Sizhukong

What is TE23?

TE23 (Sizhukong) is a classical acupressure point in the hollow at the outer end of the eyebrow.

It is the last point on the Triple Energizer channel, and its Chinese name is usually translated as "silk bamboo hollow" — a reference to the fine hairs at the brow's outer tip. Every standard point curriculum teaches it, and classical texts list it for headache, eye complaints and twitching eyelids.

Two things are worth saying once, clearly, before the rest of the page. Long traditional use is not evidence that a point works, and it is not evidence that a point is safe either. Some very old points sit over structures that modern anatomy tells us to treat gently, and TE23 is one of them: it lies at the rim of the eye socket, a finger's width from the eyeball.

The honest verdict on the evidence is short. No controlled human trial has tested TE23 on its own for any condition. It appears inside multi-point acupuncture formulas for migraine and some eye conditions, so nothing in those studies tells you what this one point contributed. For self-applied finger pressure at TE23 specifically, there is essentially nothing to grade.

That does not make the point useless to a reader. Gentle pressure around the brow and temple is low-risk for most people, costs nothing, and many people find it soothing during an ordinary tension headache or after a long screen session. The reasonable framing is comfort measure, not treatment. If a symptom is new, severe, one-sided, or involves your vision, pressure at TE23 is not the right response — a clinician is.

Everything described on this page is self-applied finger pressure. This library does not teach needling, moxibustion, cupping or anything that breaks the skin, and you should not attempt those at home, least of all beside your eye.

Where is TE23 and how do you find it?

TE23 sits in the small hollow at the outer end of the eyebrow, on the bony rim above and beside the eye.

• Find the brow's outer tip. Run a fingertip along your eyebrow from the inner end outward until the hairs thin out and stop. That outer end is your starting mark.
• Feel for the bone. Just under and behind that point you will feel the firm ridge of the eye socket rim curving down toward the temple. TE23 is on or just above that ridge, not out on the soft temple.
• Find the dip. Press lightly with the pad of your index or middle finger and move it in tiny circles. There is a shallow depression right at the brow tip; most people can feel the fingertip settle slightly into it.
• Check the distance from the eye. TE23 is roughly a thumb-width (about 2 cm) out from the outer corner of the eye and slightly higher. If your finger is on soft tissue over the eyeball, you have gone too far in.
• Confirm by feel. The spot is often mildly tender, especially after screen work or a headache. Tenderness is a helpful clue, not proof you are in the right place.

Two neighbours are easy to confuse with TE23. GB1 lies further out, closer to the bone beside the outer eye corner, and BL2 sits at the inner end of the brow near the nose. TE23 is the outer brow tip, in line with the eyebrow itself.

TE23 exists on both sides of the face. Tradition treats it as a paired point, and people generally work both sides, either one after the other or together with a finger on each.

Describe it to yourself as "the dent where my eyebrow ends" and you will find it again without re-reading this page.

How do you apply pressure to TE23?

1. Clean hands, short nails. You are working beside your eye. Wash your hands first and make sure your nails cannot catch the skin or the eyeball.
2. Sit and settle. Sit upright or lean back, close your eyes, and rest your elbows on a table or the arms of a chair so your hands are steady.
3. Place the finger pad. Put the flat pad — not the tip — of your index or middle finger on the hollow at the outer end of the eyebrow. Use both hands for both sides if that is comfortable.
4. Press lightly. Aim for gentle, even pressure directed into the bone of the socket rim, never inward toward the eyeball. The feeling should be a mild ache or a sense of release, around 2 or 3 out of 10. Strong pressure is not better here.
5. Hold or circle. Either hold still for 20 to 30 seconds, or make small slow circles for the same time. Breathe normally throughout.
6. Repeat a few rounds. Do three to five rounds, resting a few seconds between them. A whole session takes two to three minutes.
7. Use it when you need it. Once or twice a day, or during a tension headache or an eye-strain break, is plenty. There is no benefit to grinding at it for long stretches.

Stop straight away if pressure causes sharp pain, if your vision blurs or changes, if the eye waters heavily or reddens, or if a headache gets worse rather than easing. Stop also if the skin at the brow becomes sore or marked.

Do not press on the eyeball at any point, and do not use tools, pens, massage sticks or anything hard near the eye. Fingers only.

If you wear contact lenses, consider taking them out first, since rubbing near the brow can shift a lens and irritate the eye.

What is TE23 traditionally used for?

• Headache at the temple and brow. Classical sources list TE23 for one-sided head pain and what we would now call migraine or tension headache. Acupuncture trials for migraine sometimes include TE23 inside a larger point prescription, and acupuncture does show modest benefit for migraine prevention in those trials — but nothing isolates this point, and those studies used needles, not fingers.
• Eye strain and tired, aching eyes. This is the most common modern use, especially after screens or close work. Human evidence is thin: a few small studies of eye-area self-massage routines report less eye fatigue, but the routines use several points at once and are unblinded, so expectation could explain much of it.
• Twitching eyelid. Tradition treats TE23 for eyelid spasm, and the ordinary harmless twitch most people get is usually driven by tiredness, caffeine and stress. There is no trial evidence that pressure at TE23 shortens it. Rest and less caffeine have better support.
• Red, swollen or itchy eyes. Older texts list these. In modern terms, a red or painful eye needs a diagnosis, not pressure, and there is no human research supporting TE23 for eye inflammation.
• Dizziness and facial pain. Tradition also names TE23 for dizziness, toothache and facial pain. These claims have no useful human evidence behind them for this point.

Across all of these, the pattern is the same: a long traditional record, no trial that tests TE23 by itself, and no trial of finger pressure at TE23 in particular. People who find it helps usually describe comfort and relaxation rather than a symptom disappearing.

Treat it as something you can add to sensible basics — sleep, hydration, screen breaks, treating headaches as your doctor advises — rather than something that replaces them.

What might regular use of TE23 help prevent?

• Screen-related eye fatigue. Some people use a short TE23 and brow massage as a scheduled break, and the break itself — looking away from the screen for two minutes — has better support than the point. If a routine gets you to pause regularly, that is a real if indirect benefit.
• Headache frequency. Tradition positions TE23 as part of ongoing care for recurring head pain. Acupuncture, needled by a practitioner across many sessions and many points, has modest evidence for reducing migraine days. That finding cannot be transferred to pressing one point with a fingertip, and no study has tested whether it does.

Beyond those two, there is no credible prevention claim for TE23. It will not prevent eye disease, protect your vision, stop glaucoma or cataracts, or keep migraines away on its own. Anyone telling you otherwise is going well past what is known.

Prevention claims are where point pages tend to overreach, so it is worth being blunt. No trial has followed people who pressed TE23 regularly and compared their headache or eye-strain rates against people who did not. Until that exists, any prevention statement is a hypothesis.

If you are trying to reduce recurring headaches, the measures with actual evidence are more useful starting points: regular sleep and meals, managing caffeine, tracking triggers, and discussing preventive options with your doctor if attacks are frequent. For eye comfort, regular screen breaks, correct glasses prescriptions and room lighting matter more than any point.

Use TE23 as a pleasant addition to those habits if you enjoy it. Do not let it stand in for a check-up, especially if headaches are changing in pattern, waking you at night, or coming with any new vision symptom.

Are there tips for using TE23 effectively?

• Press into bone, not toward the eye. Direct your pressure against the firm socket rim at the brow tip. Any force aimed inward toward the eyeball is both unhelpful and unsafe.
• Use the finger pad, never the nail. A flat pad spreads the pressure over a wider area and is far gentler on thin brow skin. Keep nails trimmed if you do this often.
• Work both sides. TE23 is paired. Doing left and right together with the index fingers of each hand feels more balanced and takes half the time.
• Keep it light. Facial points need much less force than points on the arm or leg. Mild ache is the ceiling; anything that makes you wince is too much.
• Pair it with a screen break. Use TE23 as the cue for a two-minute break where you also look at something far away and blink deliberately. The combined routine is more useful than the point alone.
• Add a warm cloth first. A warm, not hot, damp flannel over closed eyes for a minute before pressing makes the area more comfortable. Test the temperature on your wrist first.
• Be steady, not fast. Slow circles or a still hold beat quick rubbing, which mostly just irritates the skin.
• Track whether it actually helps you. Note your headache or eye-strain level before and after for a week. Since the general evidence is thin, your own record is the most relevant data you will get.
• Skip makeup and lens days if it irritates. Rubbing eye makeup toward the eye can sting. Remove makeup first, or press over clean skin at another time of day.

Keep sessions short. A couple of minutes once or twice a day is the sensible pattern, and more is not better at a point this close to the eye.

What do people get wrong with TE23?

• Expecting a cure. The biggest error is treating TE23 as a fix for migraines, eye disease or failing vision. No point does that, and no honest source promises an outcome. At best this is a comfort measure.
• Pressing on the eyeball. Sliding inward from the brow tip puts a finger over soft tissue and the globe of the eye. That is uncomfortable, can blur vision briefly, and is simply the wrong spot — TE23 is on the bony rim.
• Confusing it with BL2. BL2 sits at the inner end of the eyebrow near the nose. TE23 is at the outer end. People often read "eyebrow point" and press the wrong end of the brow.
• Drifting onto the temple. Wandering too far out lands you on the soft temple, which is GB-channel territory, not TE23. Stay at the hollow where the eyebrow hairs end.
• Using far too much force. Facial skin is thin and the area is tender. Hard pressure leaves the brow sore and achy and adds nothing.
• Using tools. Pens, gua sha stones, massage sticks and roller balls have no business this close to an eye. Fingers only.
• Pressing through a warning sign. A sudden severe headache, a red painful eye, double vision or new vision loss are not things to massage. They need assessment, sometimes urgently.
• Ignoring the obvious cause. Chasing eye strain with point pressure while skipping an overdue eye test, or working in poor light, misses the thing actually driving the symptom.
• Dirty hands. Touching the eye area with unwashed fingers invites conjunctivitis and styes. Wash first, every time.

One more: assuming age equals proof. TE23 has been listed for centuries, but that history says nothing about whether finger pressure changes a headache today.

What does the research on TE23 actually say?

There is no controlled human trial of TE23 on its own, and none of self-applied finger pressure at TE23 for any condition. That is the honest starting point, and it is also the usual answer for individual acupressure points.

What does exist is indirect. TE23 appears as one point within multi-point acupuncture prescriptions in trials for migraine and tension-type headache, where practitioners needle several points per session. Reviews of that body of work generally find acupuncture gives modest reductions in headache frequency compared with no treatment, with smaller and less consistent differences against sham needling. Those trials tell you about a whole treatment package delivered by a clinician, not about one point, and certainly not about pressing that point with a fingertip.

The same limit applies to eye-fatigue research. Small studies of Chinese eye-exercise routines, which combine pressure at several points around the eye socket, report some improvement in reported eye tiredness. These studies are typically small, short, and unblinded, so participants know what they are doing and expectation effects are hard to rule out. They do not separate TE23 from the other points used, and they do not compare the routine fairly against simply resting the eyes for the same length of time.

Where acupressure evidence is genuinely stronger, it is at other points and for other problems — PC6 for nausea and vomiting is the clearest case in the whole literature, backed by repeated controlled trials. Nothing of that quality exists for TE23. It would be dishonest to borrow PC6's credibility and apply it here.

What this means for you is simple. If pressing TE23 feels pleasant and your headache or eye strain eases, that is a reasonable thing to keep doing, with no reliable evidence that the point itself is responsible. If a symptom is severe, new, changing or involves your vision, the research offers no reason to delay seeing a clinician.