Feng Shui was born 5,000 years ago in China and is the discipline that explains the psycho-physical-emotional effects that the environment produces on humans. It is the “bridge” that clarifies how the quality of the space in which man lives, works and moves, affects the quality of his health and his life. It is the “ancient bridge” between Architecture and Neuroscience to design, furnish and organize an Empathic Space.
The origins
The study of the relationship between man and environment is not exclusive to Chinese civilization, in the culture of ancient civilizations there has always been the study of the territory in order to identify the optimal position to settle cities or build particular buildings. After all, even the Roman civilization, with its “Genius Loci”, wanted to give authority and sacredness to a place more advantageous than others, for the survival and life of the human being. Unlike other populations, for historical and cultural reasons, Chinese society has managed to carry on all this ancient knowledge over the millennia.
Unfortunately, in the 70s when Feng Shui arrived in the West (firstly in the United States), the first consultants made it pass as a magical or esoteric practice, trying to immediately make a commercial profit, trivializing this profound discipline as a simple “Feng Shui fashion”. Practicing Feng Shui does not mean, as many clichés report, filling the house with Chinese furniture and objects or putting fountains, bells and crystals inside the house (which become forgotten dust collectors on some shelf), or having the head of the bed to the north or avoiding an iron bed!
Building, designing and furnishing with Feng Shui means neglecting popular beliefs and superstitions (often manipulative), to decode and interpret the environment, first external then internal to the home, so that the concrete elements present in it can stimulate people who live there with sensations of ease, safety and relaxation, to reduce the level of stress and strengthen the immune system, guaranteeing quality rest.
The meaning
Feng means “wind” and Shui means “water”, these are the two main elements that shape the landscape in Nature and which, according to archetypal ancient Chinese culture, are associated with joy, health and prosperity.
In a territory where the wind (which carries the seeds of plants) and the water (which feeds them) are present and in harmony with each other, there are the conditions to create abundance, bring stability and develop life and society in a positive and favorable way, ensuring respect for the Nature that hosts it.
Feng Shui is based on the knowledge of the Yin/Yang Theory and on the Theory of the 5 Elements, fundamental doctrines at the base of Traditional Chinese Medicine, the same theories that the Meridian System draws on, necessary to practice Acupuncture (a discipline that in Italy can only be practiced by doctors). It is no coincidence, let’s see the parallelism.
The house, for Feng Shui, is considered as an organism in which the mind, emotions and physiology of the person are projected into a limited space, like a second skin. We choose a house because we feel that it looks like us (acting as a mirror, it reflects and represents who we are, in our strengths and weaknesses).
Feng Shui is to the house, as Acupuncture is to the body, just as Feng Shui has a course of study apart from the Faculty of Architecture, Acupuncture has a course of study all its own compared to the Faculty of Medicine. It is no accident.
The doctor who wants to find other answers and go to the cause of the pathologies the patients are complaining of, approaches Chinese Medicine and integrates Acupuncture into his practice. The architect who wants the designed space to have an impact on health, in terms of neuro-bio-chemical response, integrates (authentic) Feng Shui into his/her skills and approaches Chinese Medicine.
Feng Shui is the Chinese discipline that explains the psycho-physical-emotional effects that the external and internal elements of an environment cause on man.
Its purpose is to improve people’s health by improving the quality of the space in which they live or work, through distributive and stylistic design interventions.
Its analysis tools and design interventions make use of the Theories of Traditional Chinese Medicine (Yin/Yang theory and the 5 Elements Theory), applying them in the external and internal context of the home or workplace.
The home is a facilitator of well-being and life
The home must restore the general psycho-physical-emotional state of the person, as the body responds with an internal biochemical reaction (activated by the nervous, endocrine and immunological apparatus) to the concrete stimuli present in the living space and received by the sensory system.
The home must respond to practical-material needs (sleeping, eating, containing, hosting, etc.) and to emotional and psychological needs. For example, I need to feel more productive and focused, I would like to communicate more with my child and to be able to finish what I start, I want my relationship to work perfectly, I would like to have more confidence in myself, I would like more listening and understanding, I want to improve my relationship with food, I need to let the past go, I want to smile again, I want to feel more united with my parents, I want more serenity in relationships, I want to understand what I want to do in life, I need more sharing at home, I want to be stronger at work, etc.
Have you ever wondered how a home is designed and furnished to meet these needs?
What colours, shapes, furniture positioning, images, materials, scents, sunny qualities, etc. are needed to respond to these emotional needs?
Feng Shui translates these needs into interventions at the planimetric, distributive and stylistic level, so that they can be satisfied!
Doing Feng Shui does NOT mean building in green building
Bio-architecture is a construction method designed to improve human health and respect for the environment by favoring the use of non-polluting materials and techniques that allow energy savings.
Here the concept of health is understood as healthiness and living comfort (i.e. creating a good air circulation, avoiding the rising of humidity and the formation of mold, economic and energy saving, etc.), and it is NOT a design process that takes into account the understanding of the neuro-biochemical processes activated by the brain in response to the continuous interaction with certain concrete elements of space such as paths, open-and-closed-areas, open-and-closed spaces, colours, shapes, materials, images etc..
There would not be mold in the house, but certain design (such as irregular floor plans, houses on several levels, the presence of stairs, etc.) and stylistic choices (such as large window openings, beds, desks and sofas positioned with “openings behind “, prevalence of gray, black, white, dove gray, brown on the wall or in the furniture, gray, cold, aseptic materials on the floor, on the walls and in the furniture, too strong or too low lights for example. ) keep the level of unconscious alert high, do not satisfy the ancestral sense of security, procuring a production, albeit minimal, of adrenaline, making you rest badly (with all the psycho-physical-emotional consequences), activating the stress system, keeping you more alert, nervous, irascible, removing harmony in the couple, lowering the quality of listening and communication in the family.
What does this mean in practice? That you live in a house that will certainly have healthy indoor air, little humidity, savings in bills and respect for the environment, but it does not facilitate the psychic-emotional-physical well-being of its inhabitants, even less induces virtuous behavior.
Space – Body Relation: an Empathic Space
Has it ever happened to you to go to a place and have perceived by instinct to feel comfortable or not? This is also what happens with people, when you like someone and someone else doesn’t, right?
In some places you feel good, at ease and feel feelings of relaxation, security, control, joy and enthusiasm, in others you feel feelings of alertness, discomfort, impatience, you feel more rigid and contracted and maybe you can’t wait to go out (maybe when you are in a waiting room). In both cases, also your Physiology, your body language (called analogue), changes and will express itself in a different way through breathing, posture, gestures, modulation of the voice, etc. manifesting in a non-verbal way the emotion you are feeling.
What happened? How did this process happen (which many put under the abused name of “energy”)? What are the elements of space, which received from your sensory system (connected directly to the limbic system), triggered this biochemical reaction inside the body?
The concrete and tangible elements involved in this dialogue between environment and body intervene from the technical design (already at the planimetric project level), up to the definition of the style of the environment with the interior design and organization of the space. Just to name a few:
- the shape of the floor plan
- the distribution of housing functions
- the ease and fluidity of moving from one room to another
- the way in which the body moves between the rooms, following the paths designed at planimetric level etc.
- external and internal natural or artificial elements
- the colours (on the walls, in the furniture or elsewhere, etc.)
- the type and levels of lighting chosen for the rooms (general, work or atmosphere, suspended, ceiling, ground, etc.)
- the type and style of furniture
- the type of finishes and materials chosen for the covering, floor, furniture etc…
- the type of shapes present or to be inserted (e.g. round, square, angular, triangular, elongated shapes just to give some examples)
- the type of images, decor ideas and similar
- the quality of temperature
- the presence of odors
- the presence of particular noises
- the presence and proportion of open-and-closed parts (i.e. doors, windows, portals, niches, etc.)
- the proportion of full-and-empty volumes (very high or low ceilings, areas that are too full or too bare, etc.)
- the presence of order (or too much order that borders on perfection), disorder, accumulations, etc.
Entering a space, the receptors of the 5 senses pick up all the analogue elements, which are normally mixed together and “send” a message to the limbic system (to which it is directly connected), which processes it and responds with a biochemical reaction through the activation of the three main human systems: nervous – endocrine – immunological. This reaction is one of relaxation (and you feel comfortable, safe, in control of the situation, more open to dialogue and listening) or contraction (your unconscious is on alert, on edge, ready to get run away or fight as it perceives hostility that threatens your “survival”)
In summary: SPACE is able to influence your PHYSIOLOGY and arouse in you different EMOTIONAL STATES that create a cascade effect manifesting in a BODY RESPONSE, which pushes you to activate certain BEHAVIORS rather than others.
A space that follows the design concept dictated by the principles of Feng Shui becomes an Empathic Space that helps you feel good and act in a virtuous way.
Space and Health
Feng Shui and the Architecture of Wellness, originating in the theories of Chinese Medicine, deeply integrates the concept of a holistic vision of the health of the person, according to which the human being is a system in which body-mind-space-emotions affect each other. For Chinese Medicine, body-and-consciousness are two sides of the same coin, inseparable aspects that the human being reflects in his relationships, in his home and in his life.
For this reason, the technical and interior design of spaces, from the study of the planimetric shape to the style of the environment, manages to connect the quality of the space to the quality of health through three macro areas of well-being:
- REDUCE THE STRESS SYSTEM through a technical and stylistic design of the space that (re-) knows the dialogue between space and body and uses the appropriate methods to correctly prepare the above analog elements (lights, colors, shapes, materials, full-and-empty , open-and-closed etc …) avoiding wrong combinations that put the limbic part (in particular the amygdala and the hypothalamus) of the person in a state of alert and therefore maintaining a sense of ease and relaxation that reduces unconscious stress alert (whether true or just evoked), which in turn reduces the induced adrenaline-and-cortisol production. These neurotransmitters and hormones are produced by the adrenal glands, located above the kidneys. For Chinese Medicine the kidneys are the most important organ of the body because they contain all our vital lymph that is given to us at birth (JING), which runs out over the course of life (determining our greater or lesser longevity), without possibility to be regenerated. It just needs to be kept at its best. By reducing the stress on the adrenals, stress on the kidneys is reduced and the lifeblood is preserved longer, allowing us to live longer.
- STRENGTHENING THE ENDOCRINE IMMUNE SYSTEM AND THE WHOLE SYSTEM OF THE CIRCADIAN CYCLE through a precise and careful technical and stylistic design of the bedroom, and do you know why? Because these biological systems and functions are strengthened and regenerated through quality rest.
The human being is a mammal and the limbic part every time it is in the moment of letting go of tensions and letting go of every grip, as in the moment before falling asleep, entering the world of dreams and the unconscious, must perceive a great sense of safety, control, ease and relaxation. Furthermore, the bedroom is archetypically linked to the function of representing the quality of intimacy (again to procreate and carry on the human species), so the correct design of the bedroom is fundamental (and a good intimacy strengthens the couple, the complicity and support of the family).
- STRENGTHEN THE SENSE OF ANCESTRAL SECURITY through a precise and careful technical and stylistic design of all the elements that allow the inhabitants of the house to control the “territory” represented by the house itself. The human being is a diurnal mammal and therefore, in analogy and integration with the nature that hosts us, Feng Shui uses principles, schemes and priorities of analysis to design and furnish the positioning of the housing functions primarily at a technical and furniture at the interior level to satisfy the need for control and safety we need at the reptile brain level.
Architecture and Neuroscience – Outline of PNEI and EPIGENETICS
(imagine: architettura-neuroscienzeruffillisilviafengshuipnei)
PNEI
PNEI, an acronym for Psycho-Neuro-Endocrine-Immunology, is the science that studies the bidirectional relationships between psycho-emotional dynamics and biological systems such as: nervous system, endocrine system and immune system, human systems that are stimulated and alerted based on stimuli received also from the outside. Refer to the link https://sipnei.it/cosa-la-pnei/ for further information and I suggest the scientific bibliographic reference “Epigenetics and Psycho-neuro-endocrine-immunology” by Francesco Bottaccioli Ed. Edra.
The PNEI System is therefore a network system, discovered with laboratory tests in the 1970s by the famous neuroscientist and pharmacologist researcher Candace Pert. In her wonderful book “Molecules of Emotions”, Pert explains the discovery of neuropeptides and receptors and everything that at a biochemical level is produced by the body in the face of psychic and emotional stimuli experienced, finally offering that scientificity and replicable laboratory tests, to the holistic view of the health of the person for whom emotional management is involved in the health care process.
Space arouses moods, acting on an emotional and behavioral level, therefore it becomes an activator of the PNEI System.
EPIGENETIC
Epigenetics is the discipline that studies changes in gene expression, not caused by changes in the DNA sequence. It is the study of those variations in the expression of our genes, which are not caused by real genetic mutations, but by the environment and behaviors and which can influence an individual’s risk of diseases and can be heritable, transmitted from parents to children.
An epigenetic modification can take place in response to external environmental stimuli that affect the environment around us, our lifestyle (including nutrition, exercise, exposure to chemicals, age etc) and our state of health. In a sense, an epigenetic modification can be understood as an adaptive change operated by the cells.
For further information I leave the link with an article well done for the “non-experts” and a couple of scientific bibliographic references: “Epigenetics and Psycho-neuro-endocrine-immunology” by Francesco Bottaccioli Ed. Edra and “Meditation, Psyche and Brain” by F. Bottaccioli and A. Carosella Ed. Tecniche Nuove.
So not only what is written in our original genes, inherited from our parents matters, but also and above all, the overwriting that occurs in these basic genes through our lifestyle: what we do, how we eat, if we exercise physical, how we manage emotions, if we sleep adequately, how we relate to others, if we live in a healthy space or not; all this is written as new notes on gene expression supplied.
The quality of the home and workplace in which we live, work and sleep, becomes an important part of creating favorable conditions aimed at leaving positive “gene notes” favorable to physical – psychic – emotional wellbeing.
Conclusions
The quality of life can be modified by applying the principles of Living and Organizational Wellbeing.
The Wellbeing Living uses Feng Shui and the Architecture of Wellbeing which studies the influence of Space on the Body-Mind-Emotions System and provides the tools to design, furnish and create harmonious and balanced environments.
The Organizational Well-being makes use of Space Psychology which studies the ways in which the person reports his dysfunctional mental and emotional patterns in the management and handling of objects, using the tools of Decluttering and Organization to overcome them and promote psycho balance -physical-emotional.