Feng shui and yoga have Eastern roots, but have become popular practices to gain greater harmony and relaxation in the West
April 3, 2008
By: Hera Ashraf <hashraf@hilite.org>
Every Saturday morning, sophomore Katherine “Katie” Hutchins heads out to her coach’s studio called Core Pilates and Fitness to practice yoga. Hutchins is one of many students and teachers that have started to include this Eastern workout into their daily lives.
Likewise, feng shui is an Eastern Asian practice that originates from China. According to interior design teacher Jill Birk, who practices feng shui, it is an arrangement of a room to appeal to the senses and balances the yin and yang in the room. It is incorporated in homes and used when designing.
Birk said, “It is a way of decorating so that it is influencing how you feel, your mood, your ability to concentrate, relax or whatever the function of the space is for you to be able to do that better.” Yoga and feng shui both originate from Eastern Asia and are becoming more popular in today’s society. In fact, they are starting to become more mainstream, even in Indiana. According to an ABC news report about the increasing popularity of yoga, it originates from the Hindu religion in India. Its original goal is to build up self-awareness and discover divinity inside one’s self. It stretches muscles, helps relieve stress and leads to finding balance in one’s life.
It started with soccer
For Hutchins, she was first introduced to yoga when she played soccer her freshman year. “Our coach told us to do it and the whole team would practice yoga and Pilates,” Hutchins said. Both yoga and feng shui have the same purpose: to relieve and relax. Yoga uses physical poses and stretches to relieve your body, while feng shui uses colors and arrangement to relieve the senses. Hutchins said that she continues to practice yoga because it allows her to have less stress and she recommends other students to do it. “It makes you feel really good about yourself,” Hutchins said. “Its also makes you a lot stronger and more fit.”
Stress relief found through eastern practices
Crystal Brim, yoga practicer and Spanish teacher, has been practicing yoga for five years at Peak Performance gym in Indianapolis. She started in graduate school when she took a yoga class at Indiana University and said that yoga makes her feel stronger and more flexible.
Brim said, “I practice different breathing techniques which help me to discipline my thoughts and it also slows my heart rate and oxygenates my organs.”
Brim also said that yoga has many aspects to it and someone should choose an aspect of yoga that is appropriate to his or her lifestyle. “For instance, I do not subscribe to any religious belief concerning yoga. I choose to practice the physical aspect of yoga only – this discipline within yoga is called Hatha,” Brim said. “The breathing techniques, stretching and strengthening movements of Hatha yoga do relieve stress as (any) quality form of exercise will achieve.”
But yoga is not the only East Asian practice recommended to help relieve stress. Birk said that feng shui is like a continuous stress reliever because a person walks through his or her house every day. She also said that feng shui is used everywhere, including public places, to create a certain feel.
“Your homes or public places and businesses have done research for whatever the function of the space is to achieve a certain mood for people to feel in a certain space,” Birk said. “Whether we realize or not, things (in a room) have been done intentionally for a certain purpose, for example in hospitals, or places with a lot of anxiety, or spas where (designers) focus of bringing a calm and comforting feel,” Birk said that she practices feng shui in her home and tries to create a particular feel in her home. “I use certain colors in certain areas, aromatherapy and different fabrics to generate a mood around the house,” she said.
Yoga and feng shui now popular western fads
The increasing popularity of both yoga and feng shui can be sensed throughout society today. In Hutchins’ opinion, she said she thinks it is because of the desire to become healthy. “I think people are trying to find ways to make themselves healthier and so this is one of the ways they can (become healthier),” Hutchins said. “It’s refreshing and really helps me relieve stress. You feel a lot better once you have done it than when you start.”
Birk said she thinks that Eastern Asian culture has become more popular now than it was before because people are starting to find different ways to do things.
“I don’t think it’s anything new, but (feng shui) was not a word we were using or a way of decorating as it has become in recent years. It has just become popular and now the average person is trying to implement the practice to their everyday living, whether in their office space or in their homes,” Birk said.
Brim, who practices yoga several times a week, said that although yoga is becoming more popular, there is a lot more to it that people don’t know about.
“There are many more disciplines of yoga than just the movements that we, in the U.S., associate with that word. If I am stressed out or parts of my body hold tension, then I will do certain movements and breathing exercises that I know will release muscles in my body,” Brim said. “Finally, I have appropriated these movements and breathing patterns in my prayer life as I worship God.”
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