How can Feng Shui make your bedroom a more harmonious place, and how can this improve you life? Radio86 got in touch with Feng Shui-expert and architect Howard Choy to find out.

Hello Howard! To start off with, could you tell us a little about your background.

I am a qualified architect who uses Feng Shui in my practice. And I am also a Feng Shui consultant and a teacher of Feng Shui. I graduated in architecture from the University of New South Wales, back in 1974, in Sydney. And I've been practicing the study of Feng Shui for the last 30 years. I'm classically trained, that means my teachers are all from either Hong Kong or China and used classical text in our teaching, in the learning. That's about all I can say about myself.

What colours are best in the bedroom?

Well, the choice of colours has three levels. We say in Feng Shui, the heaven, the human and the earth level. The human level means you should choose a colour that you like because it means psychologically you are attuned to this colour. The earth level means that you should pay attention to the purpose of the room. And in our case we are talking about a bedroom, and a bedroom should be quiet and calm so the colour choice should also be quiet and calm. Bright colours in the bedroom are not recommended because, you know, it's too loud. More intimate and more "qingdan" as we say in Chinese, it means light and elegant, and more simple colours are desirable in the bedroom.

The Heaven level is where the Feng Shui colour comes in, but it should be done as an accent colour and not the colour of the whole room. For example, if the Feng Shui says your bedroom needs some fire, it does not mean you should paint the whole room in bright red!
Also the sun plays a part. If your bedroom is a sunny one, then the general colour tone should be a cool one to balance out the yin and yang and if your bedroom is in a cold place then the colour should have a warmer tone. There is no one best colour that is the same for everyone, it depends on the person and the place and also the Feng Shui adjustments required.

Should one avoid a TV in the bedroom, as it's a disturbing thing, what do you say about that?

Well, in the bedroom you try to avoid disturbance, you know. So a TV should be avoided in the bedroom because you want to sleep there and often you make love in there so a TV is not a suitable equipment there. Because you tend to watch TV and pay attention, not to each other, but to the equipment, and it also disturbs you from quiet rest.

What solutions does Feng Shui offer for people who have problems with sleep?

Well, it depends what the problem is. We use the bedroom as a way of looking at issues involving health and relationship because the bedroom is where you rest and that's where you cultivate intimacy. So very often when people have problems with their relationship, with health, we take a look at their bedroom because we spend a third of our time in the bedroom. But it depends on what the situation is. Sometimes the situation, the problem, is a physical one, sometimes a psychological one or metaphysical one. So we have to find out what the issues involves before we can make any suggestions. But usually it works in two levels, the physical level and the psychological/metaphysical level. One is tangible, the other is not so tangible, and you have to try get to the body and the mind, as it were, to try to find a solution.

Is there a difference between if you are single or a couple when it
comes to furnishing the bedroom?

Yeah, if you're an adult it's best to have a double bed in your bedroom instead of a single one. Not only to give you more room but the empty space left over will always remind you it would be nice to have some partner or someone sleeping next to you. Because we don't really exist that well on our own and we always look for companions and empty space in the room reminds you of this and sort of work as a symbol. Single bedrooms, if you have a single bed you tend to remain on your own and you're quite happy with it. We also say that even in the wardrobe space you should leave some empty space, just in case. You know, the void always attracts something!

A bit of philosophy now. Love and passion are sometimes intertwined but not always. And in Feng Shui, or according to you, how does the concept of love differ from the concept of passion?

Passion is a pure form of qi. So, whatever you do in your life, you need to have passion. If you find something that's typical for you to do and you don't like it – don't do it. Because that means, you know, you're not suitable for it. But if you find something that's easy and you have talent for and enjoy doing, then you have passion. I've never felt doing Feng Shui or doing architecture as well, because I'm talking to you now, I can go for hours talking about Feng Shui and architecture without stopping because I feel passionate about it. But I also think that passion sometimes get us off the side, we feel so passionate we're off balance. So, if I am feeling passionate about something I try to remind myself that passion is a form of qi, qi is very strong if we're not careful so therefore you have to also balance this passion with objectivity with certain amount of coolness and detachment. Too much of one thing, no matter how good it is, it ends up getting negative. You know what I mean?

Yeah, I hope I will understand one day. And finally, if someone has tried all this advice to improve their bedroom – and it still doesn't feel like a harmonious room, what to do then?

Well, the most important things if you feel comfortable in your room, I mean from a Feng Shui point of view, every one's level of comfort and likes and dislikes are different. So, when it comes to colour – don't ask your girlfriend, your partner or your parent or someone else. You know, ask yourself what you like. Same with choosing the furniture and locating the bed, because Feng Shui always relates to human being and if you are the user of the room you are the center of the question. Ask yourself what you like first, not what someone else likes. And then the next thing is when you like something there is always a reason, try to figure out that reason. And that's what we do when we do Feng Shui consulting, we always put our client at the centre of the question, we try to see things from their point of view. It's really not that difficult, there's nothing mysterious about it. We sense the qi with all our five senses and if you develop the sensitivity you can do things the right way. We just intellectually sometimes override our feelings. We want to think logically and we think that we are not good enough, we have to listen to some expert's opinion. You know, trust yourself. Trust your feeling first. If you don't trust your feeling you don't trust yourself. Other people won't be able to help you. Same with love, if you don't love yourself other people can not love you. It's really that simple. Count on the person, everything comes from you. You are the centre of the universe. And we say that our house is the centre of the universe, everything else is chaos. So, get ourselves, get our house in the right fashion, everything else in simple places. We don't know what we want, we don't know how we feel, we don't have an awareness of ourselves and our environment, that's why people need Feng Shui. When you develop that ability, you don't need Feng Shui. I'd be out of work. Fortunately, not everybody is like that.