We all know that our environment can affect us positively or negatively. We recognize it on the most mundane and obvious levels, like feeling bad, even scared, if we are exposed to a dilapidated, dank, dark building. We also know how exciting it can be to be in a sunny, sweet-smelling room with stunning views. But this could be seen as a temporary emotional reaction. Does our environment influence our lives and well-being, including our financial potential or chance of marriage, in the long term and in predictable ways? The answer is yes, according to the ancient Chinese natural science of the earth, popularly known as “feng shui”. Feng Shui literally means “wind-water”, and these words are a slogan or the consolidation of a whole concept: the energy that is dissipated in the wind, accumulates in the location of the water.

The basic principles of feng shui hold that:

• Our immediate internal and external environment affects us in predictable ways.
• Unseen forces (called ch’i) or air currents can be manipulated through our choice of furniture, a room’s color scheme, its architecture, and the landscape.
• Those forces can alter events and circumstances in our lives
• We may even have a unique relationship with a home or office, distinct from another person sharing the same space, based on our date of birth.

THE BEDROOM

This is the most important room in any home because we spend most of our lives in this place. The only other room that can compete with the bedroom is an office that someone could literally sit in for eight hours a day. Here are some basic feng shui guidelines for the bedroom:

1. The shape of the room should be stable square or rectangular. If the room is oddly shaped, try arranging the furniture in a way that helps square the shape.
2. The room should not be too large because this can undermine the feeling of comfort and protection that are desirable for sleeping.
3. Ceilings must be flat for energy to flow smoothly in the room.
4. If the ceilings are sloped, then there is a higher possibility of sleep disturbances.
5. False ceilings and canopy beds are one way to solve the sloped ceiling dilemma.
6. Sleeping under exposed beams should be avoided at all costs because the beams create a chaotic boomerang effect that can undermine health. You can even predict the exact health problem based on where the lightning strikes your body. For example, if you sleep with a large exposed beam over your abdominal region, this could affect your digestion and even your fertility.
7. Avoid sleeping with your head too close to a low drafty window. This will tire you out constantly.
8. Arrange the bed so that it is not directly in line with the bedroom door. Sleeping directly in line with the door can cause health problems over time.
9. Cover or remove large mirrors in the bedroom. This is a challenging recommendation for many people because mirrored cabinet doors are so common. The only way to check if mirrors are causing you trouble sleeping is to cover them for a week or two and see if you feel more rested and calm. Most people report feeling better.
10. By consulting traditional feng shui books, you can even find out your personal best directions for sleeping, based on your year of birth.
11. Traditional and advanced feng shui can also determine the best colors for a room. It is unique to your specific home and floor plan layout.

THE OFFICE

Whether it’s a home office or an office within a commercial space, you can also micromanage this environment to meet your needs and improve your productivity. Some people use their office to focus while others use their office to hold meetings with business associates, employees, patients, or clients. In a commercial workspace, you must:

1. Avoid sitting at your desk with your back to the front door of the room. Psychologically, he will feel very vulnerable and nervous, knowing that people could come into his office from behind him.
2. Avoid sitting with your back to protruding interior columns or filing cabinets that point toward your back, as this can cause back pain.
3. If you have disturbing views from your window, mask the bad view with curtains, mosquito nets, or tall plants.
4. For a windowless office, get full-spectrum lighting because it will be less tiring than working all day under fluorescent lights.
5. Add landscape paintings or large mirrors to give the room a sense of depth or the illusion of more space.
6. Don’t go for extreme colors in your rug, like hunter green or maroon, unless you’ve had a traditional feng shui consultation to find out if your individual office needs that much of a certain color (which makes a certain element vibrate). )

THE ENTRANCE

The front door of your home is known as the “mouth” or “ch’i-gate” in feng shui terminology. You pass through this area potentially many times a day and this is one of the main ways that energies from the outside world enter your private space.

The front door you use the most should be:

1. Free from clutter or congestion. It shouldn’t be difficult to get through this area.
2. There should be plenty of light because dark entrances can lead to depression and contribute to lethargy. Use artificial light if you can’t bring in enough natural light through a window or skylight.
3. Air currents will move in a straight line unless diverted. If you have a back door or window directly aligned with the front door, the house will lose its vital ch’i. The end result is that it is difficult for occupants to save their hard-earned money. Corrections for this floor plan defect may vary depending on how much area there is to work between the entry and exit points. Furniture, live plants, water features, and partition walls can sometimes be used to help slow down this direct path of ch’i.
4. Similarly, if a front door is directly aligned with a set of stairs, the occupants may also have difficulty saving money or their health will suffer.
5. The most challenging entrances are the ones that are congested because there is a wall too close to the entrance. People who have this type of entrance will feel stopped and suffocated in their lives. Covering this wall with a floor-to-ceiling mirror will help give the illusion that you have more space. This is also a design trick that is used all the time in narrow commercial spaces, where an entire wall is reflected. Health clubs mirror the walls, not only so you can see what it looks like, but also so they can get away with placing exercise equipment very close to the walls without cramping gym members in the corners.

Although we’ve outlined some very important basics regarding your bedroom, office, and entryway, the wealth of knowledge that comes from this ancient predictive art can be customized for your specific home and work environment. What may be appropriate for one person or business may not be for another. You can discover more advanced feng shui secrets and solutions when an experienced consultant takes into account the age of your home and the compass direction the structure is facing. In a way, it’s like “astrology for architecture”.