
You do need a headboard for a feng shui bedroom. A headboard is needed in good feng shui for support. The headboard creates the mountain effect that is the ultimate form of support in feng shui.
Feng Shui Bedrooms Need a Headboard
The best way to grasp the energy difference between a headboard bed and a bed missing a headboard is to sleep in both types. You will readily feel the lack of energy in the bed without a headboard and the powerful feeling of being protected when you sleep in a bed with a significant proper headboard.
Purpose of Headboard in Feng Shui Application
The headboard ensures you have protection behind you as you sleep. In feng shui, the mountain is viewed as an ideal placement in the backyard shielding and supporting the energies of the home. The headboard provides this same energy when you're asleep.
Psychological Impact of a Headboard
As with many things in feng shui, there is a touch of psychology behind the rules. For example, a bed with a headboard physically provides you with strong support that you can lean on when you sit up in bed or when you sleep in the bed. This is a powerful psychological impression that translates to confidence and feelings of protection, support and safety.

Missing Headboard Creates Feeling of Vulnerability
A bed without a headboard doesn't provide you with the same sense of security that a headboard does. Your pillow can easily slip between the wall and mattress since the bed isn't stable. Psychologically, you can feel vulnerable without anything between you and that wall. It doesn't matter if it is an inner or outer wall, the sense of being in the open from the vastness of the wall space impacts your ability to sleep soundly and feel supported in life.

Strong Chi Energy Produced by Headboards
A proper feng shui headboard will produce vital healthy chi energy. A missing headboard means no energy is collected. Instead, you don't benefit from the chi since it rushes over you and away so quickly.
Wrong Headboard Means Weak Energy
A headboard that doesn't follow feng shui rules will generate very weak energy. This weak energy can impact your personal health, finances and overall quality of life.
Types of Headboards to Avoid
Now that you understand why a headboard is needed for your bed, you need to ensure that the one you choose generates good feng shui energy. It's important to know which headboards to avoid. A bad feng shui headboard is worse than no headboard since it can lead to stagnant chi, a draining of chi (loss) and even create poison arrows.
Divided or Broken Pattern Headboards
You don't want to select a headboard that is divided. This can be an actual division, such as an upholstered headboard divided in half. A headboard that is divided by different shapes, such as squares or panels also creates a chaotic form of energy. A headboard that is split or divided creates a physical divide between you and your mate.

Low Profile Headboards
A low profile headboard is almost as bad as not having a headboard. The purpose of the headboard to support and allow chi energy to pool in the bed is lost when the headboard is barely above the mattress.

Headboards With Opened Areas
Some headboards have openings and gaps as part of the creative design. These become holes for chi energy to escape, leaving this type of headboard to produce very little energy while allowing auspicious chi to flow through the headboard and away from you.

Storage Headboard Styles
Another style of headboard to avoid is the storage headboard. These come in a wide range of choices, from cubby holes to sliding cabinets and bookcase styles. While it may be enticing to have this type of additional storage, it's inauspicious and should be avoided. Storage headboards create stagnant chi energy and worse, places objects above you while you try to sleep. The psychological fear that something might fall on you is also a real physical possibility. None of these are conducive to a restful, protected sleep.

Spindle Headboards
While you may be tempted to opt for a spindle style headboard, steer clear. This style of headboard features lots of openings (holes). With this type of headboard, you'll see health, wealth and your life in general rushing away like water falling over a waterfall. You'll be left with a feeling of loss. Avoid metal, wood or any other type of headboard with spindles.

Slat or Railing Headboards
Just as the spindle style of headboard creates weak energy surrounding your bed, slat or railing headboards also create vertical sieves for energy. The feeling imprisonment is prominent. Like the spindle headboard style, the energy is lost before it can be contained.

Never Use a Metal Headboard
A metal headboard should never be used in a feng shui bedroom. Aesthetically, metal is hard, harsh and cold to the touch. It doesn't offer any comfort in its rigidity. Leaning against a metal headboard is uncomfortable or can be painful.

Metal Is an Unhealthy Feng Shui Headboard
Healthwise, metal is conductive of magnetic energies. EMFs, (electromagnetic fields) are generated by cell phones, cell towers, power lines, and even naturally occurring EMF fields from underground mineral deposits. A metal headboard can amplify or attract EMFs.
Feng Shui and Metal Headboards
Another very important reason to avoid metal headboards in feng shui applications is the productive cycle of elements. Metal attracts the water element. In feng shui, water is forbidden in a bedroom, even symbols of it, since water generates too much yang energy in the bedroom for a restful sleep.
Ornate Old-Fashioned Metal Beds
While an old-fashioned iron bed may be aesthetically appealing, the element is wrong for a feng shui bedroom. In addition, the openings and spaces this type of headboard creates are holes where the chi energy simply falls into and away from the bed like a spindle bed.
Best Types of Feng Shui Headboards
Keeping in mind the shapes and styles of headboards to avoid, you want to ensure you have solid support. This is found in a solid wood headboard. You can opt for a big and tall headboard or a medium sized one, but it needs to extend above the bed. A solid piece of wood for the headboard is best.
Wood Headboards Offer Strength
Wood headboards are solid and strong supports for a feng shui bed. You can lean against a wood headboard and feel protected and supported. When you sleep in a bed with a substantial wood headboard, the chi energy is auspicious and plentiful for a healthy rest.

Upholstered Headboards
Upholstered headboards are popular choices and can be used in a feng shui bedroom. Nothing can take the place of a strong solid headboard. If you opt to use an upholstered headboard, make sure it has a solid wood back. When choosing the upholstery fabric go simple. You don't want busy geometrical shapes or other patterns that create a broken visual effect. A solid colored upholstered and padded headboard is always the best choice.

Tall Headboards
A tall and very heavy headboard translates to strength and fortitude. This type of headboard ensures you have a deep feeling of protection and support. It generates very powerful and beneficial chi energy since it sustains the flow of chi by preventing it from flowing over and past you as you sleep. The height of your bed should be in keeping with the headboard.

Alternatives for Headboards
Some people try using oversized pillows as a faux headboard, but this is just an illusion since the pillows can't give you any solid support or protection. You're better off to take the money the oversized pillows would cost and purchase a headboard. You find many inexpensive upholstered headboards for a proper feng shui bed.
Make Sure Headboard Is Secured to Bed
The main goal of using a headboard is to create support and a feeling of protection. An unsecured headboard that wobbles between the bed and wall each time you turn over isn't good feng shui. Make sure that your headboard is secured to your bedframe for perfect feng shui.
Headboards and Footboards
Feng shui doesn't focus on footboards, since they are at the end of the bed and not playing the important support role of the headboard. The inclusion of a footboard is strictly a personal choice.
Yes, You Need a Headboard
In answering the question if you need a headboard for your feng shui bed, the answer is a decided "Yes!" Steer clear of spindles, open designs, and metal headboards for auspicious feng shui headboards.