口禾髎 Kouheliao
“Grain Hollow by the Mouth” · LI19
Hand Yangming · 19 of 20
Where. On the upper lip, straight below the outer edge of the nostril, level with the groove under the nose.
For. A blocked or runny nose, nosebleed.
Press. Light fingertip touch, about a minute.
在直鼻孔下俠水溝傍五分按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Kouheliao Sits on the Upper Lip
Find the spot on your own face first and the anatomy writes itself. Look in a mirror: between nose and mouth runs the philtrum, the vertical groove everyone knows, bordered by two faint ridges. At the bottom of the nose, each nostril opens through a wing-like flare called the ala. The dataset places Kouheliao on the upper lip, directly below the lateral border of the nostril — meaning below the outer edge of that opening, not its inner corner — and level with Shuigou (GV26), the well-known point inside the philtrum groove. Level with means the two points share one horizontal line across the face. There is a point on each side, mirror images of each other, resting on the fleshy rise of the lip where it meets the base of the nose.
What lies under the fingertip explains why this point asks for delicacy. The flat ring of muscle that purses the lips, the orbicularis oris, passes just beneath the skin here, wrapped in facial tissue thinner and more mobile than almost anywhere else on the body. The face is also richly served by blood vessels and nerves, which is why a featherlight touch registers so clearly and why heavier pressure quickly feels wrong. Nothing about locating or pressing Kouheliao requires force. The landmarks are small but unmistakable to patient fingers: the flare of the nostril above, the ridges of the philtrum toward the midline, the soft swell of the lip beneath. A bright lamp helps; so does a mirror, though practiced hands soon work by feel alone.
Two neighbors frame the spot and help confirm it. High on the midline, tucked into the philtrum groove itself, sits Shuigou, the point generations have known simply as the philtrum point. Off to each side, at the start of the smile line beside the nostril wing, lies Yingxiang (LI20), where the large intestine channel finishes its long climb. Kouheliao occupies the slope between them: lower than the nostril rim, outside the philtrum ridges, on the lip proper. Locating all three turns a guess into a map — if you can feel the groove of the philtrum and the flare of the nostril wing, Kouheliao waits at their nearest corner. Losing track simply means returning to the nose and measuring down again, one smooth vertical drop.
Finding It by Touch: A Short Walkthrough
Wash your hands first — this is the face, and cleanliness matters doubly near the nose. Sit comfortably facing a mirror with the shoulders released and the jaw loose. Bring the tip of your right index finger to your left nostril and trace the opening outward until you feel where its outer border ends and the cheek begins. Now let the fingertip drop straight down, vertically, onto the upper lip. Within a few millimeters it settles into a shallow hollow on the lip’s swell. Check yourself against the philtrum: the hollow should sit roughly level with the groove between nose and mouth, clearly outside its raised borders. Repeat the whole search on the other side, so both points receive the same unhurried attention.
A few quiet confirmations separate a confident find from a hopeful guess. Touch both sides feather-light and compare: most people notice a faint, dull awareness or mild tenderness at the true point, and considerably less a finger-width away. Press your lips gently together — the tissue under the fingertip tightens slightly without the point wandering, because you are resting on the muscle that circles the mouth. Check the vertical too: if your finger has landed on the darker reddish border where lip colour changes, you have slid a little too low; lift back toward the nose and drop again. None of this needs strength. The face reports everything to a light touch, and every extra gram of pressure only muddies the signal you are trying to read.
Three slips account for nearly every missed attempt. The first is drifting outward onto the cheek as the finger descends, landing in the soft plane beside the nose instead of on the lip — the remedy is keeping the drop strictly vertical. The second is stopping on the nostril rim itself, half a fingernail too high, mistaking the flare of the nose for the hollow below it. The third is wandering inward into the philtrum ridges, where the tissue feels similar but the address is wrong. Whenever doubt creeps in, restart from the beginning: find the outer border of the nostril, drop straight down, and stop at the first soft hollow. Two or three slow repetitions teach the fingers the route better than any description.
Reading the Name: A Grain Hollow by the Mouth
Taken character by character, the name sketches the place. Kou 口 is the mouth itself, drawn in antiquity as a simple square opening. He 禾 means standing grain — the young rice or millet in its furrow, one of the oldest and most homely images in the writing system. Liao 髎 names a small hollow or pore beside bone, the kind of narrow doorway classical point-names loved: the character appears wherever the tradition wanted to mark a fine opening through which something moves. Read together, Kouheliao suggests a grain-furrow hollow beside the mouth — an image many writers connect, impressionistically rather than dogmatically, with the parallel ridges and central furrow of the philtrum just next door, like two rows of a planted field.
Pinyin renders the name Kǒuhéliáo: kǒu dips on the third tone, hé and liáo rise evenly on the second. The three hanzi 口禾髎 are compact enough to take in at a glance, and they belong to a family of architectural and landscape names — gates, valleys, courtyards, hollows — that runs the whole length of the channels. The metaphor does real work rather than decorating. Calling a spot a liao, a fine hollow, says the tradition treats it as a threshold: a narrow place where the movement of qi and blood can be met and encouraged with very little. It is a name that instructs the hand as much as it labels the map.
The point’s address on the channel completes the picture. Classical texts describe the large intestine channel climbing the arm, shoulder, and neck, crossing the cheek and passing through the region of the upper lip and gums before ending beside the nose at Yingxiang. Kouheliao sits squarely along that final facial stretch, a waypoint in the last stretch of a journey that begins at the index finger. Channel thinking reads the face around the mouth and nose as this channel’s home territory, which is why its points cluster there and why classical practice reached for them when nose and mouth complained. You need not accept the framework to find the geography useful — the map explains where the old practitioners looked, and why.
Traditional Indications, Explained Honestly
The recorded indications read: nasal congestion; nasal discharge and bleeding; deviation of the mouth; lockjaw. Framed as tradition rather than promise, each belongs to the channel-territory logic above. A blocked nose, in the classical frame, is qi failing to move freely in the passages this channel overlooks, and points along its facial stretch were gathered to encourage movement. Runny nose and nosebleed travel together in the old records under one heading — the ancients grouped what modern readers would separate — reflecting how often a streaming cold leaves the nostrils sore. Lockjaw meant jaws clenched or reluctant to open, a complaint classical practice addressed at points surrounding the mouth. These groupings document how the tradition organised the body, and reaching for them is reaching for that organisation, not for a promised outcome.
Deviation of the mouth deserves particular care in translation to modern life. In the old records it covers facial asymmetry — a smile pulling to one side, a mouth that will not close evenly — which classical practice approached with points arrayed around the lips. Today the same sign demands respect: sudden facial drooping, especially alongside weakness elsewhere, slurred speech, or trouble seeing, is an emergency that belongs in professional hands immediately, not in a self-care routine. Persistent asymmetry or a jaw that will not open properly likewise calls for proper assessment, since the possible causes are many and some need treatment no acupressure page can substitute for. The tradition’s interest in this point is worth knowing; the modern boundaries around those symptoms are worth obeying.
It bears repeating plainly: these are traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, offered for cultural and historical understanding. They are not claims that pressing Kouheliao treats disease, and nothing here replaces qualified care. Where modern research touches facial acupressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and context-dependent, and study specific to a single small point remains thin. Nor does this page trade in comparisons — the question of whether one point serves better than another is not one the current evidence can settle, and the tradition itself rarely asked it that way. Hold the history with warmth, hold the safety rules with iron, and let the two sit side by side without pretending either is the other.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With both points located, set the scene: seated, spine easy, face and jaw deliberately softened — unclench the teeth, let the tongue rest low. Rest the pads of both index fingers, never the nails, on the two hollows. Begin with simple still contact for a few slow breaths, letting the skin warm under the fingertips, then move in tiny circles so small the skin rides along rather than dragging. Pressure should register as pleasant fullness or faint warmth — on the face, less really is more. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, matched to slow exhales; many people fold the session into their morning or evening face-washing, when the hands are already clean and the moment already theirs.
Quality outranks duration everywhere in self-care, and nowhere more than on the face. Skin this thin bruised by enthusiasm teaches the body nothing and borrows against tomorrow’s practice. Skip the point entirely whenever a blemish, cut, cold sore, or patch of irritation occupies the spot — there is always another day. Cold hands feel unpleasant against the face, so warm them first. Keep the two sides symmetrical; the practice is a conversation with the whole face, not a campaign against one nostril. And resist the escalation reflex: pressing harder, longer, or deeper to force a result betrays the entire register of self-acupressure, which proceeds — insofar as the word fits at all — through patience, repetition, and attention rather than force.
Treat the minutes spent here as a small ceremony of attention rather than a treatment appointment. On a congested day you may notice the nose feels a little freer while you press; on ordinary days perhaps nothing shifts except that you spent ninety seconds caring for a face that carries you through every meeting and meal. Both outcomes sit honestly inside the scope of self-acupressure. Notice also what the practice reveals: habits of jaw-clenching caught mid-circle, breath that shortens when concentration narrows. Such observations cost nothing and compound quietly. What falls outside the scope is any drift toward therapy-talk — diagnosing yourself, dosing your symptoms, substituting pressure for the clinician your persistence deserves. The hollow by the mouth is a fine place to practice gentleness; it is not a clinic.
Cautions and Safe Practice
The licensed record carries exactly one caution for this point, and it concerns heat rather than pressure: do not apply moxibustion here, as clearly recorded in classical literature. The old texts state the prohibition plainly without dwelling on reasons; the face’s thin, mobile tissue and the point’s closeness to the nostrils may be part of the traditional thinking, though that remains an impression rather than an explanation on record. For home practice the rule costs nothing, because fingertip acupressure involves no burning herbs at all — simply keep Kouheliao a pressure-only point and let the caution stand honoured. The wider record raises no other flag: gentle surface contact remains ordinary self-care territory for healthy adults, provided the everyday rules below are kept.
Those practical rules gather quickly. Contact stays superficial — skin and the topmost layer of muscle, never anything approaching deep force on a face this delicate. Use finger pads only: no knuckles, elbows, or tools anywhere near the lip. Stop at once on sharp, electric, or radiating sensation, and do not try again that day. Set the point aside during fevers or flare-ups of facial skin trouble, after recent facial surgery or cosmetic procedures until whoever treated you clears ordinary touch, and whenever in doubt about a new symptom near the mouth. Pregnant readers, and anyone living with a facial nerve condition or ongoing dental or jaw problems, should ask a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice to their week.
And the wider rule stands over everything: this page is educational, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Seek prompt medical care — not a pressure routine — for sudden facial drooping, especially with limb weakness, slurred speech, or vision change; for nosebleeds that will not stop; for a jaw locked after injury; or for any symptom that frightens you. Persistent congestion, recurring nosebleeds, or lingering facial asymmetry belong with a licensed practitioner, medical or East Asian medical as suits the complaint. The safest gift Kouheliao offers most people is a small, kind acquaintance with their own face — learned at featherweight, kept in its place, and always willing to step aside for real medicine.
Kouheliao, the Grain Hollow by the Mouth, sits on the upper lip directly below the outer border of the nostril, level with the philtrum groove. Classical practice reached for it when a blocked, streaming, or bleeding nose made the day uncomfortable, and the old records add crooked smiles and locked jaws. This guide shows how to find it by touch and press it gently.
Cautions from the classical sources
- No moxibustion — the classical texts are explicit on this.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Kouheliao without knowing anything about cun?
- Use the nose as the whole map. Trace the nostril opening to its outer border, drop your fingertip straight down onto the upper lip, and stop at the first shallow hollow, which should sit level with the philtrum groove. The proportional measurements in the classical texts encode the same landmark sequence; your face performs it natively.
- Is pressing right under my own nose actually safe?
- Gentle fingertip contact held on the surface is generally reasonable self-care for healthy adults — the pressure engages skin and superficial muscle far short of anything delicate. The face is simply more sensitive than the back or limbs, so lighten accordingly, keep hands freshly washed, and respect the stop signals: sharp pain, radiating sensation, or worsening discomfort all mean finish immediately. Skip the spot over broken or irritated skin.
- What did classical practice use Kouheliao for?
- The traditional record lists nasal congestion, nasal discharge and bleeding, deviation of the mouth, and lockjaw. Classical channel theory draws the large intestine pathway across the upper lip and cheek before it ends beside the nose, placing this point inside the very territory whose complaints it was gathered for. Those are traditional frameworks documented for cultural understanding — not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why does the record forbid moxibustion at this point?
- The licensed dataset echoes a prohibition the classical literature states plainly, without recording detailed reasons; the thin, mobile tissue of the face is often suggested as part of the traditional picture, though that remains interpretation. The practical consequence is simple: keep this a pressure-only point. Home acupressure involves no moxibustion anyway, so honouring the old rule asks nothing of the modern practitioner.
- Can pressing this point straighten a crooked smile or unlock my jaw?
- No — and the honest answer matters most where it matters medically. Sudden facial drooping is an emergency requiring immediate professional assessment, and a jaw that will not open, persisting asymmetry, or recurring nosebleeds deserve proper clinical evaluation regardless of what any self-care page says. Daily acupressure can live comfortably alongside that care downstairs; it cannot replace the consulting room upstairs.
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 LI19 Kouheliao — 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/li19/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/li19/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/li19/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "LI19",
"name": {
"en": "Kouheliao",
"gloss": "Grain Hollow by the Mouth",
"zh-Hant": "口禾髎",
"zh-Hans": "口禾髎"
},
"channel": {
"id": "LI",
"order": 19,
"of": 20
},
"location": {
"text": "On the upper lip, straight below the outer edge of the nostril, level with the groove under the nose."
},
"for": [
"A blocked or runny nose",
"nosebleed"
],
"press": {
"text": "Light fingertip touch, about a minute.",
"seconds": 60
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/li19",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}