For some people, leaving the office the second the work day is done is a given. They shut down their computer, have a stretch and clock out without a second thought. As they should! 

For other people, it’s not so easy. They feel guilty for not working late. They tell themselves they’ll do just one more thing before they head off. And even once they do depart the office (or close their laptop at home), it’s rarely a clean break – they’re still stressing about work long after the day is supposed to be done. 

Those in the first camp don’t get why the other type of people find it so difficult to create a boundary between work and life. But it’s a very real struggle, and one that anyone who fits into the second camp will be keen to sort out. One tool that could help us do that? Something called ‘subconscious feng shui’. 

“In the ancient Chinese tradition, feng shui is used to refer to the arrangement of a room and how this setup corresponds to the flow of ‘energies’ in that space,” Chris Griffiths and Caragh Medlicott, the authors of The Focus Fix, tell Stylist. “While we might be more used to thinking about feng shui in the context of home decor, there’s good reason to assume that our mental spaces could also do with a good sprucing from time to time.”

The concept of subconscious feng shui is what it says on the tin: giving your mind a good, thorough sort and tidy. Griffiths and Medlicott believe that this could be beneficial in multiple ways: it could make you more creative and productive at work, help you tackle stress, aid you in retaining focus and ensure that when you complete work for the day, you don’t take it into your home space. 

“In our daily life, few of us give consideration to the operation of our subconscious,” notes Medlicott. “In fact, you might not even be totally confident you know what the subconscious actually is. While we won’t waste time getting into the more complex elements of psychology here, all you need to know is that the subconscious is where you store important knowledge – such as memory and basic bodily programming – and this, in turn, allows us to stay alive (thanks, breathing!) and access key information when called upon. In short, it allows us to retain crucial information without needing to continually hold it in our minds.

“The subconscious is also strongly correlated with creativity and can impact your mood and behaviours. In many ways, our subconscious is like our hard drive. It backs up key information, which is why we want to avoid damaging it or allowing it to become cluttered. The trouble is, we’re not always aware of what we’re downloading because – by its nature – the subconscious operates outside of our conscious awareness. The subconscious portion of our mind is constantly inputting data, and this can then provide the raw materials for creative idea generation (or cause blockages if overloaded).”

Day to day, most of us experience background stress in part because our subconscious is being inundated with information. With that overwhelm, it’s hard to keep things in their properly boundaried boxes – worries about work start to spill out into other areas of your life because you simply don’t have the metaphorical mental room to contain them. Griffiths points out: “We are currently living in an age where information is not only infinite, it’s constantly bombarding us. With our devices, we fly through reams of content at rates never seen before. This problem is so prominent that professor of psychology Glenn Wilson coined the term ‘info-mania’ back in the 00s to describe this overload of technological ‘stuff’. Today, this problem has reached a fever pitch and many of us feel the consequences in the form of persistent brain fog and lack of energy.”

The solution, say Griffiths and Medlicott, is to clear out the clutter. But how do you go about doing that?

Bring attention to what you consume

“The first step to feng shui-ing your subconscious is to bring intention to what you consume,” says Griffiths. “While it would be unreasonable and unrealistic to filter everything you encounter, it is helpful to know that what you engage in has a direct correlation to the ideas and solutions you might later come up with. Knowing this is enough to reboot your hard drive in order to recalibrate your mood and creativity.”

Pay attention to just how much informational overload is being piled onto your mind, at work and outside of it. Are you often multi-tasking? Second screening? Endlessly scrolling without really pausing to take anything in? All those habits will contribute to overwhelm.

Take regular breaks 

We can’t be on full power and full speed 24/7. That’s a recipe for burnout. Make time and space within the working day to stop what you’re doing, step away and breathe for a bit. Doing this regularly will mean that when the working day is done, you’re not suddenly swamped by all the stuff you’d been putting off. 

Give yourself space to daydream

Griffiths and Medlicott are huge proponents of the power of daydreaming, a powerful skill that will help you clear out your subconscious and give it room to breathe. “Many of us know that our subconscious is responsible for the dreams we have at night, but it’s also in operation when we daydream,” Medlicott says. “A landmark study by the University of British Columbia showed that – contrary to scientists’ expectations – the brain is very active when we daydream. While we consciously power off and let our thoughts wander away, our subconscious is at work sifting through our recent experiences and seeing what can be put to use.”

Griffiths adds: “You can engage the daydreaming state by doing something rhythmic and repetitive that leaves your mind free to wander (you may already know your typical daydream triggers, such as getting out for a walk or even just staring out the window). It’s important to timebox these sessions so that they don’t run on too long, but doing this regularly is a great way to reboot your subconscious hard drive and reap the cognitive benefits as a result. What’s more, these regular breaks help to prevent the neurological accumulation of stress in the brain so that you can better manage your time and learn to truly switch off when closing your laptop at the end of the day. 

“In a world where burnout rates are continuing to climb, daydreaming provides the perfect way to not only enhance your creativity, mood and success but also wade through the swamp of our oversaturated subconscious to find new, energetic ideas. It’s also a restorative practice that can help build cognitive resilience and protect us from burnout so that we can be more effective at work, and truly switch off when we’re at home.”

Chris Griffiths and Caragh Medlicott are the authors of The Focus Fix: Finding Clarity, Creativity And Resilience In An Overwhelming World. 

Images: Adobe; Getty