曲鬢 Qubin
“Curved Temple Hair” · GB7
Foot Shaoyang · 7 of 44 · crossing-point
Where. At the back edge of the temple hairline in front of the ear, level with the top of the ear.
For. One-sided headache; swollen jaw and cheek; toothache.
Press. Gentle fingertip pressure, about a minute each side.
曲鬢，在耳上，入髮際曲隅陷者中，鼓頷有空按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Qubin Sits on the Side of the Head
The dataset places Qubin on the head, at the intersection of the vertical line through the posterior border of the hairline at the temple in front of the ear and a horizontal line level with the ear tip. Every phrase earns its keep. On the head means what it says: this is a scalp point, far above jaw and neck. The posterior border of the temple hairline in front of the ear names the exact seam where, ahead of the ear, hair thickens going back and thins going forward — the rearward edge of that bare-to-hairy transition. Level with the ear tip fixes the height: the ear tip is the topmost point of the ear cartilage, easy to find on any ear, and the point shares its altitude. Notice what is absent: unlike many recorded locations, this one offers no counted distances at all — no cun from this landmark or that. The tradition hands you a map made entirely of touchable features, which suits this busy corner of the head.
The two-line construction rewards a moment of patience. Picture a plumb line dropped straight down through that hairline edge in front of the ear, and a second line drawn horizontally backward from the peak of the ear; where the two would meet on the scalp, the point waits. Because the whole scheme rests on landmarks rather than proportions, it works on every head — child or elder, full-haired or thinning — with no conversion tables needed. Under the fingertips the terrain is forgiving: hair-covered scalp over firm, even bone, with none of the delicate machinery that makes some regions of the head demand extra respect. That said, the scalp answers best to patience. Fingers that explore gently feel the hairline seam plainly; fingers that scrub or dig only blur the picture and irritate the very skin they mean to read.
The company the point keeps helps orientation. Three companions share the arcing curve that joins Touwei (ST8) at the front corner of the hairline with Qubin (GB7) beside the ear: Hanyan (GB4), Xuanlu (GB5), and Xuanli (GB6) divide that arc into four stretches, and Qubin anchors its earward end. One step higher, directly above the ear tip, waits Shuaigu (GB8). The gallbladder channel, in the classical account recorded for this site, zigzags down the side of the head and body to reach the fourth toe, and Qubin is the seventh station on that route — a corner post where the hairline stretch comes to its end and the climb above the ear begins.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit comfortably upright with shoulders released, and work on one side at a time. First find the ear tip: trace the firm curve of ear cartilage upward until you locate its highest point — that is your altitude marker. Next find the hairline seam: starting just in front of the ear, sweep your fingertips slowly forward and upward across the temple until bare skin gives way to hair, then ease back until your pad rests on the border where hair begins to thicken — the rearward edge of the temple hairline. Hold that edge and slide up or down until your pad sits level with the ear tip. The intersection of edge and altitude is where Qubin lives. If hair covers the neighbourhood, part it gently rather than pressing through it — the landmarks need bare skin to speak.
A few confirmations help before any pressing begins. Touch feather-light and compare sides: most people notice a faint, dull awareness at the true point and little sensation a thumb-width away. Let the jaw hang loose and breathe slowly, because clenching tightens the whole temple region and blurs the seam. Check the height twice: the spot should sit level with the cartilage peak, neither climbing above it — that way lies Shuaigu territory — nor sliding down toward the soft hollow near the ear root, which falls below the mark. When both sides have been located, glance at symmetry: the points should mirror each other against their respective ears and hairlines, and a noticeable mismatch usually means one search drifted while the other stayed home.
The classic slips are few and worth naming. Wandering too far up chases a hairline that has already turned, carrying you deep into scalp hair, while the recorded position stays low, close to the ear’s altitude. Drifting forward onto the curving arc brings you among the arc’s own stations — Hanyan, Xuanlu, Xuanli country — where the hairline runs higher across the temple. Dropping too low leaves you near the ear root in softer, hollowed ground that belongs to other points altogether. Hold to the pads-only rule throughout: no probing with fingernails, no massage devices, nothing that concentrates force into a point. If everything feels ambiguous, release, take three slow breaths, and begin again from the ear tip — the sequence is short enough to repeat calmly as many times as needed.
Reading the Name: Curved Temple Hair
The characters tell a compact story. Qu 曲, spoken here on the high, flat first tone, means bent or crooked — the sense of something following a curve rather than a straight line. The same character leads another life in the language, where on a different tone it names a song or melody, but in this name the older geometric sense holds. Bin 鬢, on the falling fourth tone, is a precise word: dictionaries define it as the hair near the ears along the sides of the face — the temple hair alone, not hair in general. It belongs to a small family of characters built on the hair radical, a corner of the writing system reserved for matters of coiffure. Joined, Qubin reads as the curved temple hair — a name painted, not argued.
The fit between name and place is unusually direct. Stand before a mirror and look at the hairline in front of either ear: it sweeps down and back in a graceful bend, curving around the temple before turning up over the crown. The old authors named that curve, then hung a point where the bend meets the ear’s altitude. Naming by terrain runs all through the channels — gates, pools, valleys, ravines, courtyards — and temple hair joins the landscape on equal terms. Chinese letters have long treated the temple hair as a quiet marker of passing years, greying strand by strand, so fixing a point to this particular patch of hair kept the reference intimate and unmistakable: everyone knows exactly which hair is meant.
One more credential rides on the entry. The licensed dataset files Qubin under the crossing-point category — the traditional label for stations where more than one pathway is understood to meet. The entry itself records the label without naming the partners, so this guide repeats the label as recorded and adds no embellishment of its own. Spoken aloud, the name is Qūbìn: qu holding a level first tone, bin falling away on the fourth. The hanzi pair 曲鬢 is short enough to memorise at a glance, and like the best point names it doubles as a set of instructions — arrive at the curve, stand beside the ear, look no further.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: one-sided headache, swelling of the jaw and cheek, red swollen eyes, pain at the canthi, toothache, sudden loss of voice, deviation of the mouth, tinnitus, and dizziness — nine entries in all. Take the head-side group first. One-sided headache, dizziness, and tinnitus are complaints of the very territory the gallbladder channel crosses, and classical practice traditionally reached for points along the route when such complaints visited. The old literature describes the side of the head as busy country — pathway lines converging, crossing, sharing ground — so a point planted where hairline meets ear-tip height stood amid the traffic, ready for pain that favoured one temple, for spinning heaviness, for ringing that would not quiet.
The middle entries form the face, eye, and jaw group: swelling of the jaw and cheek, toothache, red swollen eyes, pain at the canthi — the corners where the lids meet — and deviation of the mouth. Classical practice customarily consulted the points around ear and cheek for complaints of the lower face, and swelling and toothache belong to that household. The eye entries carry their own traditional logic: five-phase teaching pairs the liver and gallbladder as interior-exterior partners, and the liver is traditionally said to open into the eyes, so redness, swelling, and pain at the eye corners were read partly through gallbladder-channel territory. Deviation of the mouth — the pulling of the features toward one side — was grouped by classical authors among facial-pulling patterns; its sudden appearance is, in modern terms, always a reason for urgent assessment, whatever the tradition made of it.
Sudden loss of voice stands somewhat apart: a throat complaint filed by the ancients among abrupt, alarming events, and recorded here as documentary history — how the old literature classified this point amid grave illness — not anything a self-care routine could or should attempt. It bears repeating plainly: these are the traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, offered for cultural and historical understanding, 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 specific to any single point remains thin. The safety mapping matters more than usual because several listed items are warning signs in their sudden forms: a severe or unprecedented headache, a mouth newly pulled to one side, sudden dizziness with slurred speech or weakness, an eye turning painful with blurred vision — each calls for prompt medical assessment, not a pressure session. Persistent lesser versions — recurring one-sided headache, ongoing tinnitus, nagging dizziness — deserve a licensed practitioner’s proper evaluation.
Gentle Acupressure at Home
With the point found by the walkthrough above, settle into position: seated, spine easy, shoulders heavy, jaw unclenched. Part any hair so the pads meet skin rather than strands. Rest the pads of the index and middle fingers — never the tips, never a knuckle — on the spot. Begin with contact alone for a few slow breaths, then add small, unhurried circles, letting the skin glide over the tissue beneath rather than dragging against it. Aim for a pleasant dullness or mild warmth, never sharpness, and coordinate the rhythm with the exhale so each circle rides the breath out. A workable home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily. Swap hands and repeat on the other side, keeping the sessions symmetrical — the head notices imbalance more readily than the limbs do.
Quality outranks duration. Light, patient, regularly repeated contact fits the wellness register this page practises; hard jabbing teaches the body nothing and risks a tender scalp besides. If your hands run cold, warm them first, because chilled muscle guards. Choose a quiet corner over a screen and treat the minutes as a genuine pause: eyes soft, breath long, attention resting at one small point where hairline meets ear. People who keep such routines do best anchoring them to something already in the day — morning washing, an afternoon break — because consistency, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually ask. Two unhurried minutes daily, kept, outweigh ten heroic minutes twice a month.
Hold honest expectations. Across weeks of gentle practice you may notice the area feels less guarded, the ritual becomes a valued pocket of calm, or simply that you know your own head better. Every one of those outcomes fits the true scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation — pressing harder, lingering longer, adding tools, or hunting a stronger sensation. Curiosity that pulls that way should be answered with gentleness, or with stopping for the day. This point rewards regularity and lightness; it asks for almost nothing and repays attention with attention. Treat the exercise as a small ceremony of regard for your own head, and the time will never be wasted.
Cautions and Safe Practice
This entry records no specific cautions, and it is worth pausing on what that does and does not mean. An empty caution field is not an all-clear; it simply means the licensed dataset preserves no point-specific warning alongside this entry, as they do for points over lungs, eyes, or major vessels elsewhere in the body. The universal rules therefore carry the whole load: acupressure remains surface-level self-care, gentleness remains the method, and the shared disclaimer — educational only, stop on sharp sensation, persistent symptoms to a licensed practitioner — governs this page like every other. Nothing about an unremarkable safety record invites force; the scalp simply asks for the courtesy any skin asks.
For fingertip practice the practical rules are short. Keep pressure at pleasant-dullness strength and strictly superficial. Use finger pads, never nails, knuckles, elbows, or tools. Skip the point over broken, irritated, or freshly shaved skin; after recent injury, surgery, or skin treatments around the temple or ear; during a feverish illness; and whenever anything acute is active. Stop at once on sharp, electric, or radiating sensation, and do not retry that day. Pregnant readers, and anyone living with chronic conditions, should consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice at all. None of these rules is special to Qubin — they are the standing etiquette of home acupressure, repeated here because repetition is how etiquette survives enthusiasm.
And the wider rule stands over everything: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek urgent medical care — not a pressure routine — for a sudden severe or worst-ever headache, a face or mouth newly pulled to one side, sudden dizziness with slurred speech, weakness, or trouble walking, a seizure, an eye turning painful with vision change, or sudden hearing change with dizziness. Persistent headaches, lasting tinnitus, recurring dizziness, or jaw trouble that will not settle deserve proper evaluation by a licensed clinician, medical or East Asian medical as suits the complaint. The curved-hair image is charming, but the safest gift Qubin offers most people is a calmer acquaintance with their own head — touched lightly, pressed rarely, and handed over promptly whenever something persists.
Qubin — the Curved Temple Hair — sits where the temple hairline bends toward the ear, level with the ear tip on the side of the head. Classical practice reached for it when one-sided headache, jaw and cheek swelling, or red, irritated eyes weighed on someone. This guide walks the landmarks step by step and shows how to greet the point with gentle fingertip care.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Qubin without knowing anything about cun?
- Good news: this location names no cun at all. It is built from two touchable features only — the ear tip for height, the rearward border of the temple hairline in front of the ear for position. Find the topmost point of the ear cartilage, hold a mental horizontal line backward from it, walk your fingertip to the seam where hair thickens, and stop where seam meets height. That crossing is the point.
- Is it safe to press beside the temple?
- Light, surface-level fingertip contact is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults, and this stretch of scalp overlies firm, ordinary ground. The rules that matter: pads only, pressure at pleasant dullness, no tools or sustained hard holds, and immediate stopping on sharp or radiating sensation. Deep, pointed, or prolonged force is never part of home practice anywhere on the head.
- What did classical practice use Qubin for?
- The recorded list covers one-sided headache, swelling of the jaw and cheek, red swollen eyes, pain at the canthi, toothache, sudden loss of voice, deviation of the mouth, tinnitus, and dizziness — nine entries, headed by complaints of the head side and face. These are documentary history: the situations where classical practice considered the point, recorded for cultural understanding, not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why is the gallbladder channel up here at all?
- Classical channel theory draws the gallbladder line zigzagging down the side of the head and then down the side of the body to the fourth toe. Its early stations thread the hairline — Hanyan, Xuanlu, and Xuanli along the arc from Touwei to Qubin — before the route climbs above the ear toward Shuaigu. Qubin, the seventh station, sits at the elbow of that journey, which is why head-side complaints fill its historic portfolio.
- Can acupressure at Qubin replace seeing a doctor about my headaches?
- No. Self-acupressure is comfort practice, not assessment. Headaches that are sudden, severe, unprecedented, or accompanied by facial droop, speech change, weakness, vision loss, or fever need professional evaluation promptly, and recurring ones merit a proper clinical look too. Think of the two as different floors of the same building: daily gentle care lives downstairs, diagnosis and treatment upstairs — neighbours, never substitutes.
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, etymology, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for GB7 Qubin — 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/gb7/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/gb7/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/gb7/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "GB7",
"name": {
"en": "Qubin",
"gloss": "Curved Temple Hair",
"zh-Hant": "曲鬢",
"zh-Hans": "曲鬓"
},
"channel": {
"id": "GB",
"order": 7,
"of": 44
},
"location": {
"text": "At the back edge of the temple hairline in front of the ear, level with the top of the ear."
},
"for": [
"one-sided headache",
"swollen jaw and cheek",
"toothache"
],
"press": {
"text": "Gentle fingertip pressure, about a minute each side.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/gb7",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-25"
}