腦空 Naokong
“Brain Hollow” · GB19
Foot Shaoyang · 19 of 44 · crossing-point
Where. At the back of the head, beside the bump on the skull, straight above the hollow of GB20.
For. Headache; dizziness; a stiff, sore neck.
Press. Gentle fingertip pressure on the scalp, about a minute each side.
腦空二穴，一名顳顬，在承靈後一寸五分按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Naokong Sits at the Back of the Head
The dataset gives Naokong a precise address: on the head, lateral to the upper border of the external occipital protuberance, 2.25 cun lateral to the midline of the head, level with Naohu (GV17), and directly above Fengchi (GB20). Three anchors hide in that sentence. First, the ridge: the external occipital protuberance is the definite bump nearly everyone can feel at the lower back of the skull, and this point sits off to the side of its upper edge, not on the midline. Second, the horizontal line: Naohu occupies the shallow hollow on the top edge of that ridge, dead centre, and Naokong shares its height — find one and you have found the level of the other. Third, the distance: a cun is the traditional proportional unit taken from the person being measured — roughly the width of their own thumb on the head — so 2.25 cun means a little more than two thumb-widths out from the centre line, mirrored faithfully on both sides.
The territory under the fingertip rewards a slow exploration. Here the rounded dome of the skull begins its turn down toward the neck, and the strong muscles of the nape take hold around the bony ridge; press lightly and the scalp glides thinly over smooth bone. Many people notice that this stretch of the head carries sensation close to the surface — a feather-light touch already reports plenty — so nothing about locating or contacting this point asks for force. On many adults the hairline leaves this position tucked inside the hair, so fingers travel through strands rather than across bare skin; parting the hair gently makes the landmarks easier to follow. None of the terrain is delicate in the way the chest or throat is delicate: beneath the contact lies bone, and honesty about the surface is the whole art.
Neighbours help confirm the placement. On the midline at exactly this height sits Naohu (GV17), the du-vessel point whose hollow marks the top of the ridge; measure sideways from it and you arrive here. Below, down at the base of the skull where the neck begins, lies Fengchi (GB20), the well-known nape point found in the hollows either side of the strong neck cords; climb straight upward from it and you arrive here as well. The two routes cross at Naokong, which is why careful finders always triangulate: ridge first, midline hollow second, sideways measure third, then a check straight up from the nape hollows. If the fingertip lands somewhere unconvincing, the remedy is always the same — return to the ridge, retrace the midline, and begin again.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit upright in a comfortable chair and let the shoulders drop, because a braced neck blurs every landmark at the back of the head. Reach one hand over the crown and rest the pads of the index and middle fingers on the rear of the skull; walk downward until you meet the ridge of bone described above — unmistakable once noticed. Trace along its top edge toward the middle until the fingertips settle into the shallow hollow that marks Naohu (GV17). Now slide sideways along that same level, away from the centre, for a little more than two thumb-widths. The landing zone is a broad, quiet shelf of bone where the ridge flattens toward each side; most people sense a faint, dull awareness somewhere there, deeper than soreness and slower than a tickle.
Two checks turn a guess into a placement. First, drop the other hand to the nape and find the soft hollows at the base of the skull either side of the cordlike muscles — the neighbourhood of Fengchi (GB20) — then confirm that the fingertip above rides directly over one of them. Second, compare sides with feather-light touches: the awareness rarely feels identical left and right, and small asymmetries are ordinary. Let the head nod slowly while the pads stay put; the skin should glide smoothly over the bone beneath them, confirming that contact rests on the skull’s curve and is not snagged in a fold of hair or in the tight band where the neck muscles grip. If everything under the fingers feels vague, lighten the touch further — paradoxically, less pressure reveals more detail here, not less.
The common mis-finds are predictable. Stopping too low slides the search into the soft musculature of the upper nape, where the hair grows thickest — that is Fengchi’s country below, not Naokong’s shelf above. Drifting too far forward carries the fingers along the channel’s road toward the side of the head, past the point entirely; the correct zone hugs the rear quarter of the skull, close beside the midline structure of the ridge. Trusting the hairline misleads for the same reason it misleads everywhere on the head — hairlines vary enormously — while the bony ridge and its midline hollow never move. And hunting with force defeats itself: firm pressure floods the whole region with the same dull ache and erases the contrast that identifies the true spot. Slow down, lighten up, and let the shelf declare itself.
Reading the Name: Brain Hollow
Naokong joins two characters into an image both plain and startling. Nao 腦 is the brain: the character pairs the flesh radical with a graphic descended from the ancient picture of the fontanelle — the soft, unfinished seam atop an infant’s skull — and old physiology used it for the marrow-like essence gathered in the head. Kong 空 is emptiness in the useful sense: a hollow, an opening, the vacant reach of sky. Set together on the back of the skull, Brain Hollow names the place where the solid house of the head opens inward; commentary handed down with the point explains that it stands beside the brain case, facing the hollows within, and drew its name from that meeting of bone and void. The starker rendering some references prefer — Empty Brain — says the same thing outright.
The catalogue records a second credential: Naokong is listed among the crossing-points, the stations classical theory marks where two pathways share ground. Commentary preserved with the point describes the gallbladder channel meeting the Yang Linking Vessel here — the vessel tradition pictures gathering the yang of the body and sweeping it up over the head. Whatever weight one gives such maps, the label captures something real about the geography: this shelf at the back of the skull is where the gallbladder channel, having zigzagged across the temple and around the ear, rounds the rear of the head before beginning its descent of the body. A crossroads of rising yang was, in the old way of speaking, exactly the right station for a point whose name invokes the hollows of the brain.
Pinyin renders the name Nǎokōng: nao dips through the third tone, falling then rising like a drawn-out question, while kong rides the high, level first tone, steady as a held note. One wrinkle deserves care: kong 空 wears two tones in Chinese with two senses — first-tone kōng for empty, hollow, or sky, and fourth-tone kòng for a vacancy or free time — and dictionaries give the point name the first reading. The hanzi pair 腦空 is compact and quick to write, and it joins the family of head points named for interior architecture — doors, windows, courtyards, and hollows scattered along the skull. Learn the name and the location lesson comes half learned: look for the place where bone gives onto emptiness.
Traditional Indications, Explained
Seven entries make up the recorded portfolio: head wind, dizziness, stiff painful neck, epilepsy, fright palpitations, tinnitus, and nosebleed. The first shapes the rest. Classical practice spoke of wind gathering — an influence pictured as rising, restless movement settling in the head — and points on the channel’s high route round the back of the skull were reached for when the head itself felt besieged. Framed as tradition: when wind was understood to lodge in the head’s own territory, practitioners approached the stations along the pathway that climbs there, and Naokong stands on that high ground beside the crossing with the Yang Linking Vessel, a junction the commentaries associated with precisely such rising influences.
Dizziness, tinnitus, and the stiff painful neck belong to the point’s geography at the seam of head and neck. The point stands directly above Fengchi, at the doorway between skull and nape, and classical teaching read complaints that straddled that seam — spinning sensations, sounds inside the ears, a neck grown rigid and sore — as disturbances of one shared district, to be met at stations on either side of the border. The old imagery made wind the messenger of such troubles, slipping upward from the nape into the head; whether the complaint announced itself above or below, the same corridor served, and Naokong kept its post at the top of it. These are traditional ways of mapping complaint to location, recorded for understanding rather than promised as outcomes.
Three entries deserve honest handling. Epilepsy appears throughout old records in the discussions of its era; whatever the classical response was, a seizure today belongs to emergency medical care, and nothing here suggests otherwise. Fright palpitations — the old shorthand for panic-struck heart-racing — and nosebleed preserve clinical observations from another age; kept here as cultural history, they are neither endorsement nor advice. As for modern evidence, reviews suggest effects of acupressure and related practices are modest and depend heavily on context, and research pinned to any single point remains thin. Hold the tradition lightly; hold the safety rules firmly.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
Settle in before touching anything: seated, spine easy, shoulders heavy, three or four slow breaths drawing a line under the day. Find the point by the walkthrough above, then lay the pads of the index and middle fingers — never the nails — against the shelf of bone. Start with contact alone and let the fingers simply listen for a few breaths; then draw small, unhurried circles wide enough for the scalp to glide over the skull beneath. Aim the effort at comfortable dullness or spreading warmth, never at sharpness. One to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, suits most households; let every circle ride a slow exhale, swap hands halfway, and give the two sides the same patient attention.
Small kindnesses make the practice easier to keep. Warm cold hands first, because chilled fingertips feel harsher than they mean to. Gather long hair loosely so circles do not tug strands, and keep nails trimmed. Pick a quiet corner rather than a screen — the pause is half the gift — and pair the pressure with slow nasal breathing, letting the eyes soften or close. Some people like to rest a warm palm over the whole back of the head afterward, holding still for a breath or two; the gesture costs nothing and rounds the practice off gently. Consistency matters more than intensity: five calm minutes on most days outrank a heroic session once a month, and the habit should feel like hospitality toward yourself, never a chore imposed.
Treat the exercise as attendance, not treatment. Across weeks, notice what changes: perhaps the back of the head holds less guard, perhaps the pause becomes the part you protect on busy days, perhaps nothing shifts except the quiet pleasure of having attended to yourself. All of that fits the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation — pressing harder, longer, or deeper to force a particular result. When curiosity pulls that way, return to lightness, or set the practice aside for the day. A light hand is not the timid version of this work — it is the work itself.
Cautions and Safe Practice
The licensed dataset records no cautions for this point — a calm bill of health worth reading precisely. It does not mean the back of the head invites force; it means the compiled records flag no special danger of the kind noted for certain chest, shoulder, and nape points, where deep structures lie close beneath the skin. The terrain here keeps its own disciplines: thin scalp over curved bone, sensation carried close to the surface, and a neighbour — Fengchi just below — whose record does carry warnings that make the whole district worth respecting. Professional acupuncture certainly reaches this site, guided by training home practice does not replicate; household self-care keeps a different and simpler covenant — stay on the surface.
Practical rules follow. Use finger pads only, and keep pressure light enough to stay pleasant — dull warmth, never sharpness. Skip the point over broken, irritated, freshly scraped, or sunburned skin, and pause the practice during any acute illness until energy returns. Sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means stop at once, for that day. Pregnant readers, and anyone living with neurological, circulatory, or chronic headache conditions, should consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice — not because this point is flagged, but because new routines deserve a professional glance.
And the wider rules stand over everything. Seek prompt medical care — not a pressure routine — for a sudden, severe headache unlike any before; headache after a blow to the head; headache with fever and a stiff neck; or headache accompanied by vision changes, weakness, numbness, confusion, or repeated vomiting. Persistent or steadily worsening symptoms belong with a licensed practitioner, Western or East Asian medical as suits the complaint. This page is educational only, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. The safest gift Naokong offers most people is a calmer acquaintance with the back of their own head, treated kindly.
Naokong, Brain Hollow, sits at the back of the head just off the midline, level with the hollow above the skull’s rearmost ridge and straight above the nape point Fengchi. Classical practice reached for it when wind gathered in the head, when dizziness swayed, or when the neck turned stiff and sore. This guide covers finding it by touch, reading its name, and pressing it gently at home.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Naokong without knowing anything about cun?
- Use the bones instead of rulers. Feel the definite ridge at the lower back of your skull, trace along its top edge to the middle, and find the shallow hollow there — Naohu, on the midline. Then walk sideways along that same level for a little more than two thumb-widths. To cross-check, find the soft hollows at the base of the skull either side of the neck cords — Fengchi’s neighbourhood — and confirm your fingertip sits directly above one of them. The written 2.25 cun simply encodes that walk in proportional language.
- Is pressing this spot at the back of my head safe?
- For healthy adults, light fingertip pressure held on the scalp surface is reasonable everyday self-care, and the compiled records raise no special caution for this site — though the nape point directly below does carry warnings in its own record, which is reason enough to keep home contact high on the skull and gentle throughout. Thin scalp over bone reports everything quickly: respect the stop signals — sharp pain, electric or radiating sensation, or discomfort that worsens all mean finish immediately.
- What did classical practice use Naokong for?
- The traditional record lists head wind, dizziness, stiff painful neck, epilepsy, fright palpitations, tinnitus, and nosebleed — seven entries shaped by the point’s post at the seam of head and neck and by its standing among the crossing-points, where commentary describes the gallbladder channel meeting the Yang Linking Vessel. These are traditional frameworks for understanding the body, documented for context — not evidence-backed treatment claims — and entries like epilepsy belong to their era: a seizure today is emergency care.
- Why does a gallbladder point sit at the back of the head?
- Because the channel’s road runs right past there. Classical teaching draws the gallbladder pathway — a wood-element channel that tradition associates with tension and decision-making — beginning at the outer corner of the eye, zigzagging across the temple and around the ear, rounding the back of the skull, then descending the body all the way to the fourth toe, forty-four points in all. Naokong stands on the stretch where that road rounds the rear of the head, which is why wind-in-the-head complaints dominate its classical portfolio.
- Can acupressure at Naokong replace seeing a doctor about my headaches or stiff neck?
- No. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice, not a diagnostic tool. A stiff neck with fever, a headache carrying warning signs — sudden severity, onset after injury, vision or strength changes, persistence that outlasts familiar patterns — or any symptom that keeps worsening needs professional assessment promptly. Think of the two as different floors of one building: daily self-care lives downstairs, and clinical medicine keeps the consulting room upstairs. Neither substitutes for 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, crossing-point status, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for GB19 Naokong — location, actions, and indication 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/gb19/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/gb19/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/gb19/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "GB19",
"name": {
"en": "Naokong",
"gloss": "Brain Hollow",
"zh-Hant": "腦空",
"zh-Hans": "脑空"
},
"channel": {
"id": "GB",
"order": 19,
"of": 44
},
"location": {
"text": "At the back of the head, beside the bump on the skull, straight above the hollow of GB20."
},
"for": [
"headache",
"dizziness",
"a stiff",
"sore neck"
],
"press": {
"text": "Gentle fingertip pressure on the scalp, about a minute each side.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Tongren Shuxue Zhenjiu Tujing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/gb19",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-25"
}