Laogong (PC8): The Palm Pressure Point for Tension and Restlessness

Where Laogong Sits

The point sits in the middle of your palm, a little closer to the fingers than to the wrist. In the older manuals of Vietnamese traditional medicine it belongs to the channel that runs from the middle fingertip up the inside of the arm. Those manuals name it the Pericardium channel. The old name of the point translates roughly as the palace of labour. The palm is the part of the hand that does the work of a life, and this is the room at the centre of it.

Under the skin there, two long bones run side by side toward your first and middle fingers. The point lies in the narrow valley between them. It is at the level where the bones end and the fingers begin, or a shade behind that line toward the wrist. Above the bones sits a thick sheet of fibrous tissue that fans across the palm. Beneath it run the tendons that bend the fingers, and the small muscles that draw them toward the thumb.

The skin and deeper tissue there are supplied by the large nerve of the hand (the median nerve). It enters the hand through the tunnel at the front of the wrist. It carries fibres from the sixth, seventh and eighth nerve roots of the neck and the first of the upper back. The artery that arches across the palm passes close by, which is why a resting thumb sometimes picks up a faint pulse. That pulse is not a problem. It is a useful landmark.

To place it without measuring: turn your palm up, curl your fingers in loosely, and watch where the tip of your middle finger settles. That landing place is the spot. Fingers that no longer curl that far can use the ring finger instead.

Why This Spot

There is a plain anatomical reason this part of the palm answers to pressure. The palm carries one of the densest supplies of touch and pressure receptors on the body. The nerve serving its centre runs into the same segments of the spinal cord that serve the neck, shoulder and upper back. Firm, steady pressure in a region that busy is something the body notices. Noticing it tends to crowd out whatever else the attention had been circling.

There is also the plain matter of posture. To press the centre of one palm with the other thumb, both hands come together in front of the chest, the shoulders drop, and the forearms rest on something. Few people can hold that shape with their shoulders up around their ears. The position does some of the work before the thumb does any.

In this tradition the point is described as a place where restlessness gathers and can be settled. It is commonly used for an unsettled chest, for a person who cannot sit still, and for the sweating palms that go with that state. A description is not a mechanism, and this page offers none. What can be said honestly is that people have pressed this spot for a very long time and keep coming back to it.

What the Old Texts Say About Laogong

The Systematic Classic of Acupuncture and Moxibustion (Zhenjiu Jiayi Jing) was compiled by Huangfu Mi in the third century. It is the earliest surviving systematic manual of point locations. It places this point in the centre of the palm and records it on the hand channel of the Pericardium. The Spiritual Pivot (Lingshu) is older still. It lists the point among those on that channel classified by the flow of water: the spring point, where a stream that began at the fingertip starts to gather force. That image is the tradition's own language.

The name carries its own argument. The old name means a palace of toil, a hall that stands for the work of the hand. In 1026 Wang Weiyi compiled the Illustrated Manual of the Bronze Man (Tongren Shuxue Zhenjiu Tujing). In 1027 two life-sized bronze figures were cast for examining students. The manual and the figures kept that name and that location. Seven centuries later the Golden Mirror of Medicine (Yizong Jinjian), compiled in 1742 under imperial commission, still describes the same spot in the same place. For a body of knowledge that changed a great deal in other respects, that is a stubborn piece of continuity.

What the manuals say the point was used for deserves reporting accurately, including the parts that sound strange. They list an agitated chest, a person who cannot rest, hiccups that will not stop, sores in the mouth, and palms that sweat. Some of those uses have no modern counterpart and are recorded here as history rather than advice. The through-line is that the texts reached for this point when a person was restless in a way that showed itself in the hands.

Vietnamese practice inherited the same point under the same name. In that teaching it is often the closing point of a session. A practitioner returns to it at the end, after the work on the sore shoulder or stiff neck is done. It brings the person back down before they stand up and walk out.

Points That Work With Laogong

The point in the web between your thumb and first finger. Look at the back of your hand and find the soft web where the thumb meets the first finger. Slide back from the edge of that web toward your wrist. Stop when your fingertip rests against the long bone of the first finger, about halfway along it, and press in toward that bone. This is the general-purpose companion, the natural partner to the palm point when a headache has come on top of a tense afternoon. If you are pregnant, skip this one. The palm point on its own is fine during pregnancy.

The point three fingers up from the wrist crease, palm side. Turn your palm up. Lay three fingers across the crease at the base of the hand, running up the forearm. Where the third finger lands is the level. In the middle of the forearm there, between two cords you can feel standing up, is a small dip. Add it when the restlessness has a fluttery quality.

One pairing is enough.

How to Press Laogong With Your Thumb

Getting Into Position

Sit in a chair with a back to it, both feet flat on the floor, and rest your forearms on your thighs or on a table. Turn the working hand palm up, and let the shoulders drop before you begin. In bed, lie on your back with both forearms on your chest, so neither arm has to hold itself up.

How to Find It

Turn your palm up. Curl your fingers in loosely, as though closing your hand around something small and fragile. Look at where the tip of your middle finger touches the palm and keep that place in mind. Open the hand again, and lay the thumb of your other hand on it.

Now feel around. Press gently with the pad of the thumb and move it in a small circle no wider than a coin. You are looking for a place that feels different from the skin around it. It is usually a soft dip between two firmer ridges, sometimes with a faint gritty or ropy feel under the thumb. The right spot gives a dull, spreading ache rather than a sharp sting, and the ache may travel toward the first and middle fingers. That spreading quality is the signal. A sharp, bright, electric feeling is not. Move off and try a few millimetres away.

How to Press It

Use the pad of the opposite thumb, not the tip and never the nail. Lay the thumb flat against the palm and let the other four fingers wrap around the back of the hand, so the hand is held rather than pushed at. Press straight down toward the bones beneath, without dragging sideways across the skin.

Two ways of working, both correct. The first is a slow press and release. Sink in over three or four seconds, hold while you breathe out, come off over another three, rest, repeat. The second is a small circle. The thumb stays in one place while the skin moves with it, twenty turns one way and twenty the other. People who are wound up usually do better with the press and release, because its rhythm pulls the breathing along behind it.

How Much Pressure

Enough to feel a solid, dull ache and no more. Two reliable tests, both free. The first is your breath. If you are holding it, you are pressing too hard, and the breathing should stay slow and through the nose throughout. The second is your shoulders. If the shoulder on the working side has crept toward your ear, ease off until it comes back down. Pain that makes you wince or brace is not stronger practice. It is the body defending itself, and a defended body settles less, not more.

How Long

Around two minutes on each palm. If you would rather count breaths than watch a clock, six slow breaths on one hand and six on the other comes to roughly the same. Do both hands every time, even if only one feels tender. Two rounds a day is a reasonable rhythm, and there is no benefit in far more.

When to Do It

The two moments people report most are the end of the working day and the middle of the night. In the evening it draws a line: sitting down, before the television goes on, two minutes each hand. At two or three in the morning the waking has already happened and the mind has started its rounds. Then it has the practical advantage that you can do it flat on your back with your eyes shut and no light on.

What This Won't Do

It will not take away a long-standing worry that disrupts your days, or a sleep problem that has been running for years. Two minutes of thumb pressure on a palm is a small, ordinary thing. Any page telling you a small ordinary thing will resolve a long-standing difficulty is selling you something. What people report is a modest, temporary settling: shoulders down, breathing slower, the edge off. Worth having. Not the same as the problem going away.

It will also not replace anything your doctor has given you. Keep taking exactly what your doctor prescribed. This is something you do in addition, never instead. And some things belong in a consulting room rather than on this page. Chest pain or tightness, pain spreading into the jaw or down an arm, and breathlessness at rest all need to be looked at the same day. So do a racing heartbeat that will not settle, and fainting or near-fainting. None of these are matters for pressure on a palm.

Persistent numbness, tingling or weakness in the hand itself is worth showing to a doctor too. That goes double if it wakes you at night or makes you drop things. There are nerve problems at the wrist that respond well to proper attention and badly to being ignored. If low mood or anxiety has begun to affect your sleeping, eating, or willingness to leave the house, please say so to someone qualified to help. You are allowed to ask.

Safety First

Do not work over broken skin, a rash, a burn, an open sore, a recent scar, or an area that is hot, red and swollen. If you take a blood-thinning medicine or bruise easily, use lighter pressure and shorter rounds, and stop if marks appear. If you have had surgery on the hand or wrist, or there is metalwork in it, ask the surgeon first. People with reduced feeling in the hands, from diabetes or a nerve problem, should be especially careful, because the usual warning signal of too-hard pressure may not arrive.

During pregnancy the palm point itself is not a concern, but the companion point in the thumb web is traditionally avoided. If you are pregnant, skip this one. Stop if pressing makes anything worse, and read the full safety guide before you start.

Questions People Ask

Where is the Laogong (PC8) pressure point? Laogong (PC8) sits in the middle of your palm, a little closer to the fingers than to the wrist. Curl your fingers in loosely and watch where the tip of your middle finger lands. That landing place is the spot. If your fingers no longer curl that far, use the ring finger instead.

How long should I press Laogong? Press for about two minutes on each palm. If you would rather count breaths, six slow breaths on one hand and six on the other comes to roughly the same. Do both hands every time. Two rounds a day is a reasonable rhythm, and there is no benefit in far more.

Does it matter which hand I press? No. Both palms carry the same spot, and most people work one and then the other. If one palm feels more tender, spend a little longer there. Many people find the palm of their writing hand is the sorer of the two.

I cannot feel anything when I press. Am I in the wrong place? Not necessarily. Some palms are quiet and some are tender, and a quiet palm is not a failure. Move your thumb a few millimetres at a time in a small circle around the centre until you find the spot that answers back. If nothing does, press the centre anyway and let the breathing do the work.

Can I do this while lying in bed? Yes. This is one of the few spots you can reach without sitting up, turning on a light, or looking at your hands. Resting your forearms on your chest is enough.

How soon should I notice something? Most people notice a change in their breathing before they notice anything in their hand. The breath slows on its own after half a minute or so. Whether that settles the rest of you varies from person to person and from night to night.

Other Points in This Library

Each of these sits within reach of the same hand. They are often worked in the same sitting.

This page shares general information about a traditional practice. It is not medical advice and does not replace what your doctor has given you. If you are pregnant, managing a health condition, or unsure whether this applies to you, check with your doctor first.

The whole inner edge of the foot, laid out on one page with photographs, is in The Foot Map — the free book. For every point in this library, see the full pressure point index.

(Point shown: PC8 · Laogong · Lao Cung.)