Sleep Better with Acupressure Points

Acupressure is an ancient Chinese technique that uses finger pressure to stimulate the body’s natural healing abilities. It can clear the energy channels, release tension, and treat disease. And, it turns out, there are three places–one on your hand, one on your head, and one on your face–that you can gently massage whenever you’re having difficulty falling asleep that will help!

Find out where they are, and how to touch them, so you can start sleeping more soundly starting tonight:

Gently press on the specified point using your fingertips, steadily or with a small circular massage motion, for approximately one minute. After a break, you can repeat alternating pressure and breaks until you feel a sort of release. Beginners should not exceed 5 minutes on any one point.

How do you know whether you have the right spot? The pressure points “announce themselves with a feeling of tenderness, tingling, soreness, or minor discomfort,” explains Michael Castleman in Nature Cures.

1. The Hand: With your palm facing up, find the juncture where the wrist meets the hand with the thumb of your other hand; rub just below the first crease of the wrist.

2. The Face: Using the tips of your index and third fingers, apply pressure to the spot between your eyebrows, at the juncture of the bridge of your nose and your forehead.

3. The Back of Your Head: Gently massage the pressure points at the indentation at the base of the skull on the back of the head; move outward an inch on both sides of the skull at the hairline.