Wuyi

What is ST15?

ST15, or Wuyi, is a Stomach channel point on the upper chest, in the second gap between the ribs, about a hand's width out from the breastbone.

The name Wuyi is usually translated as "roof" or "room screen", a nod to its position high on the chest wall, above the points that classical texts linked to the breast. It is one of six Stomach channel points that run down the front of the chest in a straight vertical line, and every acupuncture curriculum teaches it as part of that chain.

In traditional use ST15 was associated with the chest and the lungs: coughing, wheezing, a tight or full feeling in the chest, and soreness in the chest wall or breast. Those are descriptions of what practitioners believed, recorded over centuries of classical writing.

Two things are worth saying plainly, once, before the rest of this page. First, long traditional use is not evidence that a point works; it tells you what people believed, not what happens in a tested comparison. Second, long traditional use is not evidence that a point is safe either. ST15 sits over the ribs, the lung and, for many readers, breast tissue, so the cautions further down matter more here than they would for a point on the hand.

The honest verdict on the evidence: there is essentially no human research on ST15 for anything. It has not been isolated and tested in controlled trials, and the broader acupressure literature it sits inside is mostly small, short and unblinded. A few points do better than that — PC6 for nausea has repeated controlled human trials behind it — but ST15 is not one of them.

What ST15 can reasonably be: a comfortable spot on your own chest to rest a fingertip, breathe slowly and ease tight chest-wall muscles. That is a modest claim, and it is the one the evidence supports. Anything framed as a treatment for asthma, infection or a breast problem belongs with a doctor, not with your fingertips.

Where is ST15 and how do you find it?

ST15 sits in the second soft gap between the ribs, high on the chest, four thumb-widths out from the centre line of the breastbone.

• Start at your collarbone. Run a fingertip along the bony ridge of the collarbone until you reach its midpoint, roughly halfway between the notch at the base of your throat and the point of your shoulder.
• Drop straight down. Slide your finger down from that midpoint onto the chest wall. You will cross a firm bar of bone (the second rib), then a softer dip, then another bar.
• Find the second gap. The first soft gap below the collarbone is the first intercostal space; the one below it, between the second and third ribs, is the second. ST15 is in that second gap.
• Check the sideways distance. Classical sources place it 4 cun from the front midline. On the chest, 4 cun is also the midline-to-nipple distance, so for most men the point is directly above the nipple; four thumb-widths, or roughly 8 cm, is the practical equivalent.
• Use the collarbone, not the nipple, if that is easier. Breast tissue moves, so the nipple is an unreliable marker for many women. The midpoint of the collarbone is fixed and gives you the same vertical line.
• Confirm by feel. You should be in a shallow hollow between two ribs, not on top of a rib. Pressing there often feels slightly tender or dull compared with the bone either side.

Keep your fingertip in the soft gap and keep the pressure gentle and perpendicular to the chest wall. ST15 is above the breast, not on it; if you have travelled down past a third or fourth rib gap, you have gone too low and are at a different point.

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

How do you apply pressure to ST15?

1. Sit upright and relaxed. Sit or stand with your shoulders dropped. A slumped posture tightens the chest wall and makes the rib gaps harder to feel.
2. Place a flat fingertip. Use the pad of your index or middle finger, laid flat in the rib gap. Do not dig in with a nail or a knuckle, and do not use a massage tool on the chest wall.
3. Press lightly at first. Build to gentle or moderate pressure — enough for a dull, slightly tender sensation, no more. The chest is thinly padded, so far less force is needed here than on a shoulder or a calf.
4. Hold and breathe. Keep steady contact for 30 to 60 seconds while breathing slowly through the nose. Small, slow circles are fine if steady holding feels awkward.
5. Do both sides. Repeat on the matching gap on the other side of the chest so you are not left feeling lopsided.
6. Keep sessions short. One to three minutes per side, up to two or three times a day, is plenty. More pressure or more repetitions does not add benefit and does bruise.
7. Stop at these signals. Stop straight away for sharp pain, a cough that worsens, breathlessness, dizziness, or pain that spreads to the arm, neck or jaw.

Avoid pressing right after a large meal, and avoid pressing hard over a rib itself — it is uncomfortable and achieves nothing. If you are using ST15 to settle after a stressful moment, the slow breathing is doing at least as much work as the finger.

If a session leaves the area sore the next day, you pressed too hard. Wait until the tenderness clears and halve the pressure next time. Persistent chest-wall soreness that does not settle within a week or two deserves a medical opinion rather than more pressure.

What is ST15 traditionally used for?

• Cough and wheezing. Classical texts list ST15 for coughing and laboured breathing, because the Stomach channel crosses the upper chest. There are no controlled human trials of ST15 for respiratory symptoms, so this remains a traditional claim only. Asthma and a persistent cough need proper medical treatment.
• Chest fullness and tightness. Tradition describes ST15 for a blocked, full or distended feeling in the chest. Gentle pressure plus slow breathing can genuinely relax tight chest-wall muscles, but that is ordinary muscle relaxation, not a tested effect of this specific point.
• Chest wall and rib soreness. The point sits in an intercostal space, so finger pressure lands on the muscle between the ribs. People with postural or strain-related soreness there often find light pressure comfortable. Evidence specific to ST15 is absent.
• Breast pain and mastitis. Several classical sources link the chest Stomach points, including ST15, to breast disorders such as swelling and abscess. This is one to treat with real caution: mastitis is usually an infection, and a hot, red, painful breast with fever needs same-week medical care, not pressure.
• Shortness of breath and anxiety. Some modern practitioners use ST15 as a calming chest point. Slow breathing with a hand on the chest is a well-known way to settle arousal, but no study has shown that ST15 adds anything beyond the breathing itself.
• Hiccups and poor appetite. Because it is a Stomach channel point, ST15 occasionally appears in traditional lists for rebellious stomach qi — hiccups, belching, low appetite. This is channel reasoning rather than tested effect, and there is no human research on it.

Taken together: ST15 has a clear traditional role on the chest and essentially no point-specific human evidence. Use it as a comfort measure, and get symptoms that involve breathing, fever or the breast properly assessed.

Are there tips for using ST15 effectively?

• Map the rib gap first. Spend ten seconds counting down from the collarbone before you press. Finding the hollow once, carefully, beats pressing vaguely around the area for five minutes.
• Let the breath lead. Press on a slow exhale and ease off on the inhale. The chest wall is softer during exhalation, so the contact feels better and you need less force.
• Use a flat pad, not a point. A broad fingertip spreads the load across the rib gap. A nail or a knuckle concentrates it and is what causes the next-day bruise.
• Pair it with posture. Rolled-forward shoulders keep the front of the chest short and tight. A doorway chest stretch before or after pressing usually does more for that tightness than the point alone.
• Keep a simple record. Note the symptom, the date and how it felt an hour later. Chest tightness and coughs come and go on their own, so a short log is the only way to tell whether anything is actually changing.
• Warm hands help. Cold fingertips on the bare chest make the muscles brace. Rub your hands together first, or press through a thin layer of clothing.
• Give it a fair but short trial. A week or two of brief daily sessions is enough to see whether it is pleasant and useful to you. If nothing has shifted, stop rather than escalating the pressure.
• Never use it as a delay. If a symptom is new, worsening or frightening, book the appointment first and treat ST15 as something you do while you wait.

One last practical note: work on bare skin or thin clothing so you can actually feel the ribs. Pressing through a thick jumper means you cannot tell whether you are in the gap or on the bone, and the whole exercise becomes guesswork.

What do people get wrong with ST15?

• Expecting a cure. ST15 does not treat asthma, pneumonia, a breast infection or heart disease. Finger pressure on the chest is a comfort measure, and framing it as a treatment is the single most common error.
• Landing on the rib. The point is in the hollow between the second and third ribs, not on the bony bar. Pressing on bone is uncomfortable, tender afterwards and misses the spot entirely.
• Counting the wrong gap. People often start below the collarbone and call the first hollow the second space. Count deliberately: first gap, then rib, then second gap — that second one is ST15.
• Confusing it with the breast points. ST16, ST17 and ST18 sit lower, around and below the breast. If your finger is on or beside breast tissue, you have drifted down the channel and are no longer at ST15.
• Pressing far too hard. The chest wall has little padding. Deep, grinding pressure here causes bruising and rib-gap soreness without adding any benefit at all.
• Using tools on the chest. Pointed massage sticks, pressure pens and hard balls are badly suited to a thin, bony area over the lung. Fingers only.
• Ignoring chest pain as a warning. Treating tightness, pressure or arm and jaw pain as something to "press out" wastes time that may matter enormously. Those symptoms are for emergency care, not acupressure.
• Pressing over something that should be left alone. Broken skin, a shingles rash, a surgical scar, an implanted device bump or a newly found lump are all reasons to keep your fingers off and ask a clinician.
• Judging it by soreness. A tender spot is not proof you found the point or that it is working. Chest-wall muscles are often tender for ordinary postural reasons.

What does the research on ST15 actually say?

There is no useful human research on ST15 specifically. No controlled trial has isolated this point and tested it against a sham or an inactive control for cough, chest tightness, breast pain or anything else. That is not a case of mixed or disappointing results; it is a genuine absence of data.

Where ST15 appears in the modern literature at all, it is as one name inside a longer prescription of points chosen by a practitioner, usually in acupuncture rather than acupressure studies. Multi-point protocols cannot tell you what any single point contributed. If a session used eight points and the group improved, ST15's share of that result is unknowable.

It is also worth knowing what the surrounding evidence base looks like. Acupressure research as a field is dominated by small studies, often with fewer than a hundred participants, short follow-up, and no credible blinding — a person always knows whether a finger is pressing on them. Those designs reliably produce positive-looking results for subjective outcomes like comfort, tension and perceived breathlessness, which is exactly why they cannot settle whether the point itself does anything.

For contrast, a few points have been studied properly. PC6 at the wrist has repeated controlled human trials behind it for nausea and vomiting, including in pregnancy and after surgery, and the finding holds up well enough to be worth acting on. That is what decent point-specific evidence looks like. ST15 has nothing remotely comparable.

What this means in practice is simple. Any benefit you notice from pressing ST15 may come from the slow breathing, the pause, the warmth of your hand, the natural fluctuation of the symptom, or expectation. None of those are worthless, and none of them are evidence that the point has a specific effect. Treat ST15 as a low-cost comfort habit, keep your expectations modest, and do not let it substitute for assessment of a chest, breathing or breast symptom.