Naokong

What is GB19?

GB19, or Naokong, is a point on the back of the head, high on the Gall Bladder channel, level with the bony bump at the back of the skull.

The name Naokong is usually translated as "brain hollow", a reference to the slight dip many people can feel in the scalp muscle there. It is the eighteenth point counted along the Gall Bladder channel, sitting directly above the better-known GB20 in the hollow under the skull edge.

In classical Chinese medicine, GB19 was listed for headaches at the back of the head, neck stiffness, dizziness, sore eyes and a heavy, blocked feeling in the head. Older texts also list it for frightening dreams and seizures, which modern readers should treat as historical description rather than as a treatment claim.

Two things are worth saying once, up front. First, a long tradition behind a point is not evidence that pressing it does anything measurable. Second, tradition is not evidence that it is safe either; safety has to be judged from what is under your fingers, which here is scalp, skull and the muscles of the back of the head. Both points apply to every section below, so they are not repeated.

The honest verdict on the evidence: there is essentially no human research testing GB19 on its own. It appears inside some acupuncture point prescriptions for headache and dizziness, but never in a way that lets anyone say what GB19 itself contributed. Finger pressure here is gentle, low-risk self-care for most adults, and it may feel pleasant on a tight, achy head and neck. That is a reasonable thing to want. It is not the same as a proven effect, and this page will not pretend otherwise.

Everything described here is self-applied finger pressure. Nothing on this page involves needles, heat, cupping or anything that breaks the skin.

Where is GB19 and how do you find it?

GB19 sits on the back of the head, a little over two thumb-widths out from the midline, level with the top of the bony bump at the back of your skull.

• Find the bump first. Run a finger up the centre of the back of your head until you meet a rounded ridge or knob of bone. This is the external occipital protuberance, sometimes called the inion. Most people can feel it; in some it is faint.
• Stay at that level. Keep your finger at the height of the top edge of that bump and do not slide up or down. GB19 is on this horizontal line.
• Move outwards. Slide sideways from the midline by about two and a quarter thumb-widths, roughly 4 to 5 cm on an average adult head. That lands you over the back of the skull, still on bone, with a thin layer of muscle and scalp over it.
• Feel for the dip. Many people notice a slight hollow or a tender spot in the muscle there, especially if the neck has been tight. Mild tenderness is the usual confirmation.
• Check against GB20. GB20 is lower down, in the soft hollow below the bottom edge of the skull where the neck muscles attach. GB19 is clearly higher and sits on the hard back of the head, not in that soft notch.

Sources differ slightly on the sideways distance, with some texts placing GB19 nearer two thumb-widths and others further out. The level, at the top of the occipital bump, is the part everyone agrees on. If you are unsure, work the agreed level and let tenderness guide you within a couple of centimetres.

There are two GB19 points, one on each side of the head. The page describes one; find both.

How do you apply pressure to GB19?

1. Sit with your head supported. Use a chair with a back, or lean your elbows on a table. Working on the back of your own head with arms raised is tiring, and tiredness turns into jabbing.
2. Use the pads, not the nails. Place the pad of a middle or index finger on each GB19, with the thumbs resting lightly on the sides of the head for stability.
3. Press in gradually. Aim for firm but comfortable, around 3 or 4 out of 10. You should feel a dull ache or a spreading warmth, never a sharp or stinging pain.
4. Hold or circle. Either hold steady pressure for 30 to 60 seconds, or make small slow circles that move the scalp over the bone rather than dragging across the skin.
5. Repeat a few times. Two or three rounds per side is plenty in one session. Many people find once or twice a day enough, and there is no reason to do more.
6. Finish by releasing slowly. Ease off over a few seconds, then let the head and neck rest for a moment before standing up.

Stop straight away if you feel dizzy, light-headed, nauseated, or if a headache sharpens rather than eases. Stop if the skin starts to sting or redden, and do not return to the same spot while it is sore.

Keep total time short. A few minutes a day is the sensible ceiling for self-applied pressure on the scalp; longer sessions bring no known extra benefit and can leave the area tender. If several days of use change nothing, the honest conclusion is that it is not helping you, and that is a fine reason to stop.

What is GB19 traditionally used for?

• Headache at the back of the head. This is the main traditional use, especially for a tight, pulling ache that runs from the neck up over the skull. Acupressure for tension-type headache has been tested in small, mostly unblinded studies with mixed results, and none of them isolate GB19. Any relief you get may be ordinary comfort from pressure and warmth on tight muscle.
• Stiff neck and a heavy head. Classical texts list GB19 for neck rigidity and a sense of fullness in the head. There is no trial evidence for the point itself. Firm pressure near tight occipital muscles is a common manual-therapy habit, but that is a general observation, not proof about this location.
• Dizziness. Tradition links GB19 to dizziness and unsteadiness. Human evidence here is absent, and dizziness has many causes that need diagnosing rather than pressing. Treat this as a historical claim only.
• Eye strain and sore eyes. Older sources describe GB19 for painful, tired eyes. No controlled human study supports it. If your eyes are the problem, screen habits and an eye test will do more.
• Blocked nose and nosebleeds. Listed in classical indications, with no modern supporting evidence at all. Mentioned here for completeness, not as a recommendation.
• Restless sleep and frightening dreams. Found in classical texts and repeated in modern summaries. There is no human research testing GB19 for sleep, so this sits firmly in the tradition column.

Across all of these, the pattern is the same: a long written tradition, and almost no modern testing of this specific point. That does not make the point useless as a few minutes of self-care. It does mean nobody can tell you how well it works, because nobody has properly looked.

Are there tips for using GB19 effectively?

• Work both sides together. The muscles at the back of the head are paired and usually tighten together. Pressing both GB19 points at once is steadier and often feels more balanced than one side at a time.
• Warm the area first. A warm shower or a hot flannel on the back of the neck for a minute makes the scalp and muscle more comfortable to press, so you can use less force.
• Let tenderness guide you. Within a centimetre or two of the described spot, the tender point is the one worth working. Chasing an exact textbook measurement matters less than finding what the muscle is telling you.
• Keep your nails short. Scalp skin is thin and nails cut into it easily. If you can feel the nail edge, shift to a flatter part of the finger pad.
• Drop the shoulders and unclench the jaw. Back-of-head tightness often rides along with a hunched neck and a tight jaw. Loosening those gives the pressure something to work with.
• Give it a fixed trial. Try it for a week or two, note whether anything actually changes, then decide. An open-ended habit with no benefit is just time spent.
• Use it alongside the boring things. Sleep, hydration, screen breaks and regular neck movement have better support for everyday head and neck ache than any single pressure point does.
• Do it sitting, not standing. If you are at all prone to light-headedness, pressing on your own head with arms raised is a poor idea while upright and unsupported.

One general tip worth stating plainly: self-applied pressure is a comfort measure. Use it as something that may make a rough afternoon more bearable, not as a treatment you are relying on instead of getting a recurring problem looked at.

What do people get wrong with GB19?

• Confusing it with GB20. This is the most common error. GB20 sits in the soft hollow below the bottom edge of the skull; GB19 is higher, on the hard back of the head, level with the top of the occipital bump.
• Expecting a cure. No acupressure point cures headaches, dizziness or eye problems, and GB19 has no human trials behind it at all. Expecting relief for a while is reasonable; expecting a fix is not.
• Pressing far too hard. People assume more force means more effect. On thin scalp over bone, hard pressure just bruises skin and leaves the area sore for days.
• Dragging the skin. Scrubbing fingers across the scalp pulls hair and irritates the skin. The scalp should move over the bone underneath, not slide under your fingertip.
• Using it on a sudden severe headache. A headache that arrives abruptly and is the worst you have had is a reason to seek urgent care, not to sit and press on your head.
• Treating undiagnosed dizziness. Dizziness can come from the inner ear, blood pressure, medication or the heart. Self-pressure delays finding out which.
• Assuming old means safe. Centuries of use say nothing about whether pressing is wise over a recent head injury, a surgical site or an infected patch of scalp.
• Doing it for far too long. Twenty minutes of grinding away does not beat a couple of minutes. It mainly produces a tender head.

If the thing you are pressing GB19 for keeps coming back, the mistake is usually not technique. It is using self-care as a substitute for working out the cause.

What does the research on GB19 actually say?

No useful human research on GB19 by itself was found. There are no controlled trials, and no good observational studies, that test pressing or needling this single point against anything else.

What exists is indirect. GB19 occasionally appears inside multi-point acupuncture prescriptions used in trials for migraine, tension-type headache, neck pain and dizziness. In those studies, needles are placed at several points at once, so nothing can be attributed to GB19. Reporting that a published trial needled a point is just a description of what the researchers did; it is not an instruction, and this library never gives one.

The wider acupressure literature has the same weaknesses everywhere. Most studies are small, few are properly blinded, sham pressure is hard to design convincingly, and follow-up is usually days rather than months. Positive results in that setting are easy to produce and hard to trust. The one area with genuinely solid human evidence is PC6 for nausea and vomiting, including after surgery and in pregnancy. GB19 is nowhere near that standard, and it would be dishonest to suggest otherwise.

There is also no safety research specific to GB19. The low risk assumed here comes from common sense about the tissue involved, not from study data: moderate finger pressure on intact scalp over solid skull is unlikely to cause harm in a healthy adult.

What this means for you is simple. If you try GB19, treat it as an experiment with one participant. Note what you felt before and after, give it a fixed trial of a week or two, and judge it on your own result rather than on how confident a video sounded. If something you are pressing for is new, worsening or frightening, research cannot help you there; a doctor can.