Feng shui — literally "wind and water" — is a several-thousand-year-old Chinese system for understanding the relationship between physical environment and human wellbeing. At its foundation is the concept of qi (pronounced "chee"), the life force or vital energy that flows through all living things and through environments. Feng shui practitioners assess how qi moves through a space: where it gets stuck, where it rushes through too quickly, where it pools and stagnates. The goal is to create conditions where qi circulates freely — entering through well-placed doors and windows, flowing through clean and uncluttered pathways, collecting in areas where people spend time resting or working. What this means practically is attention to things like the placement of furniture relative to doors, the quality of light, the organization of objects, and the relationship between the building and its immediate landscape.

The most important feng shui principle for a home is what practitioners call the commanding position: placing yourself — when you sleep, work, or sit — in a position where you can see the door without being directly in line with it. This is not mystical; it is evolutionary. Humans are psychologically more relaxed and alert when they can see what's coming without feeling exposed. A bed facing a door with your back to a wall creates a very different psychological experience than a bed where you can't see the entrance at all. Beyond furniture placement, feng shui emphasizes clutter as one of the most significant problems in modern homes — clutter represents stuck, unmoved energy, and the environments we inhabit have a measurable effect on our mental clarity. You don't need to believe in qi as a metaphysical substance to find genuine value in the underlying insight: our spaces shape us, and shaping them intentionally changes how we feel and function.