翳風 Yifeng
“The Wind Screen” · TH17
Hand Shaoyang · 17 of 23
Where. Behind the earlobe, in the hollow between the bone behind the ear and the jaw angle; clearer with the mouth open.
For. Ringing ears; toothache; a swollen cheek.
Press. Feather-light fingertip touch, no nails, about a minute each side.
翳風，在耳後陷者中，按之引耳中按 · Press with me
Six slow breaths
About a minute. Press as you breathe out, ease as you breathe in.
鄰 · Neighbouring leaves
Where Yifeng Sits Behind the Ear
Tuck your hair aside and trace your own ear: the lobe hangs lowest, and immediately behind it the skull offers a small, sheltered hollow. The dataset places Yifeng there — behind the earlobe, in the depression between the mastoid process and the angle of the mandible, more evident when the mouth is opened. The two landmarks name the hollow’s walls. The mastoid process is the rounded bump of bone felt directly behind and slightly below the ear; the angle of the mandible is the corner of the lower jaw, the turn where the jawline bends upward toward the ear. Between those two hard points, just under the hanging lobe, the fingertip finds the soft depression this point calls home.
Unlike many limb points, this location carries no cun arithmetic at all: no distances from creases or midlines, only landmarks and one behavioural clue. That clue matters — open the mouth slowly and the jaw’s corner glides, the space around it reshapes, and the depression shows itself more plainly than at rest. What lies under the fingertips deserves a respectful tone as well. Anatomists know this little basin as crowded ground: the ear’s own structures sit close by, a large salivary gland fills much of the neighbourhood, and slender nerves cross the region on their way toward the face. The licensed record attaches no special caution to this entry, yet crowded ground argues for the same rule everywhere on the head and face — feather-light hands, and never more pressure than curiosity can justify.
Yifeng anchors the lower end of a short line of stations climbing the back of the ear. Two named neighbours share it: Chimai (TH18) and Luxi (TH19) step upward along the groove behind the helix toward Jiaosun (TH20), which the record places directly above the tip of the ear. Below, the channel has already stepped down onto the side of the neck. Seen whole, the san jiao channel carries twenty-three points and runs from the ring finger up the outer arm to the temple at the side of the head; Yifeng stands near the very top of that climb, where an arm channel turns into a head channel — which is why so much of its historic work concerns the face and ears rather than the limb below.
A Self-Palpation Walkthrough
Sit comfortably facing a mirror if you like, and let the shoulders drop. Sweep hair away from the ear being examined and let the lobe hang naturally. Rest the index finger of the opposite hand directly behind the lobe and slide it gently inward until it settles into softness — the hollow between the jaw’s corner in front and the rounded mastoid bone behind. Now add the behavioural test from the record: open the mouth slowly and close it again. Under a correctly placed fingertip the hollow deepens or shifts as the jaw moves, confirming you are in the gap the description names, not merely on soft tissue nearby. Repeat the search on the other side so both ears receive the same unhurried attention.
A few confirmations help before any pressing begins. Touch feather-light first and compare sides: many people notice a faint, dull awareness at the true spot and little sensation a finger-width away. Let the jaw do small work — slow opening, slow closing, a gentle pretend-chew — and feel whether the tissue under the fingertip joins the movement. Check the two walls as well: slide backward and you should meet the firm resistance of the mastoid; slide forward and the jaw’s corner rises to meet the finger. If instead the fingertip rests high on the ridge of cartilage behind the ear, or wanders into the fuller muscle of the cheek, drop back to the lobe and begin the slide again.
The classic mistakes cluster at the edges of the search. Pressing straight back onto the mastoid leaves you on bare bone, tender and unproductive; drifting forward into the mass of the cheek muscles loses the hollow entirely; and searching too high — in the crease behind the ear’s rim — lands you among the neighbouring stations that belong to the climb above. Height discipline prevents most misses: the lobe is the flag, and the hollow hides immediately behind it, no higher. When in doubt, lift off, start once more, slowly, and let the mouth-opening test have the final word.
Reading the Name: The Wind Screen
Both characters carry weather. Yi 翳 is the older, more ornate of the pair: it originally pictured the feather canopy that shaded a carriage — a curtain of plumes hung against sun and glare — and by extension came to mean anything that screens, shades, or shelters, even to conceal. Feng 風 means simply wind. Read together, Yifeng is the wind screen: a name that pictures this hidden hollow as a curtain drawn across something, sheltering whatever stands behind it.
Traditional commentaries read the name in two complementary ways, and neither needs quoting to retell. First, the place: the point sits concealed behind the earlobe like a screen hung before a doorway, tucked into the shadow where head meets jaw. Second, the work: classical practice understood many sudden complaints of the face — a mouth drifting out of true, an eye that would not close cleanly — as visitations of external wind, and this point stood at the front line of that story, the station where wind was traditionally met and turned aside at the gate of the face. Read as architecture or read as the medicine of its day, the metaphor agrees with itself: a threshold point, guarding the passage between the world’s weather and the ear and face behind it.
Pinyin renders the name Yìfēng: yi falls through the crisp fourth tone, feng rides the high, level first tone. The hanzi 翳風 reward a second look precisely because the first character is uncommon — a rare visitor built on the feather radical, carrying its carriage-canopy past wherever it goes. Like many channel points named for architecture and landscape — gates, valleys, courtyards, screens — the image does real work: it says the tradition treated this spot as a door-shade at an entrance, not a way-station things merely pass.
Traditional Indications, Explained
The licensed record lists nine traditional indications: deviation of the mouth and eye, lockjaw, swelling of the cheek, tinnitus, deafness, toothache, cervical scrofula, mumps, and diaphragmatic spasm. Grouped, they tell a coherent story. The face group — deviation of the mouth and eye, lockjaw, swollen cheeks — belongs to the territory the wind-screen name anticipates: sudden complaints of the face, which classical practice framed as wind stirring the channels that cross it. Lockjaw translates an old image of the jaw seized shut; swelling of the cheek gathers the era’s inflammations of the cheek-and-jaw countryside, mumps among them, recorded long before any science existed to name causes.
The ear group needs almost no map: tinnitus and deafness sit within a finger’s reach of this hollow, and classical practice treated the region behind the lobe as the ear’s own threshold. Toothache joins through the same geography, since the jaw’s corner forms one wall of the point. Cervical scrofula — the old records’ name for chains of chronic swellings along the neck — reads today as a historical category covering troubles modern medicine sorts very differently, and it survives in the list as a period piece. The last entry surprises most readers: diaphragmatic spasm, the hiccup. Why a point behind the ear should appear beside the diaphragm is a question classical practice answered with channel logic rather than local anatomy: pathways were understood as continuous lines along which distant regions corresponded, and entries like this one preserve that map’s conclusions. These remain traditional frameworks, offered for context rather than as claims.
It bears repeating plainly: these are the traditional uses recorded in a licensed dataset and classical literature, presented for cultural and historical understanding. They are not claims that pressing this point treats disease, and nothing here 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. Several entries carry modern footnotes the safety section takes up in full: a face drifting out of true today belongs in urgent medical assessment, persistent ringing or hearing loss deserves a proper examination rather than a pressure routine, and any lasting neck lump belongs before a doctor promptly.
Self-Care Acupressure at Home
With the point found by the walkthrough above, settle in: seated, shoulders heavy, jaw unclenched. Curl the index finger and rest its pad — never the tip or nail — in the hollow behind the lobe. Begin with contact alone for a few breaths, then add small, slow circles, letting the skin glide over the tissue beneath rather than dragging across it. Pressure should register as pleasant dullness or mild warmth, never sharpness; the face tolerates less force than the limbs, and this point rewards a whisper over a shove. A common home rhythm is one to three minutes per side, once or twice daily, matched where possible to slow exhales. Swap hands and repeat on the other side, keeping sessions symmetrical.
Quality matters more than duration. Warm cold hands first, since chilled fingers make a poor introduction anywhere on the face. Choose a quiet corner over a screen, letting the minute double as a pause: soften the jaw, unclench the teeth, breathe low into the belly while the fingertip keeps its light post. Anchor the practice to an existing habit — after morning washing, before the afternoon slump — because consistency, not intensity, is what self-care traditions actually ask for. And if the ear itself is unhappy — hot, painful, or discharging — leave the whole area alone until a clinician has looked at it.
Treat the exercise as a small ceremony of attention rather than a treatment session. Across weeks you may notice the jaw feels less clenched, the ears less forgotten, or simply that a minute of the day now belongs to a part of the body most routines skip. Every one of those outcomes fits the honest scope of self-acupressure. What does not fit is escalation — harder, longer, deeper, to force a result the tradition never promised. When curiosity pulls that way, return to gentleness, or stop for the day.
Cautions and Safe Practice
This entry arrives with a clean sheet: the licensed dataset records no specific caution for Yifeng, and gentle surface work suits that quiet record well. Clean is not careless, though. The rules that serve any facial point serve this one doubly, because the ground beneath is busy. Use finger pads only — never nails, knuckles, elbows, or tools — and keep pressure light enough that it could be held for a full session without strain. Skip the point over broken, irritated, or erupting skin, during a flare of ear pain or discharge, and after recent ear, dental, or jaw procedures until a clinician has cleared ordinary self-care. Sharp, electric, or radiating sensation means stop at once and leave the area alone for the rest of the day. Pregnant readers do well to consult a qualified practitioner before adding any new point practice.
Some symptoms outrank any pressure routine, and this point’s traditional portfolio makes them worth naming. A face suddenly drifting out of true — a drooping mouth corner, an eye that will not close, slurred speech, weakness anywhere else — belongs to emergency medicine now: call emergency services immediately rather than reaching for acupressure, because telling a stroke from a less urgent palsy is clinician’s work, not fingertip work, and in those moments every minute matters. Persistent or one-sided hearing loss, ringing that will not settle, or ear pain with fever deserve a proper examination soon. Any lasting lump in the neck, any swelling of the cheek without an ordinary explanation, and any toothache that refuses to fade belong before a doctor or dentist promptly.
And the wider rules stand over everything: this page is educational only, and acupressure is self-care, not diagnosis or therapy. Persistent symptoms of any kind belong with a licensed practitioner, medical or East Asian medical as suits the complaint. The wind-screen imagery is elegant, but the safest gift Yifeng offers most people is acquaintance — a fingertip’s better knowledge of the small, sheltered country behind the earlobe, visited gently and left better than found.
Yifeng, the Wind Screen, hides in the soft hollow behind the earlobe where the jaw meets the skull. Classical practice reached for it when the face drifted out of true, the ears rang, or swelling gathered at the cheek. This guide walks through finding it by touch, pressing it gently, and the safety lines that matter most here.
Self-care limits
Frequently asked
- How do I find Yifeng without knowing anything about cun?
- Good news: this location uses none. Let the earlobe be the entire map — slide a fingertip directly behind it into the soft hollow between the jaw’s corner and the rounded bone behind the ear, then open and close the mouth slowly. When the hollow deepens under your finger, you have arrived. One landmark, one movement, done.
- Is pressing Yifeng myself actually safe?
- Gentle fingertip contact on the surface is reasonable self-care for healthy adults, and the licensed record attaches no specific caution to this point. Facial tissue still asks for lighter hands than limbs do: pads, not nails; circles, not digging; nothing over irritated skin or during an ear flare. The stop signals stay absolute — sharp, electric, or spreading sensation ends the session immediately.
- What did classical practice use Yifeng for?
- The traditional record lists nine indications, led by complaints of the face — deviation of the mouth and eye, lockjaw, swollen cheeks — followed by tinnitus, deafness, toothache, cervical scrofula, mumps, and diaphragmatic spasm. Classical theory cast the point as the wind screen where sudden facial complaints were met at the gate. Those are traditional frameworks, documented for context — not evidence-backed treatment claims.
- Why does a point behind the ear serve the teeth and even hiccups?
- Channel logic, not local anatomy. The san jiao channel runs from the ring finger up the outer arm to the temple, and classical practice reasoned along such routes: distant regions joined by one continuous pathway could be attended to at stations along it. Entries like diaphragmatic spasm preserve that old map’s conclusions. It is best understood as a coherent pre-modern diagram of connections, not a physiology lesson.
- Someone’s face suddenly droops — should I press Yifeng right away?
- No — call emergency services instead. Sudden facial droop, especially with slurred speech or weakness anywhere else, may be a stroke, and separating that from less urgent causes is work for clinicians and scans, not fingertips. Acupressure can resume another day; the emergency cannot wait for it.
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 TH17 Yifeng — location and actions 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/th17/leaf.json
- GET /zh-hant/points/th17/leaf.json
- GET /zh-cn/points/th17/leaf.json
- /llms.txt — the index of every leaf
- JSON-LD in the page: MedicalWebPage, MedicalEntity and FAQPage
{
"id": "TH17",
"name": {
"en": "Yifeng",
"gloss": "The Wind Screen",
"zh-Hant": "翳風",
"zh-Hans": "翳风"
},
"channel": {
"id": "TH",
"order": 17,
"of": 23
},
"location": {
"text": "Behind the earlobe, in the hollow between the bone behind the ear and the jaw angle; clearer with the mouth open."
},
"for": [
"ringing ears",
"toothache",
"a swollen cheek"
],
"press": {
"text": "Feather-light fingertip touch, no nails, about a minute each side.",
"seconds": 60,
"sides": "both"
},
"cautions": [],
"source": "Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing, book 3",
"url": "https://acupoints.com/en/points/th17",
"lastReviewed": "2026-08-24"
}