Feng Shui Tips For Your Bedroom

The allure and mystique of the world of Feng Shui is such that the practice attracts people of every sort of background in every part of the world. From the alternative free spirited Europeans to the middle class Americans right back around to the traditional Chinese families who choose to practice some form of Feng Shui, you can find such a variety of approaches out there that many people now take the ancient Chinese system as a 'make of it what you will' practice. To do this is to underestimate the richness and complexity of the tradition, though, and whether you agree with the philosophy and metaphysics or not, there is certainly a huge amount to Feng Shui. Below is a small sample of what the practice has to say about our most important space – where we sleep.

Bedroom Feng Shui starts precisely where any other room's Feng Shui starts – with cleanliness and decluttering. A central tenet of the practice is to allow the flow of energy – or Chi – around a room, and this is made instantly easier by keeping clutter to a minimum, arranging your room so as to enable a good overall 'flow' and paying attention to your furniture layout. Just as a professional handyman changes the mood of a recently renovated space enormously, so Feng Shui can make a space feel significantly different without fundamentally altering that space. All that is needed, often, is a little bit of cleaning and some thoughtful arrangement of items.

Of course, the latter point is especially important for Feng Shui and there are some easy tips which anyone can follow to get this right. A bed should be placed, according to Feng Shui, in one of the 'power positions' of a bedroom. This is to say that they should be opposite the door, in line with it but not next to it. An opposite corner or wall is the ideal place, and table lamps should ideally be placed on both sides of a bed to give the room a sense of balance. This is partly about Chi and also partly about occupying your space in such a way that it is a pleasant and rewarding space to be in.

Bedroom dressers, wardrobes and so forth can also be placed according to decor principles. This is partly about the flow of Chi – imagining a room as a river bed and wondering how easily or smoothly a river would flow through it is often touted as a good way to ask yourselves this question – and also about comfort and general liveability. If you can access your storage more easily, you will find your room more comfortable to occupy. If not, it might be worth considering a smaller or more suitable piece of furniture to help give your room balance and use your space most efficiently.

One other big area which the Chinese tradition seeks to address is the tactile and sensory feel of a room. The smells, fabrics and colours of a room matter to Feng Shui practitioners, and it isn't uncommon for 'How To' guides to recommend particular colour schemes, decorations or scents for your room. Lighting is another thing – the overriding issue, with all of these considerations, is the same, namely, how can you make a room as pleasant and positive to be in as possible? You will also often hear practitioners urging you to banish electronics like televisions and computers from your bedroom – this, again, is aimed at giving the room a more peaceful feel and calmer energy.

None of these tips are difficult or costly to achieve, but between them you can have a pretty good go at trying out Feng Shui and seeing whether it can improve your living space. At the very least, you will end up with a tidier bedroom.