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Feng Shui Your Dorm Room for Improved Grades and Reduced Stress

William Frierson AvatarWilliam Frierson
October 4, 2013


Amanda Greene

Amanda Greene

Feng Shui is an ancient Chinese practice of balancing and optimizing the “chi” or flow of energy throughout your living and working space. By following the home décor and design guidelines for Feng Shui, you can set up your dorm room to improve your environment and reduce stress. Feng Shui also can be arranged to help you focus on certain areas of your life that you want to improve upon such as relationships, success, health, career, and more.

Dealing with a Small Dorm Room

Dorm rooms can definitely receive a great deal of benefits from Feng Shui in that in addition to helping improve the “chi” of your living space, it can also help you to use your limited space more efficiently. Dorm rooms are known for having limited space, but using Feng Shui design principles coupled with space saving techniques can greatly improve your living space. Having a cleaner and clutter free room helps improve thought processes because of fewer distractions and teaches better organization skills. Loving your living space also helps you relax more and sleep better; all of these things combined lead to better performance at school and improved grades.

Clear the Clutter, Improve Thinking

Clearing clutter clears your mind and one of the most important Feng Shui principles is to reduce clutter. This is especially important in small dorm rooms. Even if you do not believe in Feng Shui, you cannot argue that have a clean, clutter free living space that is nicely designed isn’t a wonderful thing. Keeping your dorm room neat and organized will help you avoid distractions when studying and helps aide memory since your mind is clear too. Here are some tips for reducing dorm room clutter:

  • Go Digital. Try not to print out school papers. Ask your professors if you can email assignments or hand them over in a digital format. If you do need to print things, try not to keep them around. Instead scan and digitize them when you are done with the paper version. This will improve your room’s cleanliness factor and help save the environment. Tie up all of your electronic cords and keep them as neat as possible.
  • Space Saving Tricks. Use dual purpose space savers whenever possible: storage under the bed, loft beds, ottomans with storage inside, vacuum bags, double space hangars, etc.
  • Clean Your Bathroom. These rules apply to your bathroom as well as your living space.
  • Clean Each Day. Part of keeping everything neat and in order means not letting things get out of control. Taking just a few minutes each day to straighten up a bit will eliminate a dorm room disaster from occurring. Feng Shui rules also say to empty the garbage every day, even if it is not full.
  • Less is More. The less you have to clean, the easier this is too, so do not keep things around that you do not need. Pack up things you do not need and send them back home or put them in storage; this includes clothes for other seasons and old school work that you want to hang onto, but do not necessarily need in your dorm room.

Mapping Out Your Dorm Room for Harmony and Balance

There are 5 elements in Feng Shui: wood, metal, water, earth, and fire. Each element also has a corresponding color that can be used in coordination with or instead of that element. There are 9 areas in each room. Placing the colors or elements in the appropriate area will lead towards helping with that goal in your life. A dorm room may be too small to incorporate all 9, so you can choose to focus on the ones that are important to you at that time.

While Feng Shui is about finding harmony and balance in your life, you can focus on certain goals you wish to achieve. There are actually nine areas of any room or home that represent different parts of your life. We will cover a few that are likely to be most important to a college student. Focusing on any of those specific areas will help you with those areas of your life at any given time.

Feng Shui Design Do’s and Don’ts

  • Add Plants. Adding plants to your dorm room cleans and purifies the air. Studies have shown that having plants that purify the air indoors lead to better productivity since they remove bacteria and germs and make it less likely you will get sick or catch colds from others.
  • Eliminate Sharp Corners. In Feng Shui, sharp corners cause problems and conflict. This can cause issues with roommates and class mates. If you have a choice over your furniture, do not purchase any with sharp corners. If your furniture was already chosen, you can soften sharp edges with fabrics or plants.
  • Put Electronics Away When You Sleep. Electronics are said to interfere with the environment and can disrupt sleep and relaxation. Also, simple psychology says out of sight, out of mind. Give your brain a break from thinking about school work for a while.
  • Add Water Elements. A water element like a fountain or a small fish tank helps promote learning and wisdom as well as renewal and energy flow.
  • Cover Mirrors. According to Feng Shui rules, mirrors should not be next to, above, or in front of your bed. Since it is probably impossible for this not to be the case in a small dorm room, your best bet is to cover the mirror when you are not using it. Placing a favorite picture in front of it can also help you with some other goals if it meets the right color and location according to the Bagua map.
  • Avoid Conflict. Feng Shui principles help us to avoid problems as well as increasing the positivity. One of the main things to avoid is an oven across from the sink. If your dorm room has a kitchen or if you are adding a small cooking element, make sure it does not sit across from the sink or water.

Bio: Amanda Greene is author and Brand Manager at Residence Hall Linens. She enjoys sharing college and dorm life tips and ideas.

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