懸釐 Xuanli
“Suspended Trim” · GB6
Foot Shaoyang · 6 of 44 · crossing-point
Where. In the hair of the temple, three quarters of the way down the curve from the forehead hairline corner to the ear tip.
For. One-sided headache; pain at the outer eye corner; ringing ears.
Press. Gentle fingertip pressure on the scalp, about a minute each side.
懸釐二穴，在曲周上顳顬下廉按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Xuanli Sits on the Temple Arc
The licensed record puts Xuanli on the head above the temple hair, at the junction of the upper three quarters and lower fourth of the arcuate line connecting Touwei (ST8) and Qubin (GB7). Unpacked, that describes a curve rather than a spot: Touwei anchors the front corner of the forehead, where the hairline turns back toward the temple, while Qubin waits at the far end near the ear, at the rear border of the temple hairline in front of the ear and level with the tip of the ear. Divide the curve joining them into four equal parts, and Xuanli occupies the boundary between the upper three quarters and the lowest quarter — three quarters of the way along from the forehead, one quarter short of the ear.
The arc carries company. Nearest the forehead, at the junction of the upper fourth and lower three quarters, stands Hanyan (GB4); the midpoint of the curve holds Xuanlu (GB5); and past Xuanli the final stretch descends to Qubin itself. Hanyan, Xuanlu, Xuanli and Qubin thus form four points strung along one curving hairline, mirrored on both sides of the head. Because natural hairlines differ — high, low, square, receding — the tradition measures by proportion on each person’s own curve rather than by absolute distance, which is why learning the two anchors matters more than memorising measurements.
Under the fingertips, this is subtle country. The arc crosses the temple, above the broad fan of muscle that tightens when you clench your jaw, where the skin is thin, lies close over bone, and is threaded by small vessels and nerves climbing from the neck. Hair usually covers the whole passage. Many people notice a faint dull awareness when a fingerpad settles on the true point and little sensation a thumb-width away, and slight tenderness along the temple is common enough that gentleness remains the working rule throughout.
Finding Xuanli by Touch
Sit upright facing a mirror, or simply close your eyes and let your fingertips do the looking. Begin with the front anchor. Trace the hairline from the middle of the forehead outward until it reaches its outermost corner and turns back toward the temple — that corner marks Touwei. Now walk the hairline as it curves backward and downward over the temple toward the ear, and find the far anchor: Qubin sits at the gathering point of the temple hairline in front of the ear, level with the tip of the ear.
With both anchors known, imagine the curve between them cut into four equal stretches, like four steps along a hillside path. The first landing sits near Hanyan, the middle of the curve holds Xuanlu, the third step brings you to Xuanli, and the last stretch drops down to Qubin. Said the other way round: Xuanli lies three steps down from the forehead corner and one step up from the ear. Confirm the spot lightly — a settling fingerpad often finds a faint dull awareness there — and compare sides, since the two temples rarely feel identical.
Three slips account for most misses. Measuring in straight lines instead of following the curved hairline leaves you floating off into the hair; drifting upward buries the search in the hair mass, while drifting downward slides toward the ear. And thick or springy hair can hide the landmarks altogether — parting the hair, or searching after washing when it lies flat, helps the fingerpad read the curve. Whenever the picture blurs, return to the two anchors and recount the four steps slowly.
Reading the Name of Xuanli
The two characters sketch a small domestic scene. Xuan 懸 means to hang, to suspend — something held up and dangling free. Li 釐 is an old word for a very small measure, and it also carries the sense of putting right, of trimming true. Read together, the name pictures the temple hair hanging down the side of the head with its upper edge kept neat: a suspended trim. Xuanli accordingly stands watch along that tidy upper border of the hair, which is precisely where the location places it.
The neighbourhood agrees with the story. The next point back along the arc shares the first character — Xuanlu (GB5), whose second character speaks of the skull — so the pair read like matching signposts hung on one hairline. The dataset also class GB6 among the crossing-points, the places tradition describes as meetings of more than one channel course. Classical teaching ties this temple territory to both the gallbladder and stomach channels, a fitting assignment for a spot whose locating arc is anchored at one end by a stomach-channel point, Touwei.
Pinyin writes the name Xuánlí. Following the registry spelling, xuán rises on the second tone and li rises on the second tone as well, so the whole name climbs gently as it is spoken. The hanzi pair 懸釐 is compact enough to take in at a glance. Where many points borrow architecture — gates, valleys, courtyards, pools — this one borrows from the barber’s craft, a reminder that the classical namers drew on ordinary life as readily as on landscape.
Traditional Uses, Explained
The recorded indications read: one-sided headache, red swollen eyes, pain at the outer canthus, tinnitus, toothache, facial swelling, and febrile disease with vexing fullness. Framed as tradition rather than promise, the first of these anchors the list. Classical records often describe head pain that settles over one temple and stays there, and channel thinking assigns the side of the head to the shaoyang territory that the gallbladder course traces — a route classical maps draw zigzagging down the side of the head and body all the way to the fourth toe, some forty-four stations long. A point halfway along the head’s share of that route naturally stood at the centre of one-sided headache discussions.
The eye entries belong to the same map. Red swollen eyes and pain at the outer canthus — the outer corner where the eyelids meet — were read through classical physiology’s images of wind and heat stirring upward along the yang courses of the face, so points on the neighbouring channels served as places to guide such stirrings outward. Ear and jaw complete the picture: tinnitus, toothache and facial swelling all fall within the reach of the side-of-head network this arc serves, which is why the old records group them here under one roof.
The last entry, febrile disease with vexing fullness, describes heat illness accompanied by fretful restlessness and a stuck, oppressed feeling in the chest; classical practice understood the abundant yang courses as routes along which heat might be guided out rather than pent in. It bears repeating plainly that these are 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 disease; where modern research touches self-applied pressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and context-dependent, and evidence tied to any single point remains thin.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
Locate the point first, using the walkthrough above, then settle in: seated, spine tall but unforced, shoulders heavy. Bring the pads of the index and middle fingers to the spot through the hair — pads, never nails — and begin with contact alone for a few breaths. Move next to small, slow circles, letting the scalp glide a little over the tissue beneath rather than scrubbing back and forth. Pressure should register as pleasant dullness or mild warmth, never sharpness; if the temple complains, lighten until it does not.
A common home rhythm is one to two minutes per side, once or twice daily, matched where possible to slow exhales so each circle rides the breath out. Swap hands and repeat on the other side, keeping the sessions symmetrical. Warm cold hands first, because chilled muscle guards; choose a quiet corner over a screen, since the practice doubles as a pause of attention; anchor it to an existing habit such as morning washing, so that consistency rather than intensity carries the routine.
Keep expectations honestly modest. Perhaps the scalp feels less guarded afterwards; perhaps breathing slows while you press; perhaps nothing shifts except that you spent a couple of unhurried minutes attending to your own head. Every one of those outcomes fits the scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation — pressing harder or longer to force a result — and any scalp irritation means resting the practice for the day. Gentleness is not the soft option here; it is the entire technique.
Cautions and Safe Practice
The licensed dataset records no cautions specific to this point, which is why the verbatim caution list this page echoes stands empty — a faithful transcription, not a licence for carelessness. Absence of a recorded warning is not the same as absence of need for care: the temple skin is thin and richly supplied, and the head generally rewards patience over pressure. Professional acupuncture is a separate trained discipline with its own protocols; home self-care operates on simpler terms and never leaves the surface.
For fingertip practice the rules are short. Use fingerpads only — no nails, knuckles, or tools — and keep pressure light and superficial. Pause the practice over broken, irritated, or erupting skin and during any active scalp complaint. Stop at once on sharp, electric, or radiating sensation and do not retry that day. Pregnant readers, and anyone living with chronic conditions, do well to consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice; and during an acute severe headache episode, resting in a dim room generally serves better than pressing.
Above everything stands the wider rule: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt medical care rather than a pressure routine for a sudden, severe, worst-ever headache; a headache after a head injury; headache with fever and a stiff neck; changes in vision; weakness, numbness, or confusion; or any symptom that frightens you. Persistent or worsening problems belong with a licensed practitioner, medical or East Asian medical as suits the complaint. Safety outranks technique, always.
High on the temple, where the hairline curves back toward the ear, sits Xuanli — a small station on the gallbladder channel’s winding road over the side of the head. Classical practice reached for it in one-sided headache, irritated eyes, and complaints around the ear and jaw. This guide walks the arc that locates it, reads its name, and shows gentle fingertip self-care done safely.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- Can I find Xuanli without learning proportional measurement?
- Yes — the hairline curve itself is the map. Learn the two anchors first: Touwei at the forehead corner and Qubin in front of the ear, level with the ear tip. Picture four equal steps along the curve, then walk it: three steps down from the forehead corner, or one step up from the ear, lands you on Xuanli. Proportional language simply records the same landmark walk.
- Is pressing Xuanli myself actually safe?
- For healthy adults, gentle fingertip contact held on the scalp surface is generally reasonable self-care, and the licensed record lists no cautions particular to this point. The standing rules still apply: light pressure, fingerpads only, nothing over broken skin, and an immediate stop on sharp sensation. Anyone pregnant or managing a chronic condition clears new practices with a qualified practitioner first.
- What did classical practice use Xuanli for?
- The traditional record lists one-sided headache, red swollen eyes, pain at the outer canthus, tinnitus, toothache, facial swelling, and febrile disease with vexing fullness. As a crossing-point on the side of the head, it sat where discussions of the gallbladder course met those of the stomach course. These are documented traditional frameworks for understanding the body — context, not treatment claims.
- Why do so many gallbladder points crowd one hairline?
- Classical maps draw the gallbladder course winding back and forth across the side of the head, so stations gather densely there. Along this arc, Hanyan, Xuanlu, Xuanli and Qubin form a chain of four points sharing one hairline, each taking a slightly different share of the neighbourhood while serving the same territory. Dividing the curve into four equal parts keeps them easy to tell apart without any instruments.
- When does a headache call for a doctor instead of acupressure?
- Promptly, for a sudden severe headache unlike any before it, headache after a head injury, headache with fever and a stiff neck, vision changes, weakness or numbness, confusion — and for any headache that persists for weeks, steadily worsens, or simply worries you. Daily self-care lives on the ground floor of the building; clinical medicine keeps the consulting room upstairs, and persistent symptoms mean it is time to climb the stairs.
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 GB6 Xuanli — 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/gb6/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/gb6/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/gb6/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "GB6",
"name": {
"en": "Xuanli",
"gloss": "Suspended Trim",
"zh-Hant": "懸釐",
"zh-Hans": "悬厘"
},
"channel": {
"id": "GB",
"order": 6,
"of": 44
},
"location": {
"text": "In the hair of the temple, three quarters of the way down the curve from the forehead hairline corner to the ear tip."
},
"for": [
"one-sided headache",
"pain at the outer eye corner",
"ringing ears"
],
"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/gb6",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}