玉枕 Yuzhen
“Jade Pillow” · BL9
Foot Taiyang · 9 of 67
Where. At the back of the head, level with the top of the bony bump at the base of the skull, just under two finger-widths from the centre.
For. Head and neck pain; eye pain; a blocked nose.
Press. Fingertips of both hands, small circles, about a minute.
玉枕，在絡卻後七分，俠腦戶傍一寸三分按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Yuzhen Sits on the Back of the Head
The dataset places Yuzhen at the back of the head: 2.5 cun above the midpoint of the posterior hairline, 1.3 cun lateral to that midpoint, in the depression level with the upper border of the external occipital protuberance. Two of those terms deserve unpacking. The posterior hairline is the hairline at the nape, and its midpoint sits on the centre line of the body. The external occipital protuberance is the firm, rounded bump most people can feel at the middle of the back of the skull — run a fingertip up the back of your own head and it announces itself. A cun, meanwhile, is the traditional proportional measure taken from the person being examined rather than from a ruler, so the recorded numbers translate into thumb-widths that scale with the body.
What lies beneath the surface here makes the region unusually legible to touch. Skin and a thin layer of soft tissue pass almost immediately onto solid skull bone, and the muscles that move the head and neck sweep between the occiput and the spine below. Because bone sits so close to the surface, the landmark the dataset names can be confirmed directly: the depression in question hugs the upper edge of the bony bump, off to either side of the midline where the skull curves away. Nothing about this geography needs force to read. A patient fingertip finds the bump, traces its upper margin, and registers where the smooth slope of bone gives onto a slight hollow — the spot the record describes.
Yuzhen is a paired point: one lies just left of the centre line, its twin just right, and searching the two sides together confirms placement. The channel line itself arrives from above — classical texts describe the bladder channel pouring over the crown of the head and descending across this occipital stretch before continuing down toward Tianzhu at the nape. That downward passage matters for orientation: the point belongs to the skull slope above the hair-bearing nape, not to the muscular neck beneath it. When a search drifts, returning to the protuberance and starting again costs ten seconds and prevents nearly every error this region allows.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit upright on a firm chair with both feet down and shoulders released, and let the hands warm first — cold fingers read less well. Place the pads of your index and middle fingers at the centre of the back of the skull and slide upward until they meet the firm rounded prominence of the occiput. Trace the top edge of that bump to its highest margin. From there, walk outward along the curve of the skull a little more than one thumb-width away from the centre line and let your fingertips settle into the shallow hollow that sits level with the bump’s upper edge. That hollow, mirrored on both sides of the midline, is where the dataset locates Yuzhen.
A second route cross-checks the first. Find the midpoint of the posterior hairline at the back of the neck, measure straight up the centre line about two and a half thumb-widths, then move sideways just over one thumb-width and search again for the hollow beside the bump. Hair complicates everything here, so part it gently or press through it with patient pads rather than fingernails. Confirmations follow the usual habits: compare the two sides with feather-light touch, and notice whether a faint, dull awareness gathers at one spot while the skin a finger-width away stays quiet. If what you feel instead is the corded muscle of the nape or the soft hollow below the bump’s base, you have slid too low — climb back up onto the skull slope.
The classic mistakes sort into three groups. Landing dead centre on the midline leaves you pressing the bump itself rather than the hollow beside it that the record describes. Sliding too far down carries you onto the nape, into the neighborhood where the channel continues but the point does not. Drifting out toward the ear loses the measured relationship to the centre line altogether. All three share one remedy: return to the external occipital protuberance, place a fingertip on its upper edge, and redo the short walk outward slowly, once. Landmark-based location rewards repetition, and this particular landmark is among the friendliest the body offers.
Reading the Name: Jade Pillow
The characters tell the story plainly. Yu 玉 means jade — the stone the tradition held dearest, a byword for purity, polish, and quiet worth. Zhen 枕 means pillow. Together the name reads as the jade pillow, and the reference is delightfully literal: it is the back of the head, the very bone that rests against a pillow every night, that carries the title. Classical anatomical writing gave the prominent bone at the occiput graceful names of this kind, and the point took its title from the terrain it sits on. Few point names map so directly onto something a reader can touch within thirty seconds.
The metaphor earns its keep. Tradition named points for gates, valleys, wells, courtyards, and pillows because the images instruct: they anchor a location to something memorable and suggest a quality. Here the image ties the point to the resting weight of the head — the moment each night when the occiput settles onto fabric and the day lets go. It also fixes the address beyond argument: the pillow-bone itself, neither the neck beneath nor the crown above. Classical texts describe the bladder channel arriving at this region from the crown on its way down toward the nape, so the tradition reads the occiput as a resting place on a long descent, and the name marks the halt with a household object everyone owns.
Pinyin renders the name Yùzhěn. The syllable yu carries the fourth tone, a falling tone that starts high and drops away; zhen carries the third tone, the dipping tone that sinks and rises again. The hanzi pair 玉枕 is compact enough to memorise at a glance. Like many channel points named for ordinary things — pillows, wells, gates, baskets — the name travels light and lands precisely: say jade pillow, lay a hand on the back of your head, and you have already found the right neighborhood.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: head and neck pain, eye pain, blurred vision, nasal congestion, and deafness. Framed as tradition rather than promise, classical practice traditionally reached for Yuzhen when discomfort gathered across the back of the head or stiffness settled where head meets neck. Old records tended to speak of the head and the nape as one continuous territory of complaint — the dome of the skull flowing into the neck without a seam — and a point seated at their junction naturally entered those discussions. Back-of-the-head patterns were, in that frame, exactly where an occipital point belonged.
The eye entries follow the channel map. Classical texts describe the bladder channel beginning at the inner corner of the eye, climbing the forehead, crossing the crown, and then descending across the back of the head toward the nape — the very stretch where Yuzhen sits. Channel thinking linked the two ends of that arc, so a point on the descending line stood among the candidates classical practice considered for eye pain and dimmed sight. Nasal congestion fits the same opening territory, since the channel’s recorded starting corner sits beside the nose; the face’s front door and the skull’s back slope belong to one pathway in the traditional picture.
Deafness sits farther from any drawn pathway, and honesty serves better here than ingenuity. Classical authors worked with several overlapping schemes of correspondence, not the channel map alone, and their lists grouped entries in ways a modern reader cannot always reconstruct from a single diagram. What can be said plainly: these are the traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset, offered for cultural and historical understanding, not claims that pressing this point treats disease. Where modern research touches self-applied pressure, 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.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point located, settle in: seated comfortably, shoulders heavy, jaw unclenched. Curl index and middle fingers together and rest the pads — through the hair, or just inside a parted section — against the hollow beside the bump. Begin with contact alone for a few breaths, then add small, slow circles, letting the skin travel gently over the bone beneath. Pressure should register as pleasant dullness or faint warmth, never sharpness. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, timed to slow exhales so each circle rides the breath out. Swap hands and give the other side the same unhurried attention.
Quality matters more than duration, and nowhere more than here: with bone so close to the surface, hard pressing buys nothing but a tender scalp, while light patient contact asks the tissue to soften on its own schedule. Warm the hands first, choose a quiet corner away from screens, and let the practice double as a pause in the day. There is a neat fit between name and hour — a point called the Jade Pillow takes kindly to an evening slot, folded into winding down for bed. People who keep routines anchor them to existing habits, because consistency, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually request.
Treat the exercise as a small ceremony of attention rather than a treatment session. Across weeks, notice what changes: perhaps the occipital region feels less guarded, perhaps the pause itself becomes the point, perhaps nothing shifts except that you spend ninety seconds attending to the back of your own head. Every outcome in that list fits the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation — pressing harder, longer, or deeper to force a result. When curiosity pulls that way, return to gentleness or stop for the day; the point will still be there tomorrow.
Cautions and Safe Practice
It helps to know how this point compares with others on this site. Some points — certain chest and upper-back locations — carry explicit recorded cautions because professional technique there could reach vulnerable structures. The licensed records for Yuzhen carry no such caution entry: skin and thin soft tissue lie directly over thick skull bone, and purely surface contact engages nothing fragile. Two honest caveats follow. First, an absent caution is not an invitation for force — it describes professional technique, not a license for home enthusiasm. Second, the scalp is richly supplied with sensitive tissue and genuinely uncomfortable when bruised, so restraint remains the house style here too.
The practical rules stay familiar. Use finger pads only — never elbows, knuckles, or tools — and keep the intention in skin and superficial tissue. Skip the point entirely over broken, irritated, or erupting scalp skin, over fresh scars, and during any illness that leaves you feeling unwell. Sharp, electric, or spreading sensation means stop at once and do not try again that day. Pregnant readers, and anyone already under care for headaches or a neurological condition, should consult a qualified practitioner before adding new point practices to their week. None of these rules is unique to this point; together they are simply what careful self-care looks like.
And the wider rule stands over everything: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. 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, or headache accompanied by vision changes, weakness, confusion, or drowsiness. Persistent or worsening headaches belong with a licensed practitioner, medical or East Asian medical as suits the complaint. The jade imagery is lovely, but the safest gift this point offers most people is a calmer, kinder acquaintance with the back of their own head.
Yuzhen, the Jade Pillow, sits high on the back of the head beside the rounded prominence of the occiput. Classical practice reached for it when head and neck pain, eye pain, or blurred vision troubled someone, and its name recalls the bone that meets the pillow night after night. This guide walks through locating it by touch and pressing it gently.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Yuzhen without knowing anything about cun?
- Use the bump as the whole map. Slide your fingertips up the back of your skull until they meet the firm rounded prominence at its centre, trace the top edge of that bump, then walk outward a little more than a thumb-width from the centre line until you settle into a shallow hollow level with the bump’s upper edge. The cun measurements in the dataset encode the same landmark sequence in proportional language; your thumb simply performs them.
- Is it safe to press a point on the back of my own head?
- Gentle fingertip contact over solid skull bone is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults, and the licensed records for this point include no special caution entry. The main practical wrinkle is hair, which muffles sensation — press through it patiently or part it lightly. Respect the stop signals: sharp or electric sensation, increasing discomfort, or anything that feels wrong all mean finish immediately and let the area rest.
- What did classical practice use Yuzhen for?
- The traditional record lists head and neck pain, eye pain, blurred vision, nasal congestion, and deafness. Classical texts describe the bladder channel running from the inner corner of the eye over the crown and down the back of the head, which is why head and eye complaints dominate this point’s historic portfolio. Those are traditional frameworks for understanding the body, documented for context — not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why would a point behind the head matter for the eyes?
- Because the same recorded pathway touches both places. The bladder channel is described as beginning at the inner corner of the eye, traveling up over the forehead and crown, and descending across the occiput toward the nape. Channel thinking treats a pathway as connecting its whole course, so a point on the descending stretch stood in classical discussions of eye pain and dimmed vision. It is reasoning from the traditional map, offered as context rather than mechanism.
- Can acupressure at Yuzhen replace seeing a doctor about headaches?
- No. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice, not a diagnostic tool. A sudden severe headache unlike any previous one, headache after a head injury, headache with fever and a stiff neck, or headache with vision changes, weakness, or confusion needs professional assessment promptly — treat those as doors to walk through today, not symptoms to press away. For persistent ordinary headaches, daily self-care and clinical care work on different floors, and neither replaces the 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, jade-pillow imagery, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for BL9 Yuzhen — 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/bl9/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/bl9/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/bl9/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "BL9",
"name": {
"en": "Yuzhen",
"gloss": "Jade Pillow",
"zh-Hant": "玉枕",
"zh-Hans": "玉枕"
},
"channel": {
"id": "BL",
"order": 9,
"of": 67
},
"location": {
"text": "At the back of the head, level with the top of the bony bump at the base of the skull, just under two finger-widths from the centre."
},
"for": [
"head and neck pain",
"eye pain",
"a blocked nose"
],
"press": {
"text": "Fingertips of both hands, small circles, about a minute.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/bl9",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}