勞宮 Laogong
“Palace of Toil” · PC8
Hand Jueyin · 8 of 9 · ying-spring
Where. In the centre of the palm, where the tip of the middle finger lands when you make a loose fist.
For. Mouth ulcers; bad breath; numb fingers.
Press. Gentle pressure with the other thumb pad, no nails, about a minute; then switch.
勞宮，掌中中指本節之內間也按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Laogong Sits in the Centre of the Palm
The dataset places Laogong plainly: in the centre of the palm, between the second and third metacarpal bones, closer to the third, so that when a fist is made the point lies exactly where the tip of the middle finger rests. Every part of that sentence can be verified by hand, which makes this one of the friendliest locations on the whole channel. Spread your fingers and look at your palm: beneath the soft pad run two long ridges of bone — the metacarpals belonging to the index finger and to the middle finger. The valley between them is Laogong’s neighbourhood, and the instruction “closer to the third” simply means hugging the middle-finger side of that valley rather than drifting toward the index.
What lies under the skin here is generous padding. The palm carries a thick sheet of tough gristle overlying short, strong muscles and the tendons that move the fingers; nothing delicate sits near the surface, and the true joints are buried deep. This is why palm points are among the least fragile places to touch anywhere on the body — the hand is built to be leaned on. The sensation matches the anatomy: pressure here registers as a broad, spreading fullness rather than the sharp local awareness bony points give, and most people find the spot faintly warm, because palms run warmer than the backs of hands.
The neighbours confirm the address. Follow the channel down from the wrist: Daling (PC7) holds the midpoint of the front wrist crease, and the channel then crosses the open palm — gathering at Laogong — before ending at Zhongchong (PC9), at the centre of the tip of the middle finger. Classical channel maps draw the pericardium pathway starting in the chest, running down the inner aspect of the arm, and finishing at that fingertip; nine points belong to the whole line, and Laogong stands eighth among them, holding the palm like a gatehouse before the final step onto the fingertip.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit comfortably and let the hand you intend to examine go completely slack, because a tense palm hides its own landmarks. Curl the fingers into a loose fist — only far enough that the fingertips settle against the palm — and notice where the tip of the middle finger comes to rest: that resting place is precisely the position the dataset records. Hold the spot with a fingertip of your other hand as you slowly uncurl. Then, with the hand open again, find the two long ridges running from the knuckles toward the wrist, the ones under the index finger and under the middle finger, and settle into the valley between them, keeping close to the middle-finger ridge. Fingertip memory and bone-valley memory should land on the same inch of palm.
A few quiet confirmations help before any real pressing begins. Press feather-light first: at the true point most people feel a dull, spreading awareness or a faint ache, while a thumb-width away there is little to feel. Compare hands — on most bodies the two Laogong points answer at the same depth, so any strong difference usually means one search drifted off the bone line. Watch what happens when you make and release the loose fist: the covering skin gathers into fine creases around the spot, and the tip of the middle finger returns to the same place each time, which is exactly why classical location notes offered the fist test as the simplest possible check.
The classic mistakes all have simple fixes. Drifting toward the index-finger side puts you against the wrong ridge — remember the record says closer to the third metacarpal, the middle finger’s own bone. Searching too high leaves you among the soft webs where fingers join the palm; too low brings you to the fleshy mound below the fingers or onward toward the wrist crease and Daling. And clenching hard flattens everything into one tense plane, erasing the very valley you are looking for — keep the grip loose and patient throughout.
Reading the Name: Palace of Toil
The two characters sketch the point in miniature. Lao 勞 means toil — labour, effort, the sweat of work — and gong 宮 is a palace, the grand residence of someone important. Read together, Laogong is the palace of toil. Traditional commentators explain the name through the hand itself: of all our parts, the hands are humanity’s great instruments of work, and the centre of the palm is where that effort gathers and pushes outward. The busiest square of skin on the hardest-working surface of the body earns, in the old way of naming, a palace.
There is a second, quieter layer. Classical teaching imagines the heart as a monarch seated safely within, and the pericardium — the channel this point serves — as the protective enclosure standing around the royal residence, receiving whatever the world sends first so the sovereign need not. A palace guards what matters most by standing between it and the weather; classical descriptions give the pericardium precisely that office on behalf of the heart, and traditional practice therefore routed many matters of the spirit through points along its line. Laogong, deep in the working hand at the far end of that line, closes the circle between guarding the heart and labouring with the hands.
Pinyin renders the name Láogōng: lao carries the rising second tone, gong the high, level first tone. The category adds a final layer of meaning. Classical teaching sorts the points along each yin channel into five stages named for how water behaves on its journey from mountain well to ocean estuary, and Laogong holds the spring stage — water newly emerged from the ground, moving briskly, still near its source. Spring-stage points were traditionally associated with heat-type presentations, which suits the warm-toned portfolio this point carries in the old records, from mouth sores to restless agitation.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The recorded indications read: cardiac pain, palpitations, mania and epilepsy, mouth ulcers, bad breath, jaundice, poor appetite, fungal infection of the hand, and numbness of the fingers. Grouped the way tradition grouped them, the list becomes legible. First comes the heart-and-chest cluster: cardiac pain and palpitations were approached through the pericardium because classical physiology gave the pericardium the office of standing between the world and the heart, so disorders of the heart were addressed at the guardian’s own stations along the arm.
Second is the spirit cluster, and it needs careful reading. Mania and epilepsy stand in the old records as an umbrella term for severe agitation of the mind and convulsive illness, understood classically as disturbance of the spirit housed behind the pericardial enclosure and calmed through points along this channel. The vocabulary is antique and the frame pre-modern, but the seriousness underneath is real: these presentations describe conditions that today call for prompt medical assessment, and this page treats them strictly as history. Heat showing at the body’s openings forms the third thread — mouth ulcers and bad breath, read in the classical manner as warmth rising along the channel and breaking out at the mouth, which is why spring-stage points with their heat associations were the natural stations to consult.
Older compilations add broader entries — jaundice and poor appetite — carried forward through the era’s channel-and-organ reasoning rather than any local connection, and they remind us how wide the historic nets were cast. The last pair is the most down-to-earth: fungal infection of the hand and numbness of the fingers sit in the record because complaint and point share territory, following the plain logic of reaching for what lies nearest along the channel’s course. It bears repeating plainly: every item above is a traditional use preserved in a licensed dataset and classical literature, offered for cultural understanding, not a claim that pressing this point treats disease. Where modern research has touched self-applied pressure at all, reviews suggest effects are modest and context-dependent, and evidence tied to any single point remains thin. Chest pain, seizures, new yellowing of skin or eyes, or persistent symptoms of any kind belong with qualified clinicians, not with a home routine.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point found by the walkthrough above, set yourself up: seated, shoulders released, hands warmed — cold hands make guarded palms. Rest the pad of your opposite thumb on the spot, fingers cradling the back of the hand for support, and begin with contact alone for a few slow breaths. Then add small circles, letting the skin glide over the cushioned tissue rather than grinding against bone. Aim for a pleasant, spreading fullness or gentle warmth; sharpness never belongs in this practice. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, matched where you can to long exhales so each circle rides the breath out. Swap hands and finish the other side, keeping the sessions symmetrical.
Quality outranks duration. Light, patient, regularly repeated contact is the whole art here; jabbing teaches the body nothing and sours the habit. Because the palm is forgiving terrain, the likelier failure is the quiet one — pressing absent-mindedly hard while scrolling or driving. Give the minutes their own attention instead: anchor them to something already dependable, tidying up in the evening or the first quiet stretch after waking, and let the practice be a pause with a shape rather than another task on the list. Many people find that closing the eyes lets the dull, spreading quality of the pressure come forward.
Treat the exercise as a small ceremony of attention rather than a treatment session. Across weeks you may notice your hands unclench sooner on stressful afternoons, or that the slow breathing attached to the circles lingers after you stop; perhaps nothing shifts except that part of the day now belongs to you. Every outcome inside that range 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 set the practice down for the day. A point named for toil, of all places, can be trusted to argue for rest.
Cautions and Safe Practice
This point arrives with unusually light paperwork: the licensed dataset records no special cautions for Laogong. The reason is geography again — thickly padded muscle and tendon, no ribs or organs anywhere nearby, nothing shallow and vulnerable at fingertip depth. Absence of recorded cautions is not, however, permission for force. Every house rule of gentle self-care applies exactly as elsewhere: finger pads and thumb pads only, never nails, elbows, or tools; pressure that stays comfortable; an immediate stop at any sharp, electric, or radiating sensation; and no practice at all over cuts, cracked skin, active rashes, or flaring fungal patches — a caution that matters more here than at most points, since hand-skin complaints number among this point’s recorded indications.
Some readers should add a conversation before adding a routine. If you live with a heart condition, a seizure disorder, or liver disease, keep your clinical team in charge of the condition itself and treat any acupressure as a comfort ritual alongside proper care, never instead of it. Pregnant readers are asked by the site-wide guidance to consult a qualified practitioner before taking up new point practices. During feverish illness, set the whole routine aside until recovered. None of this is alarmism — it is the ordinary hygiene of a practice whose entire safety story rests on staying light, superficial, and sensible.
And over everything stands the wider rule. This page is educational; self-acupressure is comfort and ceremony, not diagnosis or therapy. Certain symptoms must always route promptly to professional care rather than to any palm-pressing: chest pain or pressure, palpitations joined by dizziness or fainting, any convulsion or seizure, new yellowing of the skin or eyes, mouth sores that persist or worsen, numbness that spreads or will not leave. Persistent symptoms belong with a licensed practitioner — medical or East Asian medical as suits the complaint. The palace imagery is charming, but the safest thing Laogong offers most people is a friendlier acquaintance with their own hard-working hands, treated kindly.
Laogong, the Palace of Toil, sits at the very centre of the palm — the spot the tip of the middle finger finds when a fist is loosely closed. Classical practice reached here for palpitations and unsettled states of the spirit, and the working hand leans on this ground all day without ever naming it. This guide walks through finding the point by touch and pressing it gently.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Laogong without measuring anything?
- Close a loose fist and look where the tip of your middle finger presses into the palm — the dataset itself gives that gesture as the location check. Open the hand halfway and confirm with the bones: the point sits in the valley between the ridge under the index finger and the ridge under the middle finger, closer to the latter. No cun measurements are needed; the fist test and the bone valley say the same thing in two languages.
- Is pressing the palm actually safe?
- For healthy adults, yes — gentle thumb-pad or fingertip pressure on this thickly padded area engages cushioned muscle and tendon far from anything vulnerable, and the licensed dataset records no special cautions for the point. The usual disciplines still apply: no nails or tools, nothing over broken or inflamed skin, and an immediate stop if anything feels sharp or electric. Comfortable fullness is the intended sensation; pain is simply a signal to lighten up or stop.
- What did classical practice use Laogong for?
- The traditional record lists cardiac pain, palpitations, mania and epilepsy — the old umbrella term for severe mental agitation and convulsive illness — plus mouth ulcers, bad breath, jaundice, poor appetite, fungal infection of the hand, and numbness of the fingers. Classical theory explains the pattern: as the heart’s guardian enclosure, the pericardium channel became the natural route for matters of heart and spirit, while the hand complaints follow simple locality. These are documented traditions offered for context, not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why is a point in my hand connected to the heart and emotions?
- Classical channel maps draw the pericardium pathway beginning in the chest and travelling down the inner arm to end at the middle finger, passing straight through the palm. Because the pericardium was imagined as the protective enclosure around the sovereign heart, disturbances of heart rhythm and of the spirit were traditionally worked with along that line — wherever it ran, the hands included. The map ties the hand to the heart; the loose fist merely shows you the doorway.
- Can acupressure replace seeing a doctor about palpitations or chest discomfort?
- No. Self-applied pressure is a comfort practice with no diagnostic power, and cardiac symptoms — chest pain or pressure, palpitations with dizziness, fainting, or breathlessness — require professional assessment promptly, not a home routine. Think of the two as different floors of one building: daily self-care lives downstairs, clinical medicine keeps the consulting room upstairs, and anyone experiencing those symptoms should climb the stairs immediately.
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, ying-spring theory, and channel context.
- 03aijiu-mpvue (MIT License) licensed dataset, entry for PC8 Laogong — 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/pc8/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/pc8/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/pc8/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "PC8",
"name": {
"en": "Laogong",
"gloss": "Palace of Toil",
"zh-Hant": "勞宮",
"zh-Hans": "劳宫"
},
"channel": {
"id": "PC",
"order": 8,
"of": 9
},
"location": {
"text": "In the centre of the palm, where the tip of the middle finger lands when you make a loose fist."
},
"for": [
"mouth ulcers",
"bad breath",
"numb fingers"
],
"press": {
"text": "Gentle pressure with the other thumb pad, no nails, about a minute; then switch.",
"seconds": 60
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Lingshu, chapter 2",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/pc8",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}