Start With the Bedroom

One of the most important places for practicing good feng shui is the bedroom, where it is easy to allow the energy to be "too yin," with lack of sunshine and fresh air—a combination that creates stagnant chi and can manifest itself in illness. Here is how the set-up of your bedroom can help your chi:

• Sleeping in a room located at the end of a long hallway can cause the flow of energy in that spot to be too strong and can cause poor health.
• If possible, a bedroom door should not open directly onto a bathroom, and a bed should never be placed against a wall that is shared by a toilet.
• Bedroom doors should also not open onto a staircase, which could allow bad chi to enter the room, or face the corner edge of another room, which can block chi and cause circulatory problems.
• Any bedroom that has been occupied by someone who was ill, should get a good airing, bright light, and a fresh coat of paint to create a burst of positive, yang energy.

Placement of the bed is equally important. Here are some taboos offered by Lillian Too in her book, Feng Shui Fundamentals: Health:

• Never sleep with a mirror facing the bed."A mirror in the bedroom is one of the most harmful of feng shui features—[as it] creates health problems connected with the heart. Mirrors above the bed are equally harmful." A television counts as a mirror because it also reflects; if you must have a TV or mirror in the bedroom, cover it when it's not being used.
• Never sleep with a water feature behind your bed. A painting of a lake or waterfall—or, worse yet, an aquarium—has the same effect on the heart as a mirror.
• Never sleep with the sharp edge of a corner pointed at you. The sharp edge of a corner is a deadly form of poison arrow that brings the "killing breath." Use furniture to disguise the sharp edge.
• Never sleep under an exposed overhead beam. If the beam is directly over your head, you may suffer from migraines and headaches. If it crosses at chest level, you can usher in problems with the heart, lungs, and other respiratory problems. Beams are not a good feng shui feature in any room.

Move to the Kitchen

Kitchens, too, are important places to practice feng shui for health. If your kitchen directly faces a bedroom, for instance, your home's yin (bedroom) and yang (kitchen) energies could clash and bring continuous illness to family members. Nor should the kitchen door be in a straight line from either the front or back door; good energy shoots through the home without dispersing, resulting first in "annoying illness," Lillian Too writes, then progressing to more serious misfortune. Solve this layout by hanging a mirror on one of the outside doors so positive energy will not leave so quickly.

More Directions for Good Chi

Many feng shui books (including Too's) contain tables that help readers calculate the "best health direction" for their homes. The stove should always point in that direction (as should the head of the bed). The stove, which symbolizes the fire element in feng shui, should never be located next to the sink—which would bring a clash of the fire and water elements—and should never sit in the northwest area of the room, which would be tantamount to "setting fire to heaven's gate."

"This is because the trigram chien, which stands for heaven, the source of all good luck, rules the northwest," Too warns. "Placing a cooker there will [set] fire to the source of good luck energy."