The technical and stylistic design, when well structured and organized, manages to relieve the tensions of the construction site, show the overview of the actions to be carried out, and make the right choices at the right time, without haste and with adequate assessments, in order to respond to any needs.
In particular when it is carried out with the discipline of Feng Shui and the Architecture of Wellness which allow to understand the profound connection that exists between the quality of the home space and the quality of the general physical, mental and emotional state of form.
In this article, I will explain the importance of a careful bedroom design, how it affects the quality of rest and all the health aspects connected to it, and how many disorders related to sleep, both in adults and children, are also resolved in this way.
The design of the bedroom, according to Feng Shui and the Architecture of Wellness, includes two consequential design moments:
- the first is connected to the technical and distribution project
- the second is connected to the interior design project
In this article, I will explain the first point and then I will describe the first two priorities for a good technical distribution project of the bedroom and I do not mean to refer to living comfort that involves well-ventilating rooms, avoiding molds and adjusting the right temperature, or use the correct mattress, paint with water-based paints, etc.
I will go further explaining how the elements of shape and style used to design and furnish the bedroom, interact with the limbic and reptilian part of the brain at such a deep and subtle level that the brain is able to bypass all precautions taken in comfort, like the ones mentioned above, and decide whether to “make you sleep” or not.
This happens also thanks to the neuroscientific discoveries of the last thirty years, carried out through the neuroimaging technology, in which emerged how the different parts of the brain process the elements of the environment with which it enters into interaction.
To begin with, let’s see what the role of the bedroom is according to Feng Shui, in relation to the health and life of the person and which needs it must satisfy:
- Ensure your reptilian brain that the environment is a guarantee for “ancestral safety” and ensure the mammalian perception of control during the phase of immersion in sleep. This is the most delicate phase of the day that allows to enter the dream world and to talk with the unconscious, leaving in a physical and sensory situation of maximum vulnerability and defenseless exposure.
- Ensure quality rest to allow the regeneration of the immune system, the system that defends us in our body from external, climatic, emotional pathogens, etc.
- Facilitate the strengthening of the circadian cycle, optimizing the complex “internal clock” of your body synchronized with the natural cycle of day and night. Faced with the daily cycle, the mind-body system responds with a neuro-bio-chemical reaction, activating the precise brain and biological activities, producing hormones and neurotransmitters, regenerating cells and removing unused synapses.
- Promote and represent a good couple intimacy (this is both because of the maintenance of the species as man is a diurnal mammal, and because 5000 years ago in Chinese civilization there was a need for arms for agricultural work)
The first fundamental design priority for the bedroom to meet the aforementioned needs is that it is architecturally designed as far as possible from the front door of the house.
How far away? A distance such as to allow the person, along the planimetric path, to make (or describe with the body) at least 3/4 “curves”.
And if not, then it is difficult to sleep? You sleep the same, but the quality of rest is partially compromised, it may be difficult to fall asleep, or recurrent awakenings may happen (often between 1 and 3 am), early awakenings in the morning, insomnia, morning fatigue may appear, with all the consequences that derive from disturbed sleep on health during the day and in the long term. Space affects the quality of rest because part of the energy has been spent by the brain and biochemical activity of the body in continuously checking, during the night, the safety of the bedroom.
After realizing that the bedroom is positioned away from the front door, we move on to the second design priority. Check the correct positioning of the bed.
The bed must be positioned first of all in relation to the shape of the room, based on the openings present (window, door, French doors, niches, etc.).
The head of the bed must be placed against a solid wall, which has no opening “behind” and which, once positioned, is not in line along the door-window axis.
Placing the bed in the safest spot in the whole room allows to reinforce the feeling of security and control and to let go of all tension more easily, thus promoting a deep and restorative sleep.
To meet this need, it is often necessary to “sacrifice” the dimensions of the wardrobe which will not be able to exploit the wider wall (from a storage point of view), but I remind you that 5000 years ago when Feng Shui was born together with Chinese Medicine, there was not the problem of accumulation and craming clothes, shoes and accessories, because the most important aspect was to guarantee health and longevity, through an invigorating and regenerating rest, to face the work in the fields the next morning. Chinese civilization has always been an example of longevity and a good sleep improves the health and neuro-endocrine-immune activities of our body.
The design is still at the Form level and the cardinal direction has not been detected, but you may be wondering “should the head of the bed go North?”
North headboard, true or false? Let’s reflect together
When the body enters a space it does not immediately perceive the cardinal orientation, which occurs later when the interaction with the sun is consolidated. Instead, it immediately perceives, among other things, the presence of open-and-closed areas (doors, windows, French windows, niches, etc.) that warn from which points potential threats may enter and also signal escape routes.
From these points of opening the body, through the sensory system, sees, feels and senses the presence of potential or evoked movement, which must be checked before abandoning itself to sleep.
Now, having all five senses on the front part of the body, every time we perceive a noise or movement coming from behind us (true, potential or evoked), we immediately put ourselves on alert, on who is worth, our attention is interrupted, concentration becomes superficial, we tend to look over our shoulders often, verifying that everything is okay or if something is about to happen (the same adage “having been stabbed in the back” means having been hit unexpectedly by an uncontrollable point ).
Having openings behind when lying in bed means keeping the limbic system on alert which orders the endocrine system (adrenals in this case) to produce just that much of adrenaline and cortisol that makes sleep disturbed and superficial; an alert which causes the wake up at the same or recurrent time, arriving in the morning already tired.
This condition of alertness and stress occurs every time we use a fixed location (sofa, desk, stove and sink) that has an open area with potential movement behind it, and reduces our attention, concentration and productivity, with the consequence of making us feeling nervous, short-tempered, irritable, stressed, tense, etc., and creating tensions in relationships in the family, at work, etc.
If to satisfy the myth of the “head of the bed to the north” you were to place the head of the bed next to a window or a door or a French door, this solution would make you feel exposed, vulnerable and attackable (from behind, from where you have no eyes to see) as if you were in a shop window. Are you sure you can sleep soundly, with an opening behind you, just during a moment when the stretched body and the tired mind need shelter and containment to let themselves go into the dream world of the unconscious and relieve themselves of the fatigue day?