Sleeping in the right direction
Greater health, success and well-being

“What direction should I sleep in, after all?” This is one of the questions I get asked the most. When you start reading up on Feng Shui, this subject is generally addressed, as sleeping is one of our vital needs and we spend a large portion of our life sleeping.

When we start getting involved in the subject “Feng Shui”, the first contact is through our date our birth, where our element is calculated. This is called Lo Shu and is directly related to our personal trigram. And in this way, we can obtain Water 1, Wood 3 or 4, Fire 9, Earth 2,5 or 8 and Metal 6 or 7. Through our element, male or female, we can determine the four directions that are lucky for us to sleep in, work or carry out important tasks and the four that are unlucky. Lo Shu is very much used in the San He School and also the 9 star Ki astrology, where the 8 trigrams are used. In this School, Earth 5 is not considered. Men 5 become Lo Shu 2 and therefore, their directions are the same as someone Earth 2; and women 5 as Lo Shu 8.

In a professional Feng Shui course, depending on the School followed, the term used is Mig Gua (for the San Yuan School) instead of Lo Shu (for the San He School), where, also through date of birth, each individual has an associated transformation. Yet unlike the San He School, here we have all the transformations: Water 1, Wood 3 or 4, Fire 9, Earth 2,5 or 8 and Metal 6 or 7.

64 possible directions?

At the same time, we often hear phrases such as “all children should sleep facing East” or “everyone should sleep facing North.” I’ve been confronted by architects of customers of line who were really worried because they didn’t want to put the bedrooms for every single house they designed facing North!

Only when we go deeper into the studies do we realize that there are also the directions of the energy charts for the space in question (house, workplace, etc.) and that these are highly relevant. Truth be told, they’re more important than each individual’s personal directions. So, we have 8 directions: North, South, East, West, Northeast, Northwest, Southwest and Southeast and whether they are good or not to an individual depends above all on the space’s energy chart. However, there is still a third layer of information: the annual energies are also relevant. That is, we need to take into account the good directions of the space, the good annual directions and this is even better if we can reconcile this with the personal directions of each one.

Diving even deeper into the knowledge, of the 8 existing directions we can now have 64! It’s what we call a Hexagram. That is, within each cardinal sector, or macro direction, if you will, there are 8 directions (hexagrams). Well, 8 directions times 8 hexagrams will give us 64 directions. But for the more curious among you, inside each hexagram there are still 6 “affinities”, and we can determine which is more suited for each individual and even each situation!

Therefore, it’s fundamental that we sleep and work facing directions that are beneficial to us and bring us health, success and well-being. It doesn’t make sense to sleep or work facing our personal direction, when it’s not the same for the space and time we’re in. Yet, of course, if it’s possible to combine them and select a good hexagram and affinity, even if these two are already very detailed, then the results will be even better. Please note that when we are talking about personal directions, we are working at a 45º detail. When we are talking about the directions of charts and annual directions, we are working at a 45º to 15º level of detail. When we are talking about hexagrams, we work at a detail of 5.5º. And, lastly, when we talk of affinities, we are talking about exact degrees.

Find the most beneficial direction

Every day, we spend around 8 hours sleeping and 8 hours working, so choosing a good direction is fundamental. But why is it often said that everyone should sleep facing North?

Because, according to the Feng Shui approach, Water transformation in its positive side is associated with clam and serenity. However, even if this is the case, this does not mean that North is suited for everyone, in every space, every year! And now you ask, how can we determine the directions for each person? That is not the aim of this article, seeing that determining the directions of charts, annual directions, hexagrams and affinities takes years of studies. However, we can show you the Lo Shu for each individual depending on their year of birth and thereby determine the personal lucky or unlucky directions. Notwithstanding, it is worth noting that the Chinese solar year begins around 4 February, so anyone born before that day belongs to the previous numerical year.

 Directions of each Lo Shu

We now present a summary table of the favorable and unfavorable directions for each Lo Shu (male and female). Note that in this approach (in Lo Shu), men 5 assume Lo Shu 2, and women 5 assume Lo Shu 8.

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