Feng Shui In The Kitchen

The kitchen is the most important area of your home. It is responsible for nourishing your entire family and keeping everyone happy and healthy. In feng shui, the kitchen is a symbol of wealth and abundance also.

The optimal place for your kitchen is the center of your home. If the kitchen is located near the front or back door, the positive energy can escape.

Food gives us all of our energy and enables us to remain healthy. To keep this food energy positive and healing, the food has to be cooked in an organized kitchen that maintains a good balance of Chi. By having a well balanced and energized kitchen, the cook becomes more energized and the entire family benefits.

The best tips for the kitchen are pretty basic and should go hand in hand with the rest of your home very easily. Lighting is an important part of feng shui and in the kitchen, there should be an abundance of natural light if available and if not, full spectrum lighting is recommended. The air should flow nicely and the kitchen should give off a very welcoming energy.

A great way to add positive energy to your kitchen is by using plants and flowers. When placed on your kitchen table, they are not only beautiful to look at but increase the positive energy level greatly. You should use plants and flowers that are yellowish in color because in feng shui, yellow is a great digestive aid.

Like the rest of the house, clutter should be kept as minimal as possible. Since this is the very heart of the home, keep it as happy and warm as possible.

Feng Shui Interior Design

Translated to English, Feng Shui roughly means
wind-water.

Feng Shui is essentially the art of arranging objects
to achieve harmony in the surrounding environment.

Not only is Feng Shui used in interior design, it is
used in choosing a place to live, a burial spot and
agricultural planning.

It is highly believed that Feng Shui has an effect on
health, wealth and personal relationships. Feng Shui
is a traditional Chinese practice.

Early Feng Shui interior design relied on astronomy to
find the symmetry between humans and the universe.

The early Chinese often used the celestial poles
determined by the pole stars to determine the north
and south. Feng Shui instruments dating back to 278
and 209 BC have been unearthed from tombs.

As practiced today, the goal of Feng Shui is to
situate the human designed environment on spots with
good qi.

Spots are determined by an axis in time. Feng Shui
teaches that areas that are not suitable for human
settlement should be left in their natural state.

Qi, pronounced Chi, literally means air. In Fung Shui,
Qi is the flow of energy and may be based on a form of
solar energy.

Polarity in feng shui is known as ying and yang.

This is the absolute balance between two entities. It
is the good and the bad, the living and the dead, and
is one of the key principals behind Feng Shui interior
design.

Most Westerners knew nothing about Feng Shui until
1972 when Richard Nixon visited The People’s Republic
of China.

New Age by western entrepreneurs then reinvented Feng
Shui. Feng Shui now speaks to the profound role of
magic, mystery and order in American life.

Green Interior Design

With so much of the country these days working on ways
of saving our planet and going green it is not
surprising that green has found its way into interior
design.

A building cannot be green on the outside without
being on the inside. Energy conservation is a key step
to going green so it only seems fitting that the first
step to a green interior design is to plan rooms with
energy sensitive lighting.

Green interior design can also reflect the energy a
home gives off and uses up. You want a home that can
be kept thermally comfortable while keeping the energy
consumption at a low.

Green methods of thermal comfort can include solar
heating units, thermostat set backs and good home
insulation.

Insulating the home is one of the biggest money
savers, and many people don’t realize that going green
may also have tax deduction advantages.

The approach of insulation can be applied to newer
homes as well as older ones.

Fine-tuning a green interior can take some work but it
can allow you to reduce energy costs without losing
design quality.

Additional ways to conserve energy in a home can
include covering walls with fabric gathered on a rod
at the top and bottom, using closets as buffers on
north or west walls, adding a heat lamp to a bathroom
to take the chill off on a cold morning, use thermal
wallpaper to insulate and using foil wallpaper to
reflect heat back into the interior.

Also, using filled bookcases on outside, non-mass
walls act as insulation, large decorative rugs,
tapestries or fabric wall hangings on outside non-mass
walls also add insulation.

There are many steps you can take to go green with
your interior design. A quick Internet search can give
you a lot of ideas.

Feng Shui For The Bedroom

The master or main bedroom is the most important bedroom of the entire house. Everything from the harmony of the house to the finances of the house can be influenced by the master bedroom.

There are four major factors you should consider about it. What shape is the bedroom? Where is the bed? What area of the house is it in? What is used for decoration? These all play a pivotal role in the flow of energy in the house.

The shape of the bedroom is very important in feng shui. A rectangular or square room is the best. If your bedroom is oddly shaped, you can use a room divider to help it maintain a more rectangular shape.

The bed shouldnt face a door or protruding edge of any kind. These are both symbols of negative energy and can be impossible to correct without moving the bed.

You should also avoid having any overhead beams above the bed or windows behind the headboard. Mirrors facing the bed also negatively affect the Chi of the area.

The ideal place for the master bedroom is in the Northwest of the house. This might not always be possible however and the next best choice is the Southwest. These two areas represent the Patriarch and Matriarch respectably.

Decorations are important but you dont want to overdo it. Depending on what your goals are, you can configure and energize the bedroom for romance, marriage, or relationships. You should avoid energizing the bedroom for luck in wealth.

Acupuncture And Tai Chi For Stress Management

Acupuncture and tai chi are methods which many people believe can help to release the flow of energy throughout the body. These ancient forms of health care are becoming more and more commonly used in the western hemisphere, as people realize the benefits to their health and well-being.

In a study conducted at Yale University Medical School in the 1990’s acupuncture was demonstrated to significantly reduce stress. The study showed that the technique succeeded in lowering blood pressure, anxiety state, heart rate and electrodermal activities in the majority of test subjects.

In a second study, published in 1998, acupuncture was successful in treating 85.7 percent of test subjects with General Anxiety Disorder.

Acupuncture is considered a holistic medicine, and those who are treated generally experience no side effects. This is in stark contrast to the many side effects often experienced by patients taking prescription medications to reduce the affects anxiety and stress.

While acupuncture requires the use of very small, fine needles applied to specific areas of the body, tai chi is a non-invasive form of acupuncture, which requires no needles to be effective.

Both procedures have been shown to reduce the presence of certain chemicals in the body which are produced at high levels during periods of stress. Additionally these procedures help to optimize nerve transmissions along the spine, and stimulate the internal organs, increasing their ability to function properly.

To find a licensed and certified acupuncture therapist visit the “National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine” on the web.

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