Feng Shui is the ancient Chinese art of adapting your environment to promote health, wealth and well being. The principle aim is to allow human beings to live in peace and harmony with their surroundings.
The principles can also be adapted to address other issues in an individual's life. The most prominent issue being presented to Feng Shui experts being stress reduction.
The following are the top 10 Feng Shui techniques that can be used to reduce stress in the home or office.
1. Eliminate The Clutter
Clutter is one of the primary causes of a stressful environment. Clutter makes it difficult to find what you are looking for or could simply prevent you from moving freely and easily through the various spaces in your home.
Clutter doesn't necessarily need to be visible and messy or unorganized cupboards, closets and other storage areas can also contribute to stress.
You can opt to declutter one specific area or space at a time or dedicate entire days or a weekend to decluttering your entire home or office.
It is advisable to start with the bedroom and move your way through the rest of the house.
Decluttering is about clearing out what you don't need or use as well as organizing items that have some kind of value, whether personal or monetary.
If you do not have good decluttering or organizational skills, you may want to find an organization expert to assist you.
2. Take Command
In any room or space, facing the door puts you in a command position which helps reduce stress in the following ways:
- Allows you to see both opportunity and danger coming your way.
- Prevents the need to continuously turn your head or look around to see what is happening behind or around you.
- Helps you avoid bad chi flowing in through the doorway and stops good chi from flowing out.
- Contributes to a feeling of safety and security.
- Help you take charge of your surroundings.
To take the command position, simply place the furniture item that is for sitting or sleeping facing the door. This is most important in a lounge area where the couch normally faces the television rather than the doorway.
3. The Five Elements
There are five basic elements that need to be included in a room for the ultimate balance and to relieve stress. These five elements include:
- Wood signifies growth and renewal and can be introduced with live plants, vertical stripes or even pictures or images of plant-life.
- Metal, the purest element, signifies completion and is best used in a circular form.
- Earth brings stability to an environment and nourishes. Earth tones and square shapes are the best way to bring this element into a space.
- Fire is all about passion and emotion and is brought into a room through good lighting and triangular shapes.
- Water, both still and flowing, promotes inner depth and communication respectively.
These five elements should be brought into the home more or less depending on the different seasons.
4. The Bagua
The Feng Shui Bagua Map can be applied to any space to address specific issues in your life.
Identifying the areas in your life that could use some help and then placing these in the map will help determine the best ways to transfer good chi or energy to the needed places.
Think about your emotional, physical and mental state and determine where you are in pain or where you feel distress.
Health should always be placed in the prime position in the middle of the Bagua Map. As stress is directly related to your health, this is an important aspect to alleviate stress.
However, stress also affects the mental and emotional state so the entire map needs to be taken into account.
It is recommended to get a Feng Shui expert to assist you with the use of a Bagua Map in order to use it correctly and accurately.
5. Meditation
Meditation is a key factor for stress relief in Feng Shui. It brings the mind, body and soul into harmony with the environment.
Being mindful of your surroundings during meditation is important. Close your eyes and open your other senses. Listen to the sounds that you would normally not pay attention to. Smell the air and become aware of the taste in your mouth.
Feel the air on your skin and take note of each body part and how it feels, starting at the tips of your toes to the top of your head.
You can add fragrances, sounds and other sensory elements to promote stress relief to your meditation environment or space.
For example, burning some types of essential oils will activate the senses and alleviate stress.
6. The Bedroom
The bedroom is the primary location for renewal and rejuvenation as your body heals while you sleep. The placement of furniture elements in this room is therefore of prime importance.
Always treat the bedroom as a 3 dimensional space when placing different elements. Height is as important as where in a room certain furniture items are placed and the direction that they face.
Color and light are also important in balancing the energy in a room as are the prints and images placed in the area. The types of fabrics and materials used in the space can also contribute or detract from the overall Feng Shui in the bedroom.
If you feel comfortable, secure and nurtured in your bedroom, your Feng Shui elements are in balance.
7. Noise And EMF Pollution
Just as a cluttered space contributes to stress, a noisy environment with high EMF (electromagnetic frequency) emissions can heighten stress levels. Ensuring a quiet environment is absolutely essential to a calm and stress-free life.
EMF Radiation on the other hand can be a little more difficult to identify and deal with. All electrical equipment, appliances and devices emit these frequencies. Turning off the power to these items will help minimize stress.
8. The Air You Breathe
Clean air is essential to the body and promotes general health and well being as well as decreasing stress levels.
Simply opening the windows and doors to allow fresh air to flow throughout your environment will help you breathe easier.
A stuffy environment will also result in a lack of oxygen in the blood and brain. This will in turn cause a lack of focus and concentration that will increase stress levels.
On a physical level, oxygen deprivation can cause headaches as well as muscle and joint pain.
9. The Kitchen
Many people underestimate the value of a Feng Shui kitchen to contribute to stress relief. Food preparation and cooking should be a relaxing experience and contribute to a feeling of calm and nourishment.
Ideally, the stove top and oven should face away from a wall and the basins or sinks should face a window to balance the wind and water aspect of Feng Shui.
An open plan kitchen that allows the aromas of cooking food to flood the entire environment is optimal to contributing to a feeling of warmth and homeliness in a house.
Placing vanilla in the oven and heating it slightly is a great way to bring back childhood memories of safety, security and being nurtured.
10. The Bathroom
The Feng Shui in your bathroom is very, very important for stress relief. In and of itself, hot water is one of the best solutions to stress, relieving tension and simply washing away the cares of a stressful day.
On the other hand, due to the frequent use of this area throughout the day, energy can accumulate in this area, giving the bathroom the worst reputation in Feng Shui.
But this does not mean that the problematic area cannot be remedied to contribute to stress relief. Placing the bath along a wall without a window is optimal and freestanding baths in the middle of the area are considered to be bad Feng Shui.
Depending on the location of your bathroom in your Bagua Map, you can use different elements to increase Feng Shui to reduce stress.
These elements can be in the form of color, shapes as well as items that are made in the desired element.
Having just one bathroom in a home can also contribute to stress. An addition of an extra washing space can alleviate this stress. However, the placement of a new bathroom is of utmost importance.
Ideally, it should never be aligned with the front door or any other doors for that matter. Pay special attention to this alignment when creating a new bathroom upstairs.
Placement above a bedroom is also not ideal. Also make sure that the addition does not fall in any of the Bagua areas which could be problematic.
Conclusion
Feng Shui can provide a number of other stress reduction solutions and techniques.
To make the most of these top ten tips and to integrate them with the other solutions, it may be best to seek professional advice from a Feng Shui expert.