HT-07 (Shen Men) Spirit Gate

What does HT-07 Shen Men do?

HT-07 Shen Men is the Source (Yuan) point of the Heart channel of Hand Shao Yin and simultaneously its Shu-Stream and Earth point — and it is the tradition's principal point for calming the spirit. On the yin channels the Source point and the Shu-Stream point coincide, so HT-07 carries both roles at once: direct access to the original qi of the Heart, and the five-shu position where the channel qi is said to pour. Since the Heart is held to house the shen (spirit, mind), that access is the whole basis of the point's reputation.

• Calms the spirit — its defining action, used across anxiety, agitation, insomnia and disordered mental states.
• Regulates and tonifies the Heart — the Source point's role, applied to palpitations, chest oppression and Heart qi or blood depletion.
• Clears Heart fire and cools Heart heat — the Earth point on a Fire channel is its own drainage (child) point in five-element terms, which is the technical basis for using it to reduce excess.
• Opens the orifices of the Heart — the classical framing for its use in confusion, poor memory and clouded consciousness.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (channel, Yuan point and five-shu classifications); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture, p. 219; Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion, p. 166.

What is HT-07 Shen Men used for?

HT-07 is used chiefly for disturbances of the spirit and for Heart-related complaints. The indications recorded in our sources cluster into emotional and mental symptoms, cardiac and chest symptoms, and a small group of heat-pattern signs — with local wrist use as a secondary role.

• Insomnia and difficulty settling to sleep
• Irritability and restlessness
• Palpitations
• Cardiac pain and chest oppression
• Anxiety-type presentations recorded in the older sources as "hysteria"
• Poor memory and amnesia
• Mania and manic-depressive presentations (dian kuang)
• Epilepsy
• Dementia and mental confusion
• Pain in the hypochondriac region
• Feverish sensation in the palms
• Yellowish sclera

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references; Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion, p. 166; Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture, p. 219; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

How is HT-07 Shen Men used in practice?

HT-07 sits at the wrist on the little-finger side, in the hollow at the outer edge of the flexor carpi ulnaris tendon, at the near edge of the small pisiform bone — level with the wrist crease. It is easy to find, comfortable to needle, and appears in the majority of treatments aimed at sleep, anxiety or emotional distress.

• With SP-06 San Yin Jiao — the most-used pairing of all for insomnia, joining the Heart's Source point to the meeting point of the three leg yin channels.
• With P-06 Nei Guan — Heart and Pericardium together for palpitations, chest oppression and anxiety.
• With DU-20 Bai Hui and DU-24 Shen Ting — the standard spirit-calming combination adding points on the head.
• With An Mian, the extra point behind the ear used specifically for sleep — a common modern addition to an HT-07 based treatment.
• With BL-15 Xin Shu — the back transport point of the Heart with its Source point at the wrist, the classic front-and-back combination for Heart patterns.
• With KI-06 Zhao Hai — used where insomnia is attributed to Heart and Kidney failing to communicate.

Within its own channel, HT-07 is the point of first resort; HT-05 Tong Li, the Luo (Connecting) point, is preferred where speech is affected, and HT-06 Yin Xi, the Xi (Cleft) point, where the presentation is acute — night sweating or sudden cardiac pain. Practitioners often distinguish HT-07 from P-07 Da Ling, the Pericardium's Source point a short distance across the same wrist crease: both calm the spirit, but the Pericardium point is generally described as the more strongly heat-clearing of the two.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location and point categories); Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture, p. 219; Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion, p. 166; cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is HT-07 located?

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 219): At the wrist joint, on the radial side of flexor carpi ulnaris, in the depression at the proximal border of the pisiform bone.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 166): At the ulnar end of the transverse crease of the wrist, in the depression on the radial side of the tendon of m. flexor carpi ulnaris.

How is HT-07 Shen Men needled in the textbooks?

Reference record only — this describes what the standard texts document, not instruction for a reader. Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion records perpendicular insertion of 0.3–0.5 cun at HT-07, and notes that moxibustion is applicable. Deadman & Al-Khafaji record a similarly shallow perpendicular depth and additionally describe oblique insertion directed proximally along the channel for some applications.

• Angle documented: perpendicular; oblique proximally along the channel also described.
• Depth documented: approximately 0.3–0.5 cun — one of the shallower ranges in the standard texts, because the point lies over the wrist joint with little soft tissue.
• Moxibustion: documented as applicable.

Safety reference. HT-07 carries no cavity or organ hazard. Its documented cautions are local and anatomical: the ulnar nerve and ulnar artery pass through the wrist immediately to the ulnar side of the point, in and around Guyon's canal, which is why the texts specify the shallow depth range and place the point on the radial side of the flexor carpi ulnaris tendon rather than beside or beneath it. Needling too deeply or too far to the ulnar side is documented as capable of producing a sharp radiating sensation into the little and ring fingers. Standard clean-needle practice applies. Acupuncture is performed by qualified practitioners; this record documents the literature and is not a technique guide.

Source: Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion, p. 166; Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture, p. 219; Sacred Lotus sources & references.

Is Shen Men an ear point or a wrist point?

Both names exist and they are two entirely different points — this is the most common confusion in acupuncture point naming, and most English-language searches for "Shen Men" are actually about the ear point rather than this one. HT-07 Shen Men, the record you are reading, is a body point on the little-finger side of the wrist: the Source and Shu-Stream point of the Heart channel, described in the classical literature. Auricular Shen Men is a point on the outer ear, in the fork of the antihelix crura, belonging to the auricular microsystem developed in the mid-twentieth century — a separate mapping in which the whole body is represented on the ear. They share a name and a broadly similar calming reputation; they share nothing else — not location, not channel theory, not classification, and not the same evidence base.

Our point reference covers the fourteen channels and the classical extra points. It does not include an auricular point map, so we hold no record for auricular Shen Men; the only ear-located point in our collection is the extra point Er Jian (Ear Apex) at the tip of the ear, which is a different point again. A separate naming overlap worth noting: REN-08 Shen Que, on the navel, is also rendered "Spirit Gate" in some translations, though its Chinese name and its function are distinct from HT-07's.

What does the name Shen Men mean?

Shen Men translates as "Spirit Gate" — shen being the spirit or mind that the Heart is said to house, and men a gate or door. The name states the point's function directly: it is the doorway through which the spirit is reached and settled. Gate names in Chinese medicine generally mark a point where something is understood to enter or leave, and here what passes is the shen itself.

Why does the Source (Yuan) and Shu-Stream classification matter?

Source points are where the original (yuan) qi of an organ is said to gather and surface, and the Ling Shu directs that when an organ is diseased its Source point should be selected. On the yin channels the Source point and the Shu-Stream point are the same point, so HT-07 is the Heart's Source point and its Shu-Stream point together — which is why one point serves both to supplement a depleted Heart and, as the Earth (child) point on a Fire channel, to drain Heart fire. That dual capacity is uncommon and is the technical reason HT-07 is the Heart channel's default point rather than one choice among several.

Is there research on HT-07?

The clinical research relevant to HT-07 is about acupuncture protocols for insomnia in which HT-07 is one point among several, not about the point in isolation, and the quality is modest. A systematic review and meta-analysis of acupuncture for insomnia included 24 randomised trials and pooled 15 comparing acupuncture with pharmacotherapy; it reported improvement in Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index scores, with the effect emerging only after roughly three weeks of treatment, alongside very high statistical heterogeneity (PMID 34049475). HT-07 appears in most such protocols but is rarely tested alone.

One study is unusually informative precisely because it did isolate the point. A randomised trial in 90 patients with insomnia compared electroacupuncture at HT-07 alone, SP-06 alone, and the two combined; all three improved sleep scores, but the combination outperformed HT-07 alone, and SP-06 alone also outperformed HT-07 alone on several measures — the authors concluded that SP-06 played the larger role in the pairing (PMID 35880281). That result is worth stating plainly: the best point-specific human evidence available does not support HT-07 being the most active component of its own most famous combination. Remaining work is largely animal-model mechanism research on HT-07 with SP-06 or DU-20 in chemically induced insomnia (for example PMID 30945498 and PMID 36636219), which does not transfer directly to clinical practice. Research on auricular Shen Men — for instance its inclusion in an auricular protocol tested for depression (PMID 38032640) — concerns the ear point and says nothing about HT-07.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references; Deadman & Al-Khafaji, A Manual of Acupuncture, p. 219; Chinese Acupuncture & Moxibustion, p. 166; Ling Shu (Spiritual Pivot); PubMed PMID 34049475, 35880281, 30945498, 36636219, 38032640 (each checked for retraction status before citation).