Never press hard or back into the throat: the windpipe lies just beneath.
天突 Tiantu
“Heaven's Chimney” · CV22
Conception Vessel · 22 of 24 · crossing-point
Where. At the base of the throat, in the soft notch at the top of the breastbone.
For. Cough, a lump-in-the-throat feeling, a hoarse voice.
Press. Light touch only, pressing down toward the breastbone, about a minute.
Caution. Never press hard or back into the throat: the windpipe lies just beneath.
在頸結喉下二寸按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Tiantu Sits: the Hollow Below the Adam’s Apple
The dataset gives the address in one measured sentence: on the neck, on the anterior midline, in the centre of the suprasternal fossa, found while seated, looking upward, in the depression directly below the laryngeal prominence. Each term unfolds into ordinary language. The laryngeal prominence is the Adam’s apple — the firm ridge at the front of the throat, more pronounced in some people than others. The suprasternal fossa is the shallow horizontal valley between the inner ends of the collarbones, just above the flat top of the breastbone. The anterior midline is the body’s central seam, equidistant from left and right at every height. And the instruction to look upward while seated is itself part of the address: tipping the chin gently back lifts the prominence away from the hollow beneath it, opening the little valley so the eye and fingertip can find it.
What lies under the fingertip here deserves particular gentleness, and the licensed record says why in its own caution: the trachea and large vessels lie directly beneath and are easily injured. Over most of the trunk a bony armour stands between skin and organs; here the armour opens. Beneath this patch of skin runs only a thin layer of soft tissue before the rings of the windpipe begin, and the great vessels of the neck travel close by on either side. The hollow itself is walled left and right by the muscle cords that run down each side of the neck toward the breastbone, so the searching finger rests in a genuine little valley with structure on every border. Everything here moves with breath and swallowing — the whole throat rises and settles — so the point is found with lightness and patience rather than pressure.
The midline here is also a ladder of recorded neighbours, which makes misidentification easy to catch. Walk down the seam onto the face of the breastbone and the dataset places Xuanji (CV21) one cun below the centre of the suprasternal fossa. Climb up toward the chin instead and Lianquan (CV23) waits above the laryngeal prominence, at the upper border of the hyoid bone. Every one of these addresses shares the same vertical line, so height is the thing telling them apart — which is why the search anchors best at the two landmarks this entry names outright: the Adam’s apple above and the breastbone’s top edge below. And like all midline points, Tiantu is a single address worked once, with whichever hand prefers; there is no left-right pair to keep symmetrical.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit upright on a firm chair with both feet down and shoulders released, facing a mirror if that helps. First look straight ahead and find the Adam’s apple — the firmest ridge at the front of your throat; a slow swallow makes it announce itself as it rises and settles. Now tip your chin gently back and let the head rest, so the prominence lifts clear of what lies beneath it. Rest the pad of your index or middle finger on the lower edge of that ridge and slide straight down its front face until bone gives way to soft tissue: the shallow horizontal valley you meet, sitting just above the flat top of the breastbone between the collarbone roots, is the suprasternal fossa. Settle the finger pad in the centre of that hollow — dead centre on the midline — and let it rest there. That spot is where Tiantu is recorded to sit.
A few quiet checks steady the result before any pressing begins. Confirm the centre first: the finger should sit equidistant from the roots of the two collarbones, precisely on the body’s seam. Then compare sensation: feather-light contact at the true spot typically answers with a faint, dull awareness, while a point a finger-width away stays comparatively quiet. Confirm what lies beneath: a soft surface over a firm, tubular ridge — the windpipe — never bare bone edge, and never a strong pulse. If you feel distinct throbbing under the pad, you have drifted toward the vessels that run alongside; ease back toward the centre and lighten until the pulse sensation disappears. Finally, swallow once more with the finger in place: the prominence above will rise and fall while the hollow itself stays put. If everything moves together, the finger has climbed onto cartilage — slide down again.
The classic mistakes are easy to name because they are common to all work at the throat. The first is pushing inward, backward into the notch — the one direction this site never rewards; the search stays on the surface of the valley, never diving into its floor. The second is hunting with the head tipped far back for minutes at a time, which stretches and shifts the very landmarks being used; the dataset’s own wording limits the upward gaze to finding the depression, after which the head returns comfortably level. The third is mistaking one of the two softer depressions above the collarbones themselves for the target — those sit lower and wider than the true fossa. Whenever doubt creeps in, return to the Adam’s apple, slide down once, slowly, and trust the two landmarks to do their quiet work again.
Reading the Name: Heaven’s Chimney
The characters tell the story in miniature. Tian 天 means heaven or sky — the character pictures a great expanse above a human figure standing small beneath it, the highest of high places. Tu 突 carries, among its dictionary senses, the idea of rushing forth or bulging out, and by extension the flue or chimney through which stove-smoke escapes a house. Together the name reads as heaven’s chimney. The traditional reading looks straight down from the name to the anatomy: the windpipe is the body’s great flue, the channel through which breath rises toward heaven with every exhale, and Tiantu waits at the chimney’s mouth — the hollow at the top of the trunk where that flue begins its ascent into the open air of the throat. The name is therefore an instruction folded into two syllables: find the chimney’s doorway, and the point marks its threshold.
The setting deepens the picture. In the classical naming habit, tian often marked the body’s upper reaches — the head-end territory where the trunk finishes and the neck begins — and this point stands exactly at that border, posted at the gate through which breath and voice both pass. The catalogue adds a formal credential: it classes Tiantu as a crossing-point, one of the addresses understood as meeting-grounds where more than one pathway converges. Which lines exactly take part in the convergence, the older literature discusses in its own idiom; the licensed record simply logs the class, and this page follows the record rather than reconstructing the debate. What can be said safely concerns the vessel itself: the Ren, or Conception Vessel, runs up the midline of the front of the body and is traditionally described as uniting all the yin meridians, and Tiantu sits near the top of that long climb, where the road leaves the chest and enters the throat.
Pinyin renders the name Tiāntū. Both syllables carry the first tone — the high, level tone held steady like a note sustained on a flute: tian on a flat high pitch, tu likewise even and unwavering. Two level tones in a row make the name unusually easy to say, a small pair of sustained notes befitting a point named for the steadiest thing in the sky. The hanzi pair 天突 is compact enough to memorise at a glance, and it belongs to a family: along this same midline the tradition stacked its images one above another — seas, courtyards, palaces, and gates between navel and throat — each name pinned to the terrain it marked. A chimney at heaven’s gate fits the skyline perfectly.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The respiratory cluster comes first in the record: bronchial asthma and bronchitis. Framed as tradition rather than promise, classical practice reached for this throat-gate point when breath ran wheezing and laboured, and when cough settled in stubbornly — the old records gathered under their asthma and cough headings a range of noisy, effortful breathing patterns and lingering chest irritations that modern readers would sort differently. Loss of voice stands beside them, and the logic of placement explains it: a point named for the chimney of breath was naturally drawn into discussions of the voice that rides on it — sudden hoarseness, a voice that would not come. One further entry asks for a clear historical eye: coughing of pus and blood, the old records’ phrase for grave lung presentations. Today, bringing up blood belongs to urgent medical care, always; the listing survives as a record of what tradition wrote down, not as guidance for any modern reader.
The throat cluster follows, and it is the largest group in the record. Pharyngitis maps onto the old complaint of sore, swollen throat — pain on swallowing, rawness, heat. Esophagitis reads as discomfort behind the breastbone during or after swallowing, an irritation of the passage itself. Globus sensation has the most poetic traditional counterpart: older texts described plum-pit qi, the feeling of a plum stone lodged in the throat that could neither be swallowed down nor coughed up — a stuck sensation with no obstruction any instrument could find. Goitre completes the set: classical records discussed swellings of the neck within the framework of the throat stations, and Tiantu, standing at the front door of that district, appears in those discussions. The final listed item, chest pain, needs no traditional gloss at all — chest pain of any kind is a reason to seek medical assessment promptly, never a reason to begin a pressure routine.
It bears repeating plainly: these are the traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, offered here for cultural and historical understanding. They are not claims that pressing this point treats any condition. Where modern research touches acupressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and context-dependent, with evidence specific to any single point remaining thin. A point at the gateway of breathing deserves that honesty doubly: nothing done gently at the surface replaces proper care when breathing, swallowing, or the voice goes wrong. Hold the tradition lightly, and hold the safety rules firmly.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point located by the walkthrough above, settle in: seated, spine tall but unforced, shoulders heavy, head comfortably level. Rest the pad of one index finger in the centre of the hollow and begin with contact alone — a few slow breaths with no pressure beyond the weight of the finger itself. Then add small, unhurried circles, letting the skin glide over the firm tube beneath rather than grinding into it. Pressure should register as pleasant dullness or mild warmth, never sharpness, never a sense of squeezing the throat or interfering with the breath. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes at a time, once or twice daily, matched where possible to long, slow exhales so each circle rides the breath out. If the finger begins to sink inward, that is the signal to lighten, not deepen.
Quality matters more than duration. Light, patient, regularly repeated surface contact fits the wellness register this page practises; anything harder teaches the body nothing at a site this delicate. Warm the hands first if they tend to chill, because chilled muscle guards. Choose a quiet corner over a screen: the practice doubles as a breathing pause — inhale through the nose, feel the throat soften, lean the gentlest awareness in on the exhale. Keep the head level throughout the pressing itself; the upward gaze belonged to the search alone. People who keep a routine often anchor it to an existing habit — morning washing, an afternoon pause — because consistency, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually ask for.
Treat the exercise as a minute or two of attended stillness rather than a treatment session. Across weeks, notice honestly: perhaps the throat feels less guarded, perhaps breathing drops a little more easily while you press, perhaps nothing shifts except that you spent time attending to the doorway your own breath uses every few seconds. Every one of those outcomes fits the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation — firmer force, longer sessions, deeper sinking aimed at forcing a result. At this particular address, escalation is not merely useless but unsafe. When curiosity pulls that direction, return to gentleness, or simply stop for the day. The chimney has stood for centuries; it will happily wait until tomorrow.
Cautions and Safe Practice
This point earns more respect than most, and the reason stands written in the licensed record’s own caution: do not needle deeply — the trachea and large vessels lie directly beneath and are easily injured. That warning is carried verbatim on this page’s record block, exactly as the dataset preserves it. Its geography is plain: over most of the body, layers of muscle or bone stand between skin and vital structures; here, in the suprasternal notch, only skin and a thin layer of soft tissue cover the windpipe’s upper reaches, with the great vessels of the neck close alongside. Professional training manages that risk with exact technique; home self-care manages it differently and far more simply — by never leaving the surface at all.
For fingertip self-care the practical rules follow from that picture. Keep every touch strictly superficial: the intention lives in skin and the outermost layer, never driving backward into the notch. Use finger pads only — no elbows, knuckles, massage tools, or devices — and never press while holding the breath or through pain. Skip the point entirely during an acute sore-throat flare, a feverish illness, or over broken or irritated skin; set the practice aside after any neck injury, surgery, or medical procedure in the region until a clinician clears ordinary activity. Sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means stop at once and do not try again that day. Pregnant readers, and anyone living with thyroid conditions, swallowing disorders, or airway conditions, should speak with a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice here.
And the wider rule stands over everything: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt medical care — not a pressure routine — for difficulty breathing, a high fever with sore throat, a muffled or vanishing voice, trouble swallowing, coughing up blood, chest pain, hoarseness lasting beyond a couple of weeks, a new lump or swelling in the neck, or any symptom that frightens you. Persistent symptoms belong with a licensed practitioner, whether physician or East Asian medicine provider as suits the complaint. The image of a chimney standing open at heaven’s gate is lovely, but the safest gift Tiantu offers most people is a calmer acquaintance with their own breath’s doorway — met kindly, touched lightly, and left unharmed.
Tiantu, Heaven’s Chimney, holds the little hollow at the base of the throat, directly below the Adam’s apple at the top of the breastbone. Classical practice reached for it when wheezing breath, stubborn cough, or a sore, swollen throat troubled someone. This guide walks through finding it by touch — gently, because the windpipe lies just beneath.
Cautions from the classical sources
- Keep insertion shallow; the trachea and large vessels sit directly beneath and are easily damaged.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Tiantu without knowing anything about cun?
- Use the Adam’s apple and the breastbone as the whole map. Look straight ahead, find the firm ridge at the front of your throat, tip your chin gently back, then slide a fingertip straight down its face until you meet the shallow horizontal hollow just above the top of the breastbone, between the collarbone roots. The centre of that hollow is the spot. Cun measurements simply encode the same landmark sequence in proportional language.
- Is pressing Tiantu myself actually safe?
- Gentle fingertip pressure held on the surface is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults, because it engages skin and the outermost tissue layer far short of the structures the record warns about. The documented danger concerns deep professional technique at a site where the windpipe and large vessels lie directly beneath — a category home acupressure never approaches. Respect the stop signals: sharp pain, radiating sensation, or discomfort that worsens all mean finish immediately.
- What did classical practice use Tiantu for?
- The traditional record lists bronchial asthma, bronchitis, pharyngitis, goitre, esophagitis, loss of voice, globus sensation, coughing of pus and blood, and chest pain. Classical texts describe it as a crossing-point near the top of the Ren vessel’s course, and its chimney-of-breath name tied it to the throat and airway in traditional reasoning. Those frameworks are documented for cultural understanding — not evidence-backed treatment claims — and several items on the list call for medical care outright today.
- Why does the location say to look upward while seated?
- Because looking up does real mechanical work at this address. Tipping the chin back lifts the laryngeal prominence away from the tissues below it and opens the suprasternal fossa, making the little valley far easier to see and feel; swallow once and the rising-and-settling prominence confirms which part moves and which stays still. The upward gaze belongs to the search only — once the hollow is found, the head returns comfortably level for any gentle contact.
- Can acupressure at Tiantu replace seeing a doctor about my sore throat?
- No. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice, not a diagnostic tool, and a sore throat carrying red flags — high fever, difficulty breathing or swallowing, a muffled voice, drooling, swelling of the neck — needs professional assessment promptly. Think of the two as different floors of the same building: daily self-care lives downstairs, and clinical medicine keeps the consulting room upstairs for symptoms that persist, worsen, or frighten you. Neither substitutes for the other.
Sources
- 01aijiu-mpvue (MIT License), complateXwInfo.json — Chinese-language location, indications, and point class for this entry.
- 02English wording authored in-house (2026) from the Chinese-language record, following WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region (2008) nomenclature conventions.
- 03Point-name reading and midline-channel context cross-checked against A Manual of Acupuncture (Deadman) and WHO Standard Acupuncture Point Locations in the Western Pacific Region (2008).
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/cv22/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/cv22/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/cv22/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "CV22",
"name": {
"en": "Tiantu",
"gloss": "Heaven's Chimney",
"zh-Hant": "天突",
"zh-Hans": "天突"
},
"channel": {
"id": "CV",
"order": 22,
"of": 24
},
"location": {
"text": "At the base of the throat, in the soft notch at the top of the breastbone."
},
"for": [
"cough",
"a lump-in-the-throat feeling",
"a hoarse voice"
],
"press": {
"text": "Light touch only, pressing down toward the breastbone, about a minute.",
"seconds": 60
},
"cautions": [
"Never press hard or back into the throat: the windpipe lies just beneath."
],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/cv22",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}