In pregnancy or during heavy periods, ask a practitioner first.
帶脈 Daimai
“The Belt Channel” · GB26
Foot Shaoyang · 26 of 44 · crossing-point
Where. On the side of the waist, level with the navel, straight below the free tip of the second-lowest rib.
For. Irregular periods; low belly pain; aching back and sides.
Press. Gentle fingertip pressure, about a minute each side.
Caution. In pregnancy or during heavy periods, ask a practitioner first.
帶脈，在季脅下一寸八分按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Daimai Sits at the Waistline
The dataset places Daimai on the lateral abdomen — the soft, muscular flank between the lower ribs and the hip crest — one point eight cun directly below Zhangmen, where two reference lines meet: a vertical line dropped from the free end of the eleventh rib, and a horizontal line carried round the body through the centre of the navel. The record adds that the point sits on the midaxillary line, the vertical guideline running down the side of the trunk from the middle of the armpit. Stripped of jargon: bring your fingertip to the height of your navel, carry it around to the side of your waist, and search just below where the lowest rib tip projects at the side.
A cun, as always on these pages, is the traditional measuring unit of Chinese point-location — proportional lengths taken from the person being examined rather than from any ruler, so a cun beside a broad-framed adult differs from a cun on a slight teenager. One convenient rule of thumb makes a thumb-width equal to a single cun, which renders one point eight cun as a little less than two thumb-widths — a short step down from Zhangmen, nothing dramatic. Zhangmen itself is worth knowing as the gatekeeper of the search: the liver-channel point that rests directly below the free end of the eleventh rib, that soft, movable rib-tip you can feel projecting at the side where the ribcage hands over to the flank. Two landmarks, one vertical relationship, one horizontal confirmation — the whole location fits into four facts.
What lies beneath the fingertips shapes how the point should be treated. The flank here is layered muscle — the oblique muscles of the abdominal wall wrap the side of the torso in overlapping sheets — and beneath them lies the abdominal cavity proper. Unlike bony landmarks, nothing here pushes back against a probing finger; the tissue yields, which makes it tempting to press harder than intended. Resist that temptation from the first minute. The point announces itself through a faint, dull awareness rather than through pressure tolerance, and everything about working this region rewards patience over force. Notice, too, how the area moves with the breath: the flank expands and settles as the ribs lift and fall, a quiet rhythm worth attending to once your fingers arrive.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Begin standing or sitting upright with clothing loose and belly unclenched. Rest your left palm on the left side of your waist so the fingers curl around the flank. Walk your fingertips down the outer edge of the ribcage until the bone runs out in a soft, freely movable tip — the lowest rib ending you can clearly feel at the side, the free end of the eleventh rib. From that tip, travel straight down the flank a little less than two thumb-widths, slowing as you approach the height of your navel. The spot you want lies on the side of the waist, neither drifting forward onto the front of the belly nor backward toward the small of the back. When your fingertip settles at navel height on the flank, level beneath the rib tip, you have arrived.
Two cross-checks turn an approximate guess into a confident find. First, the horizontal test: rest a fingertip lightly against the centre of your navel and sweep the other hand around your body at exactly that height, tracing a line that circles the waist like a belt — a pleasing coincidence with the point’s name — until it reaches the flank. Where that line meets the vertical drop from the eleventh-rib tip is Daimai. Second, the comparison test: locate the same sequence on both sides and press feather-light on each candidate in turn. Most people notice a faint dull awareness at the true point and little sensation a thumb-width away. Let a slow breath move under your fingers while you compare; the flank stirs with each exhale, confirming you are resting on living muscle rather than bone.
Three classic misses account for nearly every failed search. The first is dropping too far: not far past navel height the fingertip meets the firm ridge of the hip crest, unmistakable proof of descending too low — climb back up to the rib tip and start the measurement again. The second is drifting forward, so the finger lands on the front of the abdomen instead of the side; keep the elbow comfortably back and the finger tracking the flank. The third is starting from the wrong rib tip — higher projections along the ribcage can masquerade as the eleventh, so trust the lowest clear, movable ending before the pure soft muscle of the waist begins. If confusion sets in, return to the rib tip, re-find the navel line, and measure down one slow time.
Reading the Name: The Belt Channel
The two characters are unusually direct. Dai 帶 means belt — the sash that gathers a robe at the waist and keeps the whole garment ordered; mai 脈 means vessel or channel, the word the tradition uses for every pathway that qi and blood travel. Read together, Daimai is simply the belt channel. What makes the name remarkable among the hundreds of points of the classical body is its provenance: this acupoint shares its name outright with one of the eight extraordinary vessels, the Dai Mai or Girdling Vessel, a channel unlike the twelve regular meridians in that it does not run vertically at all. Classical texts describe it instead as encircling the waist like a band, binding together all the vertically travelling channels much as a belt gathers the folds of a robe.
The catalogue records GB26 with the category of crossing-point, and that single label resolves the puzzle of the shared name. Tradition holds that the gallbladder channel — of whose forty-four points this is the twenty-sixth — meets the girdling vessel at exactly this spot on the flank; the point stands where the route of a regular meridian intersects the horizontal circuit of an extraordinary one. Meeting-points matter in classical geography because they let one location serve two systems, and this one lets the gallbladder channel borrow the belt vessel’s traditional concern for the lower abdomen and waist. The gallbladder belongs to wood in five-phase thinking, an element associated with growth, decision, and orderly flow — imagery that suits a channel famed for zigzagging down the side of the head and body.
Pinyin writes the name Dàimài, and the pronunciation carries a small piece of music: both syllables take the fourth tone, the sharp falling tone, so the name falls twice — dài, mài — like two brisk taps of a metronome. The hanzi pair 帶脈 is compact enough to memorise at a glance, and like many points named for architecture and dress — gates, valleys, courtyards, belts — the metaphor performs real work. It says the tradition treats this spot as a fastening point, a place where things are gathered and held in order, not merely passed through. The name is a set of instructions disguised as two characters.
Traditional Indications, Explained
Seven indications ride with this point in the licensed record: irregular menstruation, vaginal discharge, amenorrhea, lower abdominal pain, lumbar and hypochondriac pain, weakness of the lower limbs, and hernia. The first three cluster around the women’s cycle, and the belt vessel explains why. Because the vessel girdles the body at the level where the lower abdomen begins, classical teaching assigned it a special oversight of the pelvic region and the cycles that move there; indeed, the very phrase the old literature uses for vaginal discharge — daixia, “below the belt” — takes its wording from the vessel’s name, a linguistic fossil of the theory. Presented as history and language rather than promise: classical practice traditionally reached for Daimai when cycles ran irregular, when discharge troubled, or when periods failed to arrive.
The remaining indications read naturally off the map. Lumbar and hypochondriac pain — ache at the side of the low back and along the flank between ribs and hip — sits squarely in the territory the gallbladder channel surveys, since classical texts trace its course zigzagging down the side of the head and body; discomfort along that lateral corridor was therefore approached at points along the route. Lower abdominal pain belongs to the belt vessel’s own district, the zone it encircles. Weakness of the lower limbs received a vivid traditional reading: if the belt slackens, the bundles it gathers scatter, so the vertical channels were said to lose their ordering when the girdling vessel failed its office — a metaphorical physiology, recorded here as such. Hernia in the old records names a broad family of dragging, bulging complaints of the groin and lower abdomen, a category whose serious modern forms — a swelling that turns painful, hard, or cannot be pushed back — belong in urgent medical care, not in a pressure routine.
It bears repeating plainly: these are the traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, offered for cultural and historical understanding. They are not claims that pressing this point treats any condition, and nothing here replaces assessment by a qualified clinician — least of all for cycle changes, missed periods, or pelvic pain, which deserve proper evaluation on their own terms. Where modern research touches self-applied pressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and dependent on context, and evidence specific to any single point remains thin. Hold the tradition lightly, hold the safety rules firmly, and let the belt-vessel imagery enrich your picture of the body rather than your expectations of a result.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point found by the walkthrough above, settle in: seated on a chair or standing with weight even, spine tall but unforced. Reach around with the opposite hand so the thumb — or two stacked fingertips — rests on the flank point. Begin with contact alone for a few breaths, then add small, slow circles, letting the skin glide over the yielding muscle beneath rather than grinding inward. 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, matched where possible to slow exhales so each circle rides the breath out. Swap sides and repeat, keeping the two sessions symmetrical — the belt, after all, encircles.
Quality matters more than duration. Light, patient, regularly repeated contact fits the wellness register this page practises; hard digging into the flank accomplishes nothing except bruising a muscle that works all day stabilising your posture. Warm your hands first if they run cold, because chilled muscle guards. Choose a quiet corner over a screen, since the practice doubles as a pause: inhale through the nose, feel the waist widen under still fingers, press gently on the long exhale. People who keep routines often anchor them to existing habits — morning dressing, an evening shower — because consistency, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually ask for.
Treat the exercise as a brief ceremony of attention rather than a treatment session. Over weeks you may notice the flank feeling less guarded, the waist easier to engage, the posture a little more settled — or nothing at all except ninety seconds spent tending your own body. Every one of those outcomes fits the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation: pressing harder, longer, or deeper to compel a change. Curiosity pulls that way sometimes; answer it by returning to gentleness, or by closing the day’s practice altogether. The belt-vessel ideal, fittingly, is order kept by steady, moderate tension — never by strain.
Cautions and Safe Practice
The licensed record lists no specific cautions for this point, and that fact deserves a plain statement — alongside an equally plain caveat: absence of recorded cautions is not an invitation to force. The flank overlies the abdominal cavity, whose organs lie deeper than any home fingertip should ever intend to reach, and comfortable self-care keeps contact strictly in skin and superficial muscle. Nothing about this location demands courage or endurance. If a session leaves soreness that lingers into the next day, the pressure was too firm; halve it next time. Gentleness is not the timid version of the practice — it is the practice.
Practical rules, briefly: use finger pads or thumbs, never elbows, knuckles, or tools; skip the point entirely over broken, irritated, or infected skin; stop at once on any sharp, electric, or radiating sensation and do not retry that day. Readers who are pregnant are asked to consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new waist or lower-abdominal point work — many teachers counsel particular care around the pelvic region in pregnancy, and individual advice beats general pages. During menstruation, let comfort lead: lighter touch or complete rest on heavy days is entirely reasonable, and nobody must press through cramps. Anyone living with a known hernia, recent abdominal surgery, or ongoing pelvic conditions should likewise clear ordinary self-massage with their clinician first.
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 sudden or severe abdominal or pelvic pain, heavy or unusual bleeding, cycles that stop abruptly alongside other changes, discharge that turns foul or arrives with fever, or a hernia swelling that becomes painful, hard, or cannot be pushed back. Persistent symptoms belong with a licensed practitioner, whether medical or East Asian medical as suits the complaint. The girdling image offers a parting gift: think of this practice as tending the body’s own sash — snug enough to hold everything in order, loose enough never to bind. That balance is the whole art.
Daimai — the Belt Channel — sits on the side of the waist at exactly the height of the navel, a rare acupoint that borrows its name outright from one of the eight extraordinary vessels: the girdling channel that circles the body like a sash. Classical practice reached for it amid women’s cycle complaints and flank-side pain. This guide walks through finding it by touch and pressing it gently.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Daimai without knowing anything about cun?
- Use the navel as your ruler and the rib tip as your plumb line. Note the height of your navel, sweep a fingertip sideways around your body at exactly that height until you reach the flank, then check the vertical clue: the spot should sit a little less than two thumb-widths below the soft, movable tip of the lowest rib you can feel at the side. Where the horizontal belt-line and the vertical drop meet is the location the dataset describes. Cun measurements simply encode the same two landmarks in proportional language.
- Why does this one acupoint carry the name of a whole vessel?
- Because the record classes it as a crossing-point: tradition holds that the gallbladder channel meets the girdling vessel — the belt-shaped member of the eight extraordinary vessels — precisely here on the flank. Sharing the vessel’s name flags the meeting for anyone scanning a point list, the way a station serving two railway lines often bears a junction name. It also signals the point’s traditional portfolio: the concerns classical theory assigned to the belt vessel, especially around the lower abdomen, became the concerns of the point that hosts it.
- What did classical practice use Daimai for?
- The traditional record lists irregular menstruation, vaginal discharge, amenorrhea, lower abdominal pain, lumbar and hypochondriac pain, weakness of the lower limbs, and hernia. Classical texts describe the belt vessel as encircling the waist and binding the other channels, which is why cycle complaints and lateral-body aches dominate its historic portfolio. Those are traditional frameworks for understanding the body, documented for context — not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Is it all right to press Daimai during my period?
- Gentle, surface-level pressure is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults whenever it feels comfortable, and many people prefer a lighter touch or a complete pause on heavy days — both choices are fine. Treat discomfort as information rather than an obstacle: cramping that worsens under pressure is a signal to stop, not to persevere. Severe cycle pain, flooding, or bleeding patterns that are new for you belong with a clinician, whatever the calendar says.
- Can acupressure at Daimai replace medical care for cycle problems?
- No. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice, not a diagnostic tool. Irregular cycles, missed periods, troublesome discharge, and pelvic pain each have long lists of possible causes, and sorting among them is precisely what clinical training is for. Think of the two as different floors of the same building: daily self-care lives downstairs, and the consulting room upstairs receives you when symptoms persist, escalate, or frighten you. Neither substitutes for the other, and the downstairs practice works best when the upstairs door stays open.
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, extraordinary-vessel context, and channel background.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for GB26 Daimai — 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/gb26/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/gb26/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/gb26/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "GB26",
"name": {
"en": "Daimai",
"gloss": "The Belt Channel",
"zh-Hant": "帶脈",
"zh-Hans": "带脉"
},
"channel": {
"id": "GB",
"order": 26,
"of": 44
},
"location": {
"text": "On the side of the waist, level with the navel, straight below the free tip of the second-lowest rib."
},
"for": [
"irregular periods",
"low belly pain",
"aching back and sides"
],
"press": {
"text": "Gentle fingertip pressure, about a minute each side.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [
"In pregnancy or during heavy periods, ask a practitioner first."
],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/gb26",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}