The arm’s main artery runs in this groove; press gently, off any beat.
青靈 Qingling
“Azure Spirit” · HT2
Hand Shaoyin · 2 of 9
Where. On the inner upper arm, four finger-widths above the elbow crease, in the groove beside the biceps.
For. Shoulder and arm pain, headache.
Press. Two finger pads, slow circles, one minute each arm.
Caution. The arm’s main artery runs in this groove; press gently, off any beat.
青靈二穴，在肘上三寸，舉臂取之按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Qingling Sits on the Inner Upper Arm
On the soft inner face of the upper arm, Qingling occupies the shallow groove that runs alongside the inner border of the biceps muscle. The dataset locates it three cun above the cubital crease — the skin fold crossing the inner elbow — on the straight line connecting Jiquan (HT1), at the apex of the armpit, with Shaohai (HT3), at the inner end of the elbow crease. A cun is the traditional measuring unit of Chinese point-location: proportional lengths taken from the person being examined rather than from a ruler, with one cun commonly taken as the width of your own thumb. Classical proportional teaching allots nine cun to the whole stretch from armpit to elbow crease, so three cun above the elbow places Qingling in the lower third of the upper arm — nearer the elbow than the armpit.
The landscape under the fingertips is friendly by the standards of acupoints. Here the biceps rounds forward and inward, and along its inner edge runs the shallow groove separating it from the muscles behind — the medial groove of biceps brachii named in the record. Beneath lies thick muscle padding over the arm bone, far from lungs, eyes, abdomen, and every structure that makes certain locations delicate. One honest caveat completes the picture: the inner arm is also a corridor the body uses for vessels and nerves, which is why this groove sometimes feels tender under even gentle fingers. Tenderness there is information, not a challenge — a reason to lighten the touch, never to add force.
The two neighbours make a useful frame. Jiquan, the channel’s opening point, hides at the very top of the armpit; Shaohai sits where the elbow folds, at the inner end of the crease. Qingling belongs to the short stretch between them, on the same line, in the lower third. Searching with the whole line in mind prevents most errors: you are never hunting a random sore spot but walking a known road from the elbow crease toward the armpit, stopping three thumb-widths along. If your finger wanders onto the outer face of the arm, or drifts toward its front or back surfaces, simply return to the crease and begin again.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit upright on a firm chair, the left forearm resting on a small table or your lap, palm turned up, shoulder heavy and loose. First find the crease that crosses the inner elbow, and walk your fingertip to its innermost end, the little-finger side. From that anchor, measure straight up the inner face of the arm toward the armpit — three thumb-widths, edge to edge, keeping the line honest. Your fingertip will cross the rounded bulk of the biceps; slide toward the torso-side border of the muscle until the finger settles into the shallow groove hugging that edge. That spot, level with the lower third of the upper arm, is Qingling. Swap hands and give the other side the same unhurried attention.
A few confirmations help before any pressing begins. Touch feather-light and compare sides: many people notice a faint, dull awareness at the true point and little sensation a finger-width away. Try the flex test — bending the elbow makes the biceps bunch, and its inner border and groove announce themselves to the eye; study the position, then relax the arm and let the muscle soften before touching again. Let a slow breath pass under your fingertips as well, confirming that the finger rests on yielding tissue rather than a tense edge.
The classic mistakes come in a small set. Counting can turn uneven, so lay thumbs strictly edge to edge with no gaps. The finger can wander to the wrong surface — outer, front, or back — instead of holding the inner face. Searching with a tense arm hides the groove altogether. And pressing too hard makes every spot feel alike, leaving nothing to tell them apart. When in doubt, return to the innermost end of the elbow crease, your fixed anchor, and measure up once more, slowly.
Reading the Name: Azure Spirit
The two characters sketch the mood of the whole channel. Qing 青 names a colour poised between blue and green — the tint of young growth in spring and of water seen to its bottom — and in the traditional palette it carries freshness, clarity, and life. Ling 靈 means spirit or numinous presence, and by extension responsiveness and efficacy: the same word praises a swift mind and a remedy that works. Joined, Qingling reads naturally as the Azure Spirit, or the Verdant Spirit — a name that gathers clearness, vitality, and something quietly sacred into two syllables.
Why such a name on the heart channel? Classical teaching describes the heart as the monarch among the organs, belonging to the fire element, and as the residence of the shen — the spirit that lights thought, sleep, and expression. Point names along this line lean toward courtly and numinous imagery, and Qingling fits the register: a gesture toward the clear, responsive quality of heart-spirit rather than toward any physical landmark. This is a general retelling of how the classical material reasons, offered without quotation — the tradition talks in images, and the images repay attention.
Pinyin renders the name Qīnglíng: qing carries a flat, high-level first tone, and ling a rising second tone that lifts from mid to high. The hanzi pair 青靈 is compact enough to memorise at a glance. Like the gates, valleys, courtyards, wells, and marshes scattered along the channels, the metaphor does real work: it tells you how the tradition understood this station’s character. The name is itself a small set of instructions for the imagination.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded actions read: headache, chills and shivering, hypochondriac pain, shoulder and arm pain, and angina. Framed as tradition rather than promise, classical practice read the first group through the movement of qi and blood. Headache belonged to the broad family of flow disturbances. Chills and shivering connected, in the old physiology, with the warming work of yang — and the heart, counted as the fire organ, presides over warmth for the whole body. Hypochondriac pain means ache or oppression at the sides of the ribcage, understood as circulation stalling in the passage between chest and flank.
Shoulder and arm pain follows the plainest logic of all: the channel passes exactly here, and discomfort along a route was traditionally approached at points along the route. Angina deserves its own sentence. Classical records grouped deep, oppressive chest distress among the patterns of the heart, and the dataset carries that grouping into this point’s portfolio. But today’s boundary must be drawn without ambiguity: any chest symptom suggesting the heart — pressure, squeezing, tightness, pain spreading to the jaw or arm, breathlessness, cold sweat — calls for emergency medical care at once, never for a pressure routine. No paragraph of tradition softens that.
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 disease, and nothing in this guide replaces assessment by a qualified clinician. 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. Hold the tradition lightly, and hold the safety rules firmly.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point found by the walkthrough above, settle in: seated, the forearm resting and the palm up, elbow and shoulder released. Curl the index and middle fingers together and set the pads — not the tips — on the spot. Begin with quiet contact for a few breaths, then add small, slow circles, letting the skin glide over the tissue beneath. 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 long exhales so each circle rides the breath out. Change hands and repeat on the other side, keeping the sessions symmetrical.
Quality matters more than duration. Light, patient, regularly repeated contact is what self-care traditions actually ask for; hard jabbing causes harm and teaches the body nothing. Warm cold hands first, because chilled muscle guards. Choose a quiet corner over a screen, and treat the practice as a small breathing pause: inhale through the nose, notice the inner arm under still fingertips, press gently on the long exhale. People who keep a routine often anchor it to an existing habit — morning washing, an afternoon stretch — because consistency, not intensity, is the whole trick.
Treat those few minutes as a ceremony of attention rather than a treatment session. Notice what changes across weeks: perhaps the groove feels less guarded, perhaps the whole arm feels easier while you press, perhaps nothing shifts except that you spend ninety seconds attending to 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 force a result. When curiosity pulls that way, return to gentleness, or simply finish for the day.
Cautions and Safe Practice
Unlike points high on the chest wall or at the throat, Qingling arrives with an empty caution shelf: the licensed dataset records no contraindications for it. Geography explains the difference. The point sits over thick muscle padding on the arm bone, far from lungs, eyes, abdomen, and every structure that makes certain locations delicate. Still, an empty caution field is a statement about the record, not an invitation to force; every point deserves the same basic manners.
Those manners are quickly listed. Use finger pads only, and keep pressure at the level of pleasant dullness. Skip the spot over cuts, rashes, sunburn, or broken skin, and around prominent veins, unexplained lumps, or recent injuries. If the groove flares tender under the lightest touch, take that as the day’s answer and lighten further or step away. Sharp, electric, or numbing sensations mean stop at once and leave the point alone until tomorrow. Pregnant readers, and anyone with a diagnosed condition affecting the arm — numbness, radiating pain, recent surgery — do best to consult a qualified practitioner before adding new point practices.
And one boundary must be written without fine print. Because angina appears among this point’s recorded indications, treat any symptom that could belong to the heart as what it is: chest pressure or squeezing, pain radiating to jaw, neck, or arm, breathlessness, cold sweat, or nausea call for immediate emergency care — not acupressure, and not a wait-and-see hour. Persistent or worsening headache or flank pain likewise belongs with a licensed practitioner. This page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. The kindest thing Qingling offers most people is a better acquaintance with their own arm, treated gently.
Qingling, the Azure Spirit, stands on the inner side of the upper arm, three cun above the inner elbow crease along the heart channel’s road from armpit to little finger. Classical practice reached for it when headache, chills, shivering, or flank discomfort weighed on a person. This guide walks you through finding it by touch and pressing it safely at home.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Qingling without knowing anything about cun?
- Use the elbow crease as the whole map. Find the innermost end of the crease on the little-finger side, walk three thumb-widths straight up the inner face of the arm toward the armpit, and let your fingertip settle into the groove beside the biceps’ inner border. That groove-level spot, in the lower third of the upper arm, is the location the dataset describes. Cun measurements simply encode the same landmark sequence in proportional language.
- Is pressing Qingling myself actually safe?
- For healthy adults, gentle fingertip pressure held on the surface is reasonable self-care: it engages only the padded superficial layers of the upper arm, and the licensed dataset records no special caution for this point. Respect the ordinary stop signals all the same — sharp pain, electric or numbing sensation, or anything that worsens means finish immediately, and unusual tenderness in the groove is a cue to go lighter, not harder.
- What did classical practice use Qingling for?
- The traditional record lists headache, chills and shivering, hypochondriac pain, shoulder and arm pain, and angina-pattern chest distress. The name itself reflects the classical view of the heart as the residence of spirit, and the point sat midway along the heart channel’s road down the arm. Those are traditional frameworks for understanding the body, documented for context — not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why is a heart-channel point located out on the arm?
- Classical channel theory draws the heart pathway surfacing at the armpit and descending the inner side of the arm all the way to the little finger — nine points along the road, from Jiquan at the top, past Qingling, to Shaohai at the elbow and onward. Points are stations on that route, so a heart point can live nowhere else than along it. The image is the point of the theory: interior and body surface joined into one continuous landscape.
- Can acupressure at Qingling replace seeing a doctor?
- No. Self-acupressure is a comfort practice, not a diagnostic tool. Chest symptoms that could belong to the heart — pressure, squeezing, breathlessness, cold sweat — need emergency care immediately, and persistent headache or flank pain 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. 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 and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for HT2 Qingling — location, 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/ht2/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/ht2/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/ht2/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "HT2",
"name": {
"en": "Qingling",
"gloss": "Azure Spirit",
"zh-Hant": "青靈",
"zh-Hans": "青灵"
},
"channel": {
"id": "HT",
"order": 2,
"of": 9
},
"location": {
"text": "On the inner upper arm, four finger-widths above the elbow crease, in the groove beside the biceps."
},
"for": [
"shoulder and arm pain",
"headache"
],
"press": {
"text": "Two finger pads, slow circles, one minute each arm.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [
"The arm’s main artery runs in this groove; press gently, off any beat."
],
"source": "Tongren Shuxue Zhenjiu Tujing, book 5",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/ht2",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}