In this video, I share the 15 best acupuncture points to calm the mind, and why we use them in clinic. Then I also share acupuncture points combos for anxiety, insomnia, repressed emotions, and overthinking.

Chinese medicine and acupuncture approach to calming the mind is quite effective. In fact, I have seen it over and over in my practice in the past 20 years! Acupuncture is fantastic for anxiety, depression, insomnia and more. It works very effectively especially if it’s done in conjunction with counselling and diet adjustments.

Be sure to watch till the end for my all time favourite acupuncture points combo to calm the mind!

Keep rocking using TCM,
Clara
TCM Geek

PS: If you want more, sign up to my FREE course on Mental Health and Chinese medicine. If you want to learn this on the go, do not miss the podcast episode. And if you haven’t invested in my book AcuPoints Made Easy, get your copy here! 🙏

The 15 BEST Acupuncture Points to Calm the Mind

Studies on Acupuncture for Mental health

Recent studies have shown that acupuncture can have a profound effect on conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression. For example, researchers have found that acupuncture can help reduce the severity of PTSD symptoms. Because it promotes the release of natural chemicals, such as endorphins, which are known to enhance mood and alleviate anxiety.

Studies have also shown its effectiveness in treating depression. Acupuncture can help regulate brain chemistry and, leading to a greater sense of emotional well-being.

How Acupuncture works to calm the mind

Picture this: you’re in a state of deep relaxation, experiencing a renewed sense of calm, and your mind is at ease. Sounds incredible, right? Well, that’s exactly what acupuncture can offer when it comes to mental health. This is how patients feel when receiving acupuncture because they are in a parasympathetic state.

This is why I love acupuncture and when it comes to mental health and acupuncture. For mental health, this is exactly why acupuncture works so well because it brings the mind into a parasympathetic state or a state of rest, and we cover.

Spleen 5 is the BEST acupuncture point for mental fatigue!

Liver 3 is the BEST acupuncture point for mood swings!

The 15 Best Acupuncture to Calm the Mind Video Transcript

Today, I’m gonna share the 15 most used acupuncture point for mental health and clinical practice.

However, it’s really important to make a TCM diagnosis for each patient and follow it. With your protocol when it comes to points; however, you can add one, two, or three of those 15 points to enhance your treatment and really put that patient in a parasympathetic state. Recent studies have shown that acupuncture is really good when it comes to post-traumatic stress disorder or anxiety or depression, and I’ll link the studies below so you can share them.

With your patients and show them that it is clinical practice, absolutely proving that acupuncture rocks when it comes to mental health.

Let’s do this. Before we dive into the 15 most acupuncture points used in clinical practice for mental health, I wanna talk about the perspective of Chinese medicine when it comes to mental health. So first of all, 70% or more of all chronic physical disorders come from mental or emotional trauma. And that’s a TCM perspective.

And I remember when I was in school, I remember thinking, “Wow, that’s really big.” But imagine someone that has anger since they were a teenager, and the anger is festering and festering and festering.

📍 Eventually it changes the body at the cellular level. Creating a breakdown of the cells and disorders start to set in and that can be physical disorders, right?

We see this all the time when people are so upset for so many days, what happened? Blood pressure starts to rise, and now we have high blood pressure.

📍 So the mental and emotional aspect of someone can dictate their physical aspect and vice versa.

If someone is in a car accident and they’re in a lot of pain for many weeks and months, eventually.

Settles into a depressive state or hopeless state, and the person is having a hard time. Coping with the pain because mentally they feel like it’s not going anywhere and they’re never going to heal, right? So mental and physical are completely related, and this is why acupuncture works so well because we trigger the body physically to be able to reach the mental state to the person.

Now, when it comes to Chinese medicine and mental health, we wanna look at two things. First, we wanna look at the organs that are affected by mental health. Spleen: worry, overthinking for long-standing period of time. Liver: anger, frustration, irritability, long sadness, grieving, depression. Heart: all long-standing emotions will eventually affect the heart.

The heart’s in charge of joy when we lose our joy. It means that the heart is depleted, right? So anxiety affects the heart, but all other emotions do. Fear and shock affects kidney When it comes to other things, like Gallbladder is in charge of decision making when someone feels stuck, gallbladder is being affected.

When someone is feeling jealous and envious, Bladder is affected. When someone cannot distinguish between right and wrong that’s Small Intestine. Or, when someone has a hard time letting go of something that’s Large Intestine. And when someone is really obsessed with narcissistic behavior or is really self-centered, that’s a Stomach issue. Because the stomach is really at the center of our body, right?

Course Break

You can see how it’s all related. I love Chinese medicine when it comes to mental health. I have a full free course on understanding the basics of mental health in Chinese medicine. I’ll put the link below. If you haven’t watched it yet, it’s completely free. Go ahead and sign in and then watch and let me know what you think.

Now let’s dive into the 15 most acupuncture point for mental health used in clinical practice.

Spleen 5

Is probably underutilized in clinical practice. However, it’s one of the best points when there is mental and physical fatigue. Remember, the Spleen is in charge of sending clear Qi to the head for the ability to focus, concentrate, and do mental work. But it’s also in charge of muscles and keeping our physical energy up.

Spleen 5 is the best point when someone is very fatigued physically, or mentally. I ask patient that all the time, “When you say you’re fatigued: is it physical, is it mental, or is it both?” And when it’s both, this is the best point. Now, if it’s also physical, we wanna raise Qi with REN 6, Spleen 6, Stomach 36, right? That’s really important.

And if it’s mental only, we wanna calm the mind, but raise the mental energy with DU 20 and KD 1 to kind of balance the highest point and the lowest point. With Spleen 5, it is such a powerful point. It’s also the best point for overthinkers, and there are many of us out there, right, including myself.

So when we overthink and it takes a lot of our space and fatigue, mental fatigue for the overthinking. Spleen 5is the best point because remember again, the Spleen is in charge of worry and overthinking. And the last one is, it is a really good point when people are anxious and they end up stuttering much more than normal, and that is a good point to add to your protocol as well.

Spleen, five rocks.

Spleen 6

Which is located three cun above the media malleolus is one of my favorite points. It is fantastic for many, many reasons, but one of the reason we are talking about today is mental health. Spleen 6is the crossing point between the Liver, the Kidney and the Spleen meridian. That makes it a powerful point to calm to mind when there’s Liver action like irritability, impatience, stress, anger, frustration, but also for Kidney when there is fear.

And for spleen when there’s worry and overthinking. And this is very common. I see a lot of people in clinical practice who get a lot of anxiety, who gets worried, overthink, get irritable, get frustrated, because there are a lot of stress put upon them. And that is the best point to put when there’s a lot of stress affecting the mental health and creating fear, anxiety, worry, and overthinking.

Let’s combine Spleen 6 with another point

So you could combine Spleen 6 with Spleen 5, for example. That’s a great combo as well. And I love Speen 6 because it is also a nourishing point to blood. And Blood is the material basis of the mind in Chinese medicine. Without blood circulation to the brain, it is really difficult for the body and the mind to connect and the mind feels overwhelmed.

So Spleen 6. Perfect point to add to your protocol. All my students know that Stomach 40 is my favorite point of all time. What is your favorite point? Put it in comments below. I would love to know, but stomach 40 is mine. I love this point because it does so many things, but specifically when it comes to mental health, it is the best point for phlegm in the body.

Now, if you remember, phlegm according to TCM, can be visible or invisible. Visible phlegm is obviously coughing phlegm, it’s excess body fats or like obesity. It’s excess cyst. It is ganglion. It is going to be anything that is really thick like plaque in the arteries, that is also going to be phlegm.

However, invisible phlegm is what affects our brain, and that is why Stomach 40 is so powerful, because it’s really good for anxiety, depression, manic behavior, bipolar. This is a really good point for this because it clears invisible phlegm. Now, according to TCM, when there is depression, for example, there’s always Liver Qi stagnation, which means the person feels stuck and there’s always phlegm because we can’t rationalize, we can’t get out of that mindset that feels so, so hopeless.

Stomach 40 is a really good point when it comes to looking at Depression

Specifically added up with Liver 3, because Liver 3 moves Qi. There’s always a Liver Qi stagnation in some kind of phlegm. There’s also other pattern, we have to always do a pattern of diagnosis.

There could be blood deficiency and Yin deficiency, Yang rising. Many other pattern. You always wanna treat the pattern of diagnosis in TCM, but there are a specific point that we truly wanna add to the protocol. Stomach 40 and Liver 3  has to be there when it comes to depression. When it comes to anxiety, it’s the same idea.

Stomach 40 works really well with Pericardium 6. But those two points together are very powerful when it comes to anxiety, for sure. That makes sense, right? If you have a hard time making a TCM diagnosis, it’s always good to pick the points that you think are going to be the most powerful for your patient until you can figure out the better or the best diagnosis for that patient, and you get more information. Does that make sense? Love Stomach 40. My favorite point.

When we talk about mental health, Heart 7 has to be part of the whole lecture because it is called Shen Men the Gate of the Mind.

So it makes sense, right? We have two Shen men in the body. We have Heart 7 at the wrist, and we have the ear Shen Men in the triangular fossa. Those are the two Shen men, which are the Gate of the Mind.

Often, I like to combine Heart 7 with ear Shen Men to Calm the Mind because they have the same name, right? So Heart 7 is one of the best points for any kind of mental health issues, including anxiety, but specifically insomnia. It is the best point for insomnia, for, doesn’t matter what kind of insomnia, if it’s hard to fall asleep, if it’s hard to stay asleep, if it’s difficulty in tossing and turning or not sleeping at all.

We have to put Heart seven specifically when it comes to insomnia with An Mian, which we’re gonna talk about in a little bit. So An Mian and Heart 7 are great to combine when we look at insomnia. Heart 7 is great to combine with anything else when there is poor memory, anxiety, any other disorder that is going to affect the mental health specifically when it affects the sleep issue.

That is my favourite point to add to the protocol for sleep.

Kidney 1

Moving right along to the lowest point on the body Kidney 1 underneath the sole of the foot. And because it is the only point in the body that actually touches the ground when we’re standing up, it is very grounding. This is the most grounding point.

I’ve used it for patients that feel very scattered brain, feeling like their brain is all over the place. There’s so many thoughts, too many chattering in the brain and they just can’t calm their mind. And we wanna bring it down. Ground the person because they feel scattered, they’re not grounded.

Patient Story

And some patients will actually say that, I don’t feel grounded. This is the best point. We can moxa, if we can’t needle because the patient is like, “I don’t know if you want to needle me there on the sole of the foot.” I have a patient who loves that point. The first time I needled him, I said, “Are you going to be okay with me needling underneath the foot?” And he goes, “Why not?” And I said, “Well, there’s a lot of nerve endings and it’s quite a sensitive area.”

I needled one foot and he literally swore. He screamed and swore. I said, “Are you okay?” and he said, “Yeah, it just took me by surprise. Can you do the other one?” So I did the other one. And now, he requests KD 1. He calls it “KD 1 and it is the best point for me and I don’t feel scattered.” So, he absolutely loves it and he feels really grounded when he gets up after the treatment.

How to combine KD 1 with other points

You can combine it with DU 20. When people cannot fall asleep, but they’re exhausted. They’re really tired. They’re like, I’m so tired. Then I go to bed and I can’t sleep. This is so frustrating cuz it’s a bad cycle, right?

You need to sleep. And so the best combo for this is Kidney 1 to ground the mind, bring the energy down. However, at the same time, DU 20 to lift that energy cuz we need to lift the physical energy.

With Spleen 5 and DU 20, see how we can combine them and then we ground the person by calming the mind with Heart 7 for insomnia and Kidney 1 to bring the chatter down to the foot. That’s a great combo to help people that cannot fall asleep even though they’re very tired. Say Kidney 1 is fantastic for massaging before bed. We can acupressure it before bed and show patients how to do this so they can be relaxed and fall asleep better.

So often I will send you people specifically cuz I live in Canada and it’s called Take a warm Foot Bath so your feet are relaxed before you go to bed. And then massage the Kidney 1 for a couple of minutes and then go to sleep. And that works really well for them.

Kidney 4

I think is kind of like Spleen 5. It’s under-utilized in clinical practice for mental health. And I love this point because again, it’s located very close, it’s at the ankle. So very close to Spleen 5 in a way except obviously between the Achilles and the malleolus. So, but same kind of area and we have a lot of points on the ankle that are great for anything that’s relating to mental health.

Kidney 4 is one of the best points for phobias. So when I have people that are germaphobe or have obsessive compulsive disorders, Kidney 4 is really good for that because first of all, they worry a lot. They have a lot of fear and phobias, right?

How to combine Kidney 4 with other points

So Spleen 5 would be great because it’s great for worrying. Spleen 6 would be great because it’s for any kind of mental health affecting the kidney, liver, and spleen, which people with phobia are very frustrated with. Everything that they have to deal with. Let’s say it’s germ and they also have fear behind it and they worry about it.

We can combine Spleen 6 and Spleen 5 and Kidney 4. Great for any kind of phobia. I love that point for that perspective. I use Kidney 6 in clinical practice a lot for the reproductive system and balancing hormones. However, it is a really good point when it comes to mental health, specifically for insomnia created from nightmares.

So when patients have recurring nightmares, not just once in a while, but recurring nightmares can come from trauma, past trauma. That creates nightmares. And of course they wake up and they can’t fall back asleep and now they have insomnia associated with that. Also, it’s really a good point to add when there is anxiety due to past trauma, childhood trauma specifically, that creates fear and anxiety as an adult. So this is a very good point.

Course Break

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Pericardium 6

PC 6 is such a great point to show patient how to acupressure at home when they need it because it’s on the wrist. So such an easy point to use. And of course we use it a lot for anxiety. It’s one of the best point for anxiety. Specifically when it affects the digestive systems like heartburn and acid reflex and creates stomach knots, that is coming from the anxiety.

It’s also a great point for irritability and manic behavior as well, but I use it mostly and I think all of us use it mostly to calm the anxiety. Specifically combined with REN 17, because REN 17 is more local in the area. Where people when they are anxious, feel like they can’t take a big deep breath and they feel like they have palpitations and their heart is feeling squeezed up, right?

So it’s a local point in the center of the chest. REN 17 and PC 6 with Stomach 40. Perfect combination for anxiety. That’s my go-to for anxiety. Treating the pattern still and the patient as a whole, but PC 6, Stomach 40 REN 17. It works like a charm.

Have you ever used Gallbladder 24 for mental health specifically?

I don’t think a lot of people do. Gallbladder 24, which is on the rib area, is used mostly for physical issues, but not necessarily for mental issue. And one of the best thing to look at when it comes to this point is lack of direction, lack of purpose. So when I have patients that feel like they just don’t know what to do, they can’t go and make a decision, they have no motivation, lack of purpose, lack of direction in life.

This is a really good point. Specifically combined with GB 34, because GB 34 is the best point for decision making.

GB 34 with GB 24 is a great combination to make decision and being able to find our purpose and our direction in life. This is really great when people feel really lost when it comes to anger, irritability, and annoyance, frustration, feeling like we’re gonna explode and the volcano is going to burst out of our head.

Liver 2 is the best point for that because it brings Liver Yang down, right?

The Liver is related to anger and frustration, irritability, and usually it starts with Liver Qi stagnation. Liver Qi stagnation comes from stress and then we’re tight, we’re tense, and then more stress is put upon us and a lot of people will start to explode.

And that’s Liver Yang rising, like a volcano effect, like I said. So Liver 2 brings the Liver Yang down. I’ve had parents asking me, “Can you help with my anger? I come home, I’m exhausted, I’m stressed. And then my kids come and then I get all frustrated and I yell at them all the time. And I feel like the worst parent in the world because I’m yelling at my kids.”

This is a really a good point to calm the mind because people are so stressed that they explode and it’s not how they wanna behave. So Liver 2, bring the Liver young down. Ah, calm everybody’s mind.

Liver 3 is the best one to move Qi, right?

It relaxes us when we’re stressed and when we’re stressed, we feel frustrated, impatient, annoyed.

I had a patient one time that says to me, “Oh,” I said, “Are you stressed?” And she goes, “No, not at all. It’s just everybody around me is so stupid.” And I said, “Is everybody around you stupid?” She goes, “Yeah.” And I’m like, “Really?” She goes, “Okay, maybe I’m irritable and I’m stressed.” Right? So when we’re irritable, frustrated, annoyed easily, or we feel moody, a lot of moodiness, Liver 3 is a perfect point for that.

Now, if there’s a lot more anger, we would combine it with Liver 2. Liver 2, and Liver 3, because now it’s not just frustration and irritability, it becomes into anger or rage. Then we want to combine both. Also when there is Depression, there’s always Liver Qi stagnation as an underlying pattern, according to Chinese medicine. So we have to do Liver 3 to be able to move Qi with other points, because we still have to do a full diagnosis.

But adding Stomach 40 with Liver 3 is a good start when it comes to depression. Which is a big, big disorder that needs to be addressed a lot more.

TCM Treatments for Mental Disorders CEU Course

And if you didn’t know, I have an online course addressing Depression in depth, insomnia, anxiety, that has all TCM treatment in it. Of course REN 17 has to be here, REN 17 is the local point in the center of the chest, that is best when it comes to anxiety and when people have anxiety or panic attack, they can’t breathe.

It’s opening the Lung, relaxing the lungs, and it’s calming the mind and it’s calming the Heart. So when there’s palpitations, it reduces palpitations and calms the whole body. REN17 very, very useful when it comes to anxiety, specifically combined with Stomach 40 and Pericardium 6, for example.

That is a very good combo. I have a patient who I did this point on and cried for two days. She cried for two days nonstop when I did REN 17 on her. And after that, she felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She could breathe again. So, you know, sometimes the healing process, the healing journey is not quite straight up and everything is rosy and beautiful.

It takes a little bit of time and a little bit of scary time because crying nonstop sobbing for two days and two nights. It can be quite scary.

DU 20 is the highest point on the head, so it’s closer to the top of the heaven, the sky, and so it’s really a perfect point for mental health.

It is twofold (which not many points in the body do this). Tis acupuncture point specifically, if we needle it towards the nose, which means with the flow of the DU meridian, we are going to lift the energy, we are going to tonify the energy for people that feel like they’re completely exhausted, maybe mentally, right?

So if you combine DU 20 with Spleen 5, Spleen 5 is great when there is mental fatigue. And, DU 20 needled towards the nose, you’re lifting that mental fatigue. However, DU 20 can go also the opposite way, which is needling towards the back of the head, which means against the flow of the meridian. And that is to calm the mind where we can’t fall asleep when there is insomnia.

Now we want to combine DU 20 with Heart 7 because they’re in insomnia and the person cannot sleep and they have so many thoughts up in the head. Now remember, if you combine Kidney 1, the lowest point on the body and DU 20, the highest point of the body. This is perfect to help people that cannot fall asleep, but are exhausted.

Right, because the mind, the chatter is all in the brain, but they’re exhausted and they can’t fall asleep. Perfect combo.

Extra acupuncture Yin Tang

I think all of us have received that point. Love that point in between the eyebrows. It is the third eye chakra in Ayurvedic medicine.

I love Yin Tang. I have to tell you a story.

When I was back in school, we had exams and the second year when we learned to needle, we asked the teacher if we could do Yin Tang on each other during the exam to calm our mind. Because we were all, you know, worried and anxious about the exam. A lot of us were, myself included. So we did Yin Tang on each other before the exam and he said, “Make sure before you leave, you put the Yin Tang needle in the sharp container. You remove and put in the sharp container.” Which was right by the door.

Well, you know when your brain is full of exam, you finish your exam, you get out. I left and I went downstairs to the coffee shop to get a tea. As I’m ordering my tea and the person behind the counter said, “You have a needle on your forehead.” Oh my God. I started laughing and I replied, “Oh my gosh,” I said, “I’m in acupuncture school.”

I went back upstairs removed, put it in a sharp container. That was so funny. So I was very calm–apparently–but, I had forgotten. My memory went away. That’s the story for the day, but Yin Tang, we can use it all the time on all patients that need to calm their mind. When there’s a lot of thoughts up here. When there is worry, overthinking, when there is anxiety; when there is all this shadow in the brain.

It’s also the point for enlightenment. This is a really good point to be enlightened. If you are going to meditate, this is a very good point to focus on. Close your eyes and focus between your eyebrows. Perfect point. Yin Tang rocks.

Extra acupuncture point An Mian

An Mian is such an easy point to show patient to massage and acupressure before they go to bed because it is absolutely fantastic for insomnia.

Gallbladder 12 is here as well, and it’s great for insomnia. All that area behind the ear is really good to calm the mind. We can do Kidney 1, Heart 7, and An Mian together for Insomnia. Perfect combo and it’s easy to acupressure and it’s easy to massage. So I like to show patients how to use it when they’re at home before they go to bed.

Buddha’s Triangle

I could not talk about acupuncture points for mental health without mentioning the Buddha’s Triangle. It is one of my favorite things to do in clinical practice is to use those three points. Which form a triangle on the wrist, Lung 9, Heart 7 and Pericardium 6. It’s the perfect triangle to calm the mind when there is anxiety, but also for depression.

And one of the thing that I like to use it for is repressed emotions. A lot of patients have repressed emotions. You could see that they’re very flat in their answers. They don’t share a lot of information. They don’t share anything personal, specifically emotional at all. So you could see that as you work with the patients and eventually they might open up, but it’s really good for people with repressed emotions.

And I think most people in the world, everyone in the world has some kind of repressed emotion or past trauma that they’re keeping inside. Maybe they’re not even aware they’re repressing the trauma. This is a really good. Really good combo, those three points, the Buddha’s triangle, fantastic. Absolutely rocks when it comes to mental health,

There are so many more acupuncture points we can use when it comes to mental health, but what’s key is to make a TCM diagnosis and follow it, plus add the points that we were talking about. And if you haven’t seen my video on the GHOST points, which are all about mental health, check it out!