved, do cover it up at night to neutralize its effects.
4. Avoid sharp edges
If you have furniture or other items with sharp edges, be sure that those corners are not aimed at your bed. Pointed edges are believed to send out a harsh kind of energy that can make you feel subconsciously threatened or unsafe. As a general rule, all bedroom furnishings should have a softer look and feel (think rounded wooden pieces instead of angular metal ones).
5. Make sure your bed’s in the right spot
It’s important to place your bed in a position that allows you to sleep well and keeps positive chi flowing through the room. To ensure positive chi can get into the room in the first place, make sure the bed isn’t blocking the doorway. Also, don’t directly align your bed with the doorway; it can cause restless sleep.
The bed should never “float” in the middle of the room – always make sure the headboard sits against a solid wall. But you never want one whole side of the bed to run against the wall. You should be able to enter the bed from either side. If possible, avoid placing your bed directly underneath a window, to prevent positive chi from escaping out the window while you’re sleeping.
The direction your headboard faces can also make a difference in your sleep quality. Most people will sleep best with their headboard facing north. This keeps your body in alignment with the earth’s magnetic poles as you sleep, which is said to enhance your dreams and help you remember them.
If a north-facing headboard isn’t an option in your space, west-facing (following the nightly path of the sun) is a good backup. South-facing headboards are not recommended, as the sleeper can feel off-balance in this position. And east-facing tends to be too stimulating for quality sleep (because the sun is inching closer to your head every moment you are sleeping!).
6. Bedroom Location
In most cases, we don’t have much choice about what part of the house our bedroom’s in. But if you are shopping for a new home, or have a house with multiple bedrooms to choose from, feng shui names the southwest section of a home (and as far as possible from the street) as the ideal spot for a master bedroom.
The shape of the bedroom is also important. A rectangular or square shape is best for the smooth flow of chi. An irregularly-shaped bedroom with jutting corners or sloped ceilings can lead to the buildup of negative chi in your space.
7. Decorate harmoniously
In feng shui, creating balance is incredibly important. While some parts of the house call for yang (masculine, motion-oriented) energy, the bedroom is not one of them. Here you’ll want to select decor, lighting, and colours with a yin (soft and feminine) vibe.
If you are in a relationship (or wish to be), make sure that your bedroom decor depicts items or figures in pairs. Avoid placing artwork depicting single figures in your bedroom. Likewise, avoid decor items in threes (three matching candleholders in a row, for example). Threes can energetically invite third parties to meddle in your affairs!
8. Close the bathroom door
If you have an en suite bathroom, make sure that you keep its door closed. The bathroom is highly connected with the element of water, which feng shui principles advise against incorporating in the bedroom. Even pictures of water are considered taboo for bedroom decor!
If you incorporate these feng shui principles into your bedroom organization, not only will your bedroom feel more cozy and comfortable, but the easy flow of positive chi will begin to enhance and improve all the important areas of your life!