19 May Take the Panic Out of Emergency Rooms

When someone comes to the emergency room at a hospital, it goes without saying that there’s stress and anxiety, maybe panic and alarm, surrounding their arrival– — often driven by pain.

Typically, an emergency patient wants help and wants it right away.

Waiting in an emergency room can be an excruciating experience. However, if it’s an integrative space with Feng Shui principles in place, it can provide comfort and support. And the reassurance that help is on the way.

Here are 5 ways to make the emergency room alleviate anxiety:

1. Use darker colors in the design: navy blue, black, and dark gray are the best choices. This is not the room in which the color red or orange should be the predominant color choice. These are active colors and can become agitating in certain circumstances.

2. Place the chairs in smaller groupings. Someone with a broken arm has enough to think about without having to sit next to someone else who has the flu. Small round “pods” are the best if space allows in the emergency waiting room.

3. Get people’s minds off their problem, even if just for a moment. This distraction can start their healing. When they close their eyes because there’s nothing to look at, they take their pain inside, increasing its intensity. If they have something to focus on, they relieve themselves of their own issue even if for just a few minutes. This focus needs to have a formidable statement: a large aquarium, a fountain with a strong presence, a fireplace that engages their focus, to name a few.

4. Provide messages of vitality and wholeness. The best way to infuse an injured or ill patient with this message is by connecting them to nature.  Landscapes or seascapes, forest scenes or actual trees can provide this subliminal connection.

5. Surround a patient with music or sounds of nature. Doing so can be a pleasant distraction while they’re waiting and to calm their breathing. It could be the difference between irritation or full-out panic and maintaining a degree of calm.

Sometimes it isn’t the patient who is quick to express their concern and impatience but the people who brought them in. Either way, setting up the emergency room with the Feng Shui intention of instilling the area with composure and assurance may provide a better experience for the patient, their companion(s) and hospital staff.