Points of Interest: Yintang, Calm it Down
This is one of the biggies. I had a teacher once tell our class “everyone who’s face up gets Yintang.” They saw it as indispensable to any treatment. I think part of why that is because it’s almost always neutral at worst, while usually being calming and centering.
The number of times, people stop me in the middle of swabbing points and ask “Can you do the one (*pointing to forehead*) right here?” is countless. Every now and then someone feels a little too much pressure from it or just can’t not try focusing on it to the point of distraction.
And after you’ve had acupuncture and used this point you can look at friends and family and see the ones that need it. They always have that real tight furrow, right between the eyebrow–even when they are “calm”–and you know Yintang would help them relax.
Beyond being a relaxing point it can be therapeutic in its own right for headaches, sinus pressure, eye irritation, insomnia. But I think why most people find it a great point is because of it’s anxiety relieving tendencies. We’re all way more anxious than we want to admit and this point helps sedate some of that anxiety for a time.
So I use it generally as a finishing point, often the last thing I’ll needle on anyone. It’s a great way to balance out a treatment, open up the third eye and let someone know “OK, after this one I’m stepping away and you’re on your own.”
