The Feng Shui Faux Pas That Create Negative Energy In Your Bedroom

Out of all the rooms in your home, your bedroom should be the one that offers you the most peaceful, serene, and restorative energy. The state of the place where you sleep is essential to your ability to rest, recover, and reset after each long day. "Creating a peaceful and calming sleep environment ... helps you to get that deeper, more quality sleep that we all strive for," physician and certified sleep specialist Angela Holliday-Bell, M.D. told Apartment Therapy. "And [it] makes it easier to make the transition from sleep to wakefulness."

This basic truth goes hand in hand with the teachings of feng shui — the practice of using strategic home design to manipulate the flow of energy within your house. When it comes to the bedroom, there are many feng shui principles that can potentially be used to maximize the flow of positive energy and minimize access for negative or excessive energy. The aspect that stands out the most, however, is the placement of the item that represents the entire purpose of the room: the bed. Those who utilize feng shui believe that the way you position — and don't position — your bed can make a major difference in how energy flows through your bedroom.

There are several feng shui best practices that you can use to improve the flow of energy in your bedroom. However, the most important one is the position of your bed in relation to the room's door. Ideally, you'll be able to see the door from your bed, but it shouldn't be directly opposite the foot of your bed. This is referred to as the commanding position, which allows energy to flow through the room without bombarding you while you sleep.

The most serious mistake you can make in your bedroom is positioning your bed in what is known as the coffin position. In this position, the door and bed align perfectly opposite each other, so that your feet point directly at the door when you lie in bed. This leaves you vulnerable to all the energy coming from the other side of the door, which can disrupt your ability to sleep. If the coffin position is unavoidable in your bedroom, however, there is a workaround. "If there is no other option, hang a windchime or round faceted crystal from the ceiling between the bed and the door," feng shui expert Melissa Waite Stamps suggested to Homes & Gardens.

Next on the list of bed placement considerations is windows. According to feng shui, life force energy (qi) flows into a home through its doors and out of the home through its windows. For this reason, as well as fostering a general feeling of safety against possible intruders, it is recommended that you avoid placing your bed against or under a window. "The presence of a window behind the bed can remove the sense of security and create a sensation of vulnerability during sleep," interior designer Sylvia Li told Livingetc. If you can't avoid having windows behind or above your bed, don't worry, feng shui offers a way to counteract this type of situation too: curtains.

Cover any windows behind or above your bed with curtains to soften the energy exchange that can happen through them. Matching the color of the curtains to the color of the bedroom walls can help the problematic window(s) blend into the room visually and be nearly forgotten. Other windows, of course, can be dressed in complementary colors, opened, closed, and celebrated as usual. Don't forget to open them to let energy out if you partake in any type of sound or smoke cleansing (such as sage burning) ritual.

When you're busy arranging your room according to doors, windows, and walls, it's easy to overlook what might be going on overhead. However, according to feng shui principles, you should avoid placing your bed under a beam or a sloped ceiling. These features can trap, separate, or disrupt the flow of energy through the space and put energetic pressure on your body as you sleep.

For example, if you sleep with a partner, a ceiling beam that runs vertically between the two of you on the ceiling can separate your energies. If moving your bed to another area of the room is not an option, you can approach a ceiling beam in the same way you would an unavoidable window. Cover it with soft fabric that matches the color of the ceiling to soften its effects and blend away its visual impact. Remember, there's nothing that can't be worked around.

The head of your bed is where you lay your own head to rest and recover as you drift off to sleep in complete vulnerability to the energy around you. For starters, your bed should have a headboard attached. Solid wood or fabric with rounded edges — feng shui tells us — is best for keeping you grounded and protected as you sleep. Where you place this headboard within the room, of course, is of even more importance.

Your bed's headboard should always be placed against a wall but with a tiny gap between to allow energy to flow. Not just any wall, though. Your headboard should never share a wall with a toilet or with electric appliances, as both can disturb the flow of energy around you as you sleep. If such a wall is unavoidable, hanging a mirror above your headboard can create the illusion of more space behind the bed, neutralizing the energy of the items on the other side of it.

As you navigate your bedroom in search of the perfect place to put your bed according to feng shui practices, don't forget to plan out your open spaces. Rather than pushing your bed into a corner, try to leave at least a very narrow space on each side. This field of open space allows energy to flow around your bed, balancing your yin and yang energies and making an energetic space for a partner (even one who hasn't been found yet).

In addition to the benefits for energy flow, moving your bed away from corners can also create space for a small meditation or journaling area. "Establish space within the room to promote and encourage rituals that bring a conclusion to the day and help you enter the sleep world peacefully," feng shui expert Joan Kaufman told House Digest. "Meditation, spirituality, and other practices bridge the gap between awake and asleep and touch into dreams."

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