The lungs lie beneath: gentle pressure only, never hard or sharp.
心俞 Xinshu
“Heart’s Transport” · BL15
Foot Taiyang · 15 of 67 · back-shu of the heart
Where. Below the fifth bump under the neck bone (C7), two finger-widths to each side of the spine.
For. Palpitations; poor sleep; forgetfulness.
Press. Ask a partner to press gently with a thumb, about a minute each side.
Caution. The lungs lie beneath: gentle pressure only, never hard or sharp.
心俞，在第五椎下，兩傍各一寸五分按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Xinshu Stands on the Middle Back
Xinshu takes its post halfway down the back, a short step out from the body’s central seam. The dataset locates it precisely: on the back, below the spinous process of the fifth thoracic vertebra, 1.5 cun lateral to the posterior midline. Unpacked for hands rather than rulers: start at the base of the neck, where the knobby bone at the junction of neck and shoulder glides under the fingertips when the head turns. Below that starting knob rise the ridges of the twelve thoracic vertebrae. Walk down past the first, second, third, and fourth ridges, rest your finger in the soft step beneath the fifth, then step outward one and a half cun — and there, on either side of the spine at once, stands Xinshu.
A cun is the traditional measuring unit of Chinese point-location: proportional lengths taken from the person being examined rather than from a ruler, so a cun on a broad-framed adult differs from a cun on a slight teenager. One practical rendering passed down through self-location teaching holds that the width of the index and middle fingers pressed together comes close to one and a half cun on many adult hands — a rule of thumb in both senses, worth trusting only alongside the bony landmarks. What lies beneath deserves a note of respect. Here the broad trapezius drapes the upper and middle back, with ribs and the spaces between them not far underneath. This is rib-cage country, and the lungs reach surprisingly far up behind this stretch of torso — a fact whose consequences fill the safety section below.
The neighbourhood completes the map. One ridge higher, beneath the fourth thoracic vertebra, the same lateral line keeps Jueyinshu (BL14), the station classical teaching assigns to the pericardium; one ridge lower, beneath the sixth, sits Dushu (BL16). Two ridges above lies Feishu (BL13), the point the tradition gives to the lung itself — worth knowing, since the two share this stretch of back and much of their recorded history. As for the channel: classical cartography draws the bladder meridian beginning at the inner corner of the eye, sweeping over the head, and descending the whole back to the little toe — the longest pathway in the body, carrying sixty-seven stations. Along the spine it travels in paired vertical routes, the inner one running 1.5 cun from the midline — the road Xinshu stands on — while a companion line runs farther out.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit upright on a firm chair, feet flat, shoulders heavy, because hunching reshapes the terrain you are about to read. Bow the head slightly and hook a fingertip over the bone at the neck–shoulder junction; confirm it with the movement test — turn the head side to side and watch that knob glide while the ridges beneath stay still. Now walk straight down the centre seam and let the ridges pass under the finger one by one: one, two, three, four, five. Rest the pad of your finger in the soft step immediately beneath the fifth ridge. From there, slide outward across the muscle until you have crossed roughly the width of two pressed-together fingers, and settle where the flesh forms a gentle cord-like column flanking the spine. That groove, mirrored on both sides, is the address. Repeat the whole search on the other side.
Confirmations cost nothing and repay the habit. Touch feather-light and compare sides: many people register a faint, dull awareness at the genuine spot and little sensation a finger-width away. Take a slow breath and notice how little the mid-back stirs compared with the chest — that quiet quietly confirms the search stayed on the back’s calm side. Check the horizontal position too: the true spot lies between the spine seam and the inner border of the shoulder blade, hugging the spine’s side of that gap. With the arms hanging loose, the lower angle of each shoulder blade arrives near the seventh thoracic ridge — the very level where the dataset anchors Geishu (BL17) to the blade tips — so the blades sit about two ridges below your target and can help catch a miscount, though bodies vary. If you feel bare bone, you have drifted onto the spine or a rib; ease back into the muscle column.
Three slips account for nearly every mislocation. Counting the neck-base knob itself as the first ridge drops the entire search one vertebra low — the knob is the starting post, not the first runner. Drifting outward toward the shoulder blade comes second; the distance sounds generous until muscle and posture conspire to shorten it, and the correction never changes: return toward the seam. Confusing the pair is the third — there are two Xinshu, mirror images, and neither substitutes for the other. When doubt survives every test, resist guessing from wherever the wandering ended; go back to the neck, reconfirm the gliding knob, and count slowly from the top once more.
Reading the Name: Heart’s Transport
The name reads like a delivery address written for the heart. Xin 心 means heart — the organ itself, and in traditional medicine’s wider vocabulary the keeper of the blood’s movement and the dwelling place of the shen, the spirit or animate brightness traditionally said to steady the mind and clear the eyes. Shu 俞 belongs to a family of names the classics gave to a row of stations along the inner back line: classical teaching describes each of the body’s deep-storing organs as dispatching its activity to pool beside the spine, where it comes closest to the surface. The dataset files Xinshu under exactly that class — back-shu of the heart — the address where the heart system traditionally gathers.
That office explains the portfolio. In the traditional frame the heart stores the shen, so an unsettled heart showed itself in sleepless nights, a forgetful mind, a pulse that thumped without cause — and the heart’s own transport station stood high in classical discussions of such complaints. One candid wrinkle deserves notice: the record also keeps cough and spitting of blood among Xinshu’s uses, which looks odd on a heart list until the geography speaks — the lung lies directly behind this stretch of back, close enough that the dataset’s own caution names it. The old compilers worked with landscape as well as organ theory, and the list preserves both layers. Receive that coherence as traditional interpretation, warmly offered, rather than as anatomy confirmed.
Pinyin renders the name Xīnshū, and both syllables ride the same flat, high first tone — xin held level, shu likewise level, neither rising nor dipping. The hanzi pair 心俞 stays legible at a glance: heart, transport. Like many point families named for movement and water — streams, valleys, crossings, transports — the metaphor performs real labor: it pictures the body’s interior activity arriving at designated stops along the spine, where a practitioner’s attention can meet it. The name is a small set of instructions — this is where the heart’s business, in the tradition’s telling, comes within reach.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: cardiac pain, palpitations, insomnia, poor memory, epilepsy, cough, spitting of blood, and night sweats. The first four travel together in the traditional telling. Cardiac pain, in the old records, usually names dull, blocked, oppressive sensations around the chest and behind the breastbone — not sudden crushing pain, which has belonged to urgent care in every era. Palpitations were read as the heart’s qi losing its composure; insomnia and poor memory followed naturally in the same frame, since the heart was said to house the shen, and an unhoused spirit wanders at night and mislays its keys by day. Every verb here belongs to the tradition’s own picture of the body, offered as heritage, not as promise.
The remaining entries deserve honest handling. Epilepsy surprises modern eyes, yet classical lists regularly gathered convulsive and collapsing episodes under such headings, reading them through channel and organ lenses. Whatever the era’s framing, seizures and loss of consciousness belong wholly with medical professionals today, and no self-care page should hint otherwise. Cough and spitting of blood reflect the lung’s geography behind this stretch of back, noted above — and spitting of blood in particular is a symptom that always calls for prompt medical assessment, whatever else a person chooses to do gently. Night sweats close the list: traditional reading tied them to internal heat wearing away the body’s yin fluids, a discrimination belonging to the consulting room rather than the kitchen table. The list is a small museum of the tradition’s thinking, curated candidly.
It bears repeating plainly: these are the traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, presented for cultural and historical understanding. They are not claims that pressing this point treats disease, and nothing on this page replaces assessment by a qualified clinician — least of all for anything touching the heart. Where modern research touches self-applied pressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and context-dependent, and evidence specific to any single point remains thin. Hold the tradition lightly, hold the safety rules firmly, and let the heart’s-transport story enrich the practice rather than inflate it.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point located, settle in: seated, spine tall but unforced, shoulders released — the groove you want hides under tension. Reaching the middle of your own back asks for one small decision: invite a partner to lend their fingertips, or reach the opposite hand over the shoulder and walk down beside the spine until the muscle column found earlier sits under your pads. Curl the fingers and use the pads — never the tips — resting lightly on the spot. Begin with contact alone for a few slow breaths, then add small, unhurried circles, letting the skin glide over the tissue beneath. Pressure should register as pleasant dullness or mild warmth, never sharpness. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, each circle riding a long exhale out; then swap and match the other side.
Quality outranks duration. Light, patient, regularly repeated contact is the whole discipline; jabbing or grinding teaches nothing worth learning. Warm cold hands first, because chilled muscle guards. Choose a quiet corner over a screen and let the session double as a pause for the breath — the mid-back rarely receives deliberate attention, and the novelty itself settles many people. Readers who keep routines often anchor this one to an existing habit: after the morning stretch, before lights-out. Consistency, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually ask for, here as everywhere.
Treat the exercise as a few minutes of attended kindness toward a patch of yourself that works unseen. Across weeks you may notice the area feels less guarded, or simply that you spent ninety seconds tending your own back — both outcomes fit the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation: pressing harder, longer, or deeper to force a result. Curiosity pulling that way should meet the same answer every time — return to gentleness, or stop for the day.
Cautions and Safe Practice
This point earns its respect in writing. The licensed record warns practitioners: do not needle deeply; over-deep insertion may injure the lung. The geography explains the warning without embellishment — Xinshu stands on the rib cage, and lung tissue rides close behind this stretch of the torso, so an instrument driven too far could pierce it, causing an emergency called a pneumothorax, a collapsed lung. Professional training manages that risk with exact technique and years of study. Home self-care manages it differently and completely: by never leaving the surface at all. The dataset’s caution describes professional practice, a category household acupressure never approaches — but honouring the warning builds precisely the habits gentle practice wants.
For fingertip practice the rules follow, with extra weight here because the heart sits in this point’s portfolio. Keep contact light and strictly superficial — the intention stays in skin and superficial muscle, never driving inward toward the ribs. Use finger pads, never elbows, knuckles, tools, or devices. Skip the point entirely during feverish illness, during any acute breathing difficulty, and over broken or irritated skin; after recent chest or upper-back injury or surgery, wait until a clinician clears ordinary activity. Sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means stop at once, and not again that day. Pregnant readers, and anyone living with heart or lung conditions or taking cardiac medication, should consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice. And one rule outranks the rest: chest pain or pressure, a racing or irregular heartbeat, faintness, or dizziness are never sessions to press through — they are reasons to put the hands down and seek medical care.
Over everything stands the wider rule: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt medical care — not a longer pressing session — for chest pain or tightness, palpitations accompanied by dizziness or fainting, breathlessness, coughing blood, seizure activity, or insomnia that persists despite honest effort. Persistent complaints belong with a licensed practitioner, medical or East Asian medical as suits the problem. The heart’s-transport imagery is beautiful, and it earns its keep as memory and meaning; but the safest gift Xinshu offers most people is a better acquaintance with their own back, tended lightly and surrendered promptly whenever the body asks for more than gentleness can give.
Xinshu, the Heart’s Transport, stands on the middle back beside the fifth thoracic ridge, a thumb-and-a-half out from the spine’s central seam. Classical practice read it as the place where the heart’s activity pools nearest the surface — reached in old records for palpitations, sleeplessness, and an unsettled heart. This guide walks through finding it and pressing it gently.
Cautions from the classical sources
- Keep insertion shallow; going too deep can puncture the lung.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Xinshu without knowing anything about cun?
- Use the neck as the whole map. Find the knobby bone at the junction of neck and shoulder that slides under your fingers when you turn your head; walk straight down the centre seam and count five ridges; rest a finger in the hollow beneath the fifth; then slide sideways about the width of two pressed-together fingers onto the muscle column beside the spine. That spot, mirrored on both sides, is the location the dataset describes. Cun measurements encode the same landmark sequence in proportional language.
- Is pressing Xinshu myself actually safe?
- Gentle fingertip pressure held on the surface is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults, engaging skin and superficial muscle far short of the deeper structures the caution concerns. The recorded danger involves deep professional techniques near the lung — a category home acupressure never approaches. Respect the stop signals all the same: sharp pain, radiating sensation, or discomfort that worsens means finish immediately, and any chest symptom cancels the session in favour of medical advice.
- What did classical practice use Xinshu for?
- The traditional record lists cardiac pain, palpitations, insomnia, poor memory, epilepsy, cough, spitting of blood, and night sweats. The name tells the headline: classical texts describe the back-shu stations as places where each organ gathers beside the spine, and the heart was said to store the spirit — hence the sleep and memory entries. Those are traditional frameworks for understanding the body, documented for context — not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why is the heart’s point located on the back?
- Classical teaching drew a second map alongside the organs themselves: a row of gathering stations along the inner back line, one for each deep-storing organ, where its activity was thought to arrive closest to the surface. The heart received the fifth thoracic address. The front of the trunk keeps a matching set of gathering points, and the two systems were read together — a tradition of paired doors, not a claim about anatomy as modern science maps it.
- Can acupressure at Xinshu replace seeing a doctor about my heart?
- No — and nowhere is clarity more important than here. Chest pain or pressure, a racing or irregular heartbeat, fainting, or breathlessness call for professional assessment promptly; a comfort practice cannot diagnose, monitor, or treat the cardiovascular system. Think of daily self-care and clinical medicine as caretakers of two different doors, each minding its own threshold; for anything touching the heart, the clinic door opens first.
Sources
- 01WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region (2008), World Health Organization — nomenclature conventions.
- 02A Manual of Acupuncture, Peter Deadman, Mazin Al-Khafaji and Kevin Baker — point-name tradition, back-shu theory, and bladder-channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for BL15 Xinshu — location, point class, actions, and caution record.
Last reviewed
牌記This leaf, for machines
Old books ended with a colophon saying who printed them. Every leaf here carries the same facts as structured data for agents and search, with no layout in the way.
- GET /en/points/bl15/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/bl15/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/bl15/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "BL15",
"name": {
"en": "Xinshu",
"gloss": "Heart’s Transport",
"zh-Hant": "心俞",
"zh-Hans": "心俞"
},
"channel": {
"id": "BL",
"order": 15,
"of": 67
},
"location": {
"text": "Below the fifth bump under the neck bone (C7), two finger-widths to each side of the spine."
},
"for": [
"palpitations",
"poor sleep",
"forgetfulness"
],
"press": {
"text": "Ask a partner to press gently with a thumb, about a minute each side.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [
"The lungs lie beneath: gentle pressure only, never hard or sharp."
],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/bl15",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-25"
}