通天 Tongtian
“Reaching Heaven” · BL7
Foot Taiyang · 7 of 67
Where. Near the top of the head, two finger-widths behind BL6 and two finger-widths out from the centre line.
For. Headache; a stuffy nose; sinus trouble.
Press. Small circles with two fingertips, about a minute each side.
通天，一名天臼，在承光後一寸五分按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Tongtian Sits on the Head
High on the top of the head, Tongtian occupies the forward part of the crown slope: past the hairline going backward, yet short of the summit. The dataset places it four cun above the midpoint of the anterior hairline and one and a half cun lateral to it — two numbers that reward unpacking. A cun is the traditional proportional unit of Chinese point-location, taken from the body being measured rather than from any ruler; the width of the person’s own thumb at its knuckle serves as the everyday stand-in for one cun, so four cun above the hairline scales itself to whoever is searching. And because the point sits one and a half cun off the midline, there are always two of them, mirrored left and right like parentheses around the crown.
What lies beneath the fingertip here differs pleasantly from many other point territories: there are no ribs, joints, or delicate hollows to navigate — only the layered carpet of the scalp stretched over smooth skull bone. The scalp carries a generous blood supply, which is why even light touch brings quick warmth to the area, and why the skin glides so willingly over the bone when worked with patient fingers. Because the skull curves gently, the pad of a finger rests more securely on this soft dome than on the sharper contours lower on the face; nothing about the terrain invites force. All the same, the general rule of self-acupressure applies doubly on the head: contact belongs in the pads, never the nails, and the intention stays at the surface.
The neighborhood confirms the placement. After surfacing beside the inner corner of the eye and crossing the brow, the bladder channel climbs the forehead and passes over the head on its long journey toward the back of the body and down the spine — and this stretch of the climb follows a fixed line, one and a half cun beside the midline. Recorded neighbours share that line: Chengguang (BL6) sits two and a half cun above the hairline, a thumb-and-a-half below Tongtian, while Luoque (BL8) continues upward another thumb-and-a-half beyond it, five and a half cun above the hairline. The trio stacks vertically, evenly spaced, like rungs of a ladder set into the scalp — find any one of them and the others fall into place.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit facing a mirror with shoulders easy and breathing settled. First find the midpoint of the front hairline — the centre of the hair’s edge directly above the nose, not the corners where the hairline dips beside the temples. Place the tip of your thumb on that midpoint, then step it backward along the midline, away from the face, counting each width as you go: four slow steps bring you to the correct latitude on the crown slope. From there, slide outward one and a half thumb-widths, away from the centre, and let your fingertip pads settle. Work out the mirror image on the other side, so the pair receives equal attention.
A few quiet confirmations help before any pressing begins. Touch feather-light and compare sides; many people notice a faint, broad awareness — a spreading warmth or dull hum — at the true point, and considerably less a thumb-width away. Check the span between the two candidate spots: set side by side, they should sit about three thumb-widths apart across the top of the head, because each stands one and a half from the midline. Rock the fingertip gently side to side; healthy scalp glides a little over the bone beneath, and the glide should feel even, not snagged. If what you have found feels tender in a flat, dull way compared with surrounding scalp, you are likely in the right neighbourhood — though absence of sensation does not mean wrong location, since scalps differ in sensitivity.
Two slips account for most mis-finds. The first is stopping short — landing two or three thumb-widths up the forehead instead of the full four, in territory that still feels like forehead rather than crown slope. Counting aloud, or anchoring each thumb-step against the edge of the last, keeps the count honest. The second is measuring from the wrong start line: some hairlines recede unevenly with age, and the temptation is to begin where hair merely thins rather than at the true edge. When uncertain, return to the hairline midpoint, confirm it sits centred above the nose, and re-measure once, slowly. The mirror helps throughout; searching the top of one’s own head blind tends to wander.
Reading the Name: Reaching Heaven
The name is short and audacious. Tong 通 means to pass through, to connect, to open a way; tian 天 is heaven, the sky, the vast space above. Read together, Tongtian says reaching heaven or connecting with heaven — a striking claim for a point on the scalp, until the traditional frame supplies the logic. Classical Chinese cosmology mapped the body onto the world: the feet belong to earth, the head to heaven, and the crown is the highest ground a person carries. A point named for reaching heaven therefore marks a summit of the body’s own geography, a place where the qi rises closer to the sky than almost anywhere else the channels travel.
Commentators have long connected the name to the point’s recorded affinities. Tradition associates the head with clarity — of sight, of breath, of mind — and the old records reach for Tongtian precisely when that clarity clouds: when headache presses, when dizziness tilts the world, when the nose blocks and the breath through it stalls. One traditional reading hears the name as a description of treatment intent: opening what is stuck above, letting the passages between the senses and the heavens communicate again. Whether read as geography or as intent, the metaphor does honest work, in the same way that gates, valleys, and storehouses do elsewhere on the channels — two characters compressing a whole theory of the point.
Pinyin renders the name Tōngtiān, and the tones are unusually friendly to beginners: both syllables carry the first tone, the flat, high, level pitch held steady like a sung note. There is no dipping, rising, or falling to negotiate — tong stays level, and so does tian. The hanzi pair 通天 counts among the simplest on any channel; both characters predate the medical literature by centuries, and their plainness suits the point’s position, high and open on the exposed crown. Names elsewhere in the bladder channel favour pillars, supports, and light; this one looks past such earthly hardware and straight at the sky.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The licensed dataset records five indications for Tongtian: headache, dizziness, nasal congestion, nosebleed, and sinusitis with foul discharge. As always in this layer, these are traditional uses — entries in a long written conversation between practitioners and suffering, not claims about what pressing the point achieves. Framed as tradition, the first two belong together: classical practice grouped head complaints by their felt quality and location, and a point high on the crown slope sat naturally in discussions of headaches and of the swaying unsteadiness the old texts call dizziness. Local point-thinking did much of the work: where the discomfort lives, the nearby points of the passing channel get consulted.
The three nose-related entries deserve their own paragraph, because they carry an old logic modern readers should handle knowingly. Nasal congestion fits a familiar traditional pattern: traditional physiology treats the lung as opening into the nose, and blocked breath was read as qi and blood failing to move freely through the passages of the face — head points stood ready to assist. Nosebleed appears in the records too, yet nobody should mistake the listing for advice: a bleeding nose today belongs to ordinary first aid — sitting forward, pinching the soft part of the nose, seeking help if it persists — and not to pressing the scalp. And sinusitis with foul discharge describes a stubborn historical category the tradition pictured as a festering deep pool, marked by thick, unpleasant discharge; the phrase records what practitioners observed and categorised, centuries before modern medicine named its own versions of the condition.
It bears repeating plainly: these indications document traditional practice, preserved in a licensed dataset for cultural and historical understanding. They are not evidence statements, and nothing here suggests that self-applied pressure treats any disease. Where modern research has touched manual approaches to headache and sinus complaints at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and context-dependent, and evidence attached to any single point remains thin. Hold the tradition as tradition, and route anything persistent, severe, or frightening to a qualified clinician.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With both points located, settle into the practice: seated, spine tall but unforced, shoulders heavy. Bring the fingertip pads — never nails or knuckles — to rest on the spots, and begin with simple still contact for a few slow breaths. Then add small circles, letting the scalp glide over the skull beneath while the fingers themselves stay anchored. Pressure should register as pleasant dullness or spreading warmth, qualities scalp tissue produces readily thanks to its rich blood supply; sharpness has no place here. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes at a time, once or twice daily, with hands swapping sides so the pair is worked evenly.
Technique matters more than duration, on the head perhaps more than anywhere. Short nails spare the scalp accidental scratches; clean hands matter too, since fingers rest close to hair and skin that prefer not to meet the day’s accumulated grit. Working through hair is entirely fine — parting the hair can even help the fingers find skin. Warm hands feel better than cold ones, and a mirror at first, then muscle memory, keeps the locations honest. Some people fold the practice into an existing pause — after washing the face in the morning, during an afternoon break from screens — because regularity, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually ask of anyone.
Treat the minutes as attention rather than intervention. Notice what changes across days: perhaps the scalp feels less tight, perhaps breathing through the nose feels easier while the fingers rest there, perhaps nothing shifts except that you spent two minutes caring for your own head. Every outcome in that list sits inside the honest scope of self-acupressure. What sits outside it is escalation — harder pressure, longer sessions, pressing through pain to force a result. When curiosity pulls that way, answer it with gentleness, or simply finish for the day and let the practice stay what it is.
Cautions and Safe Practice
The licensed record for Tongtian is notable for what it does not contain: the dataset logs no cautions for this point, in contrast with certain neighbours elsewhere on the channel whose entries carry specific prohibitions. An empty caution field is not, however, an invitation to carelessness — it reflects how the historical sources were compiled, and the universal rules of sensible self-care apply to every point on every page of this site. The head is a well-supplied, sensitive territory, and the first rule remains the oldest one: gentle, purely superficial contact, stopping at once on any sharp or electric sensation.
Practical boundaries follow. Skip the point over broken, grazed, or freshly irritated skin, over moles and healing wounds, and entirely for a while after any head injury or scalp surgery until ordinary activity is cleared by a clinician. Anyone who is pregnant, or managing a chronic neurological, circulatory, or skin condition, does well to consult a qualified practitioner before adding new point practices — the same standing advice this site offers everywhere. Children’s scalps receive only the lightest playful touch, if any. And pressure never substitutes for rest, hydration, or the ordinary care of whatever the head complains about.
Above all, know when a headache or dizzy spell leaves the territory of self-care altogether. Seek prompt medical attention — not a pressure routine — for a sudden, severe headache unlike any before it; headache after a blow to the head; headache with fever and a stiff neck; dizziness with fainting, slurred speech, weakness, or disturbed vision; or symptoms that persist, escalate, or simply frighten you. Persistent complaints also belong with a licensed practitioner, whether medical or East Asian medical as suits the person. Reaching Heaven is a beautiful name, but the safest thing it reaches is your own judgment about when to stop pressing and start asking questions.
Tongtian, Reaching Heaven, sits high on the crown slope of the head — four cun back from the midpoint of the front hairline and a thumb-and-a-half to the side. Classical practice reached for it in headache, dizziness, and congested or bleeding noses. This guide walks through finding it by touch, pressing it gently, and keeping the practice safe.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Tongtian without trusting my sense of cun?
- Anchor everything to the hairline. Find the exact midpoint of the front hairline above the nose, walk the tip of your thumb straight back four widths along the midline, then step outward one and a half more. The mirror makes the geometry visible, and the neighbouring points on the same channel line — one and a half thumb-widths above and below — let you cross-check the stack. Cun measurements simply encode the same landmark walk in proportional language.
- Is it safe to press points on the top of my own head?
- Gentle fingertip contact on intact scalp is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults: beneath the skin lie tough membranes and solid bone, with none of the delicate structures that make some other territories cautious choices. The licensed dataset records no cautions for this point specifically. Keep pressure superficial, respect the stop signals — sharp pain, sudden dizziness, anything worsening — and skip the area over broken or healing skin.
- What did classical practice use Tongtian for?
- The recorded indications are headache, dizziness, nasal congestion, nosebleed, and sinusitis with foul discharge. The head-point logic is straightforward: a point on the channel route over the crown belonged naturally to discussions of complaints at and around the head. Those are traditional frameworks, documented for cultural understanding — not claims that pressing the point treats illness.
- Why name a point Reaching Heaven?
- Traditional cosmology maps the body onto the world: earth below, heaven above, the head as the body’s highest ground. Tongtian marks a near-summit of that geography, where the bladder channel passes high over the crown. Commentators also heard treatment intent in the name — reopening what is stuck above so the head’s passages communicate clearly again. Two characters, one small cosmology.
- Can pressing Tongtian replace seeing someone about my headaches?
- No. Self-acupressure is comfort practice, not diagnosis. Headaches that are sudden and severe, follow an injury, come with fever and a stiff neck, or arrive alongside fainting, visual changes, or weakness need prompt medical assessment, and headaches that persist or keep escalating belong with a clinician. Think of daily self-care and professional care as different floors of one building — useful together, never substitutes for each other.
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 and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for BL7 Tongtian — location, 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/bl7/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/bl7/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/bl7/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "BL7",
"name": {
"en": "Tongtian",
"gloss": "Reaching Heaven",
"zh-Hant": "通天",
"zh-Hans": "通天"
},
"channel": {
"id": "BL",
"order": 7,
"of": 67
},
"location": {
"text": "Near the top of the head, two finger-widths behind BL6 and two finger-widths out from the centre line."
},
"for": [
"headache",
"a stuffy nose",
"sinus trouble"
],
"press": {
"text": "Small circles with two fingertips, about a minute each side.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/bl7",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}