HT-06 (Yin Xi) Yin Cleft

What does HT-06 Yin Xi do?

HT-06 is the Xi-Cleft point of the Heart channel, and its name says so — Yin Cleft. Xi-Cleft points are where a channel’s qi gathers deeply and are the classical choice for acute and severe conditions; on yin channels they carry a second role as bleeding points. HT-06’s recorded actions show both, plus one that is distinctly its own.

• Regulates Heart blood — the blood-level action
• Calms the spirit — the Heart’s classical domain
• Moderates acute conditions — the Xi-Cleft function proper
• Clears deficiency fire and stops night sweating — the action HT-06 is specifically known for

Night sweating is the distinctive one. In classical theory sweating at night while asleep is attributed to yin deficiency allowing heat to escape — a different mechanism from daytime spontaneous sweating, which is attributed to qi deficiency failing to hold the surface. HT-06 is the classical point for the former. Our record for KI-07 Fu Liu covers the same territory from the Kidney channel, and the two are classically paired for exactly this pattern.

The yin-channel rule, verified against our own data. Six Xi-Cleft points sit on yin channels — LU-06, HT-06, P-04, SP-08, LIV-06 and KI-05 — and all six carry bleeding indications. Six sit on yang channels and do not. Four more — KI-08, KI-09, BL-59, GB-35 — serve extraordinary vessels rather than channels. HT-06’s coughing-blood and nosebleed indications follow from the rule before the text is read.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (channel, category and action records; all sixteen Xi-Cleft points queried from our own data; KI-07's night-sweating role queried likewise), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

What is HT-06 Yin Xi used for?

HT-06 is used for cardiac pain, night sweating, bleeding from the chest or nose, sudden loss of voice, and severe emotional disturbance. Our own indication record is reproduced here in full.

• Cardiac pain
• Night sweating
• Coughing blood (haemoptysis)
• Nosebleed (epistaxis)
• Sudden loss of voice
• Severe emotional disturbance (recorded in older sources as hysteria — a historical diagnostic term, not a current one)

A necessary framing note. Cardiac pain and coughing blood are medical emergencies. This record describes classical use; it is not a suggestion that either be managed with acupuncture, and nothing here should delay emergency care. The same framing is applied throughout this library wherever a classical indication names a red flag.

On the older terminology. Our source record uses “hysteria”, a term abandoned by modern medicine and now understood as a historically loaded label rather than a diagnosis. It is retained here because it is what the record says, but a reader should read it as “acute emotional disturbance” and nothing more.

How it is combined. With KI-07 Fu Liu for night sweating — the classical pair. With HT-07 Shen Men, the Yuan-Source point, half a cun distal, for the spirit. With P-04 Xi Men, the Pericardium’s Xi-Cleft point, which shares both the acute-cardiac and the bleeding roles on the neighbouring channel. All held here.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (indication record; KI-07, HT-07 and P-04 classifications queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources.

Where is HT-06 Yin Xi located?

HT-06 is on the little-finger side of the front of the wrist, half a cun above HT-07 Shen Men, on the thumb side of the flexor carpi ulnaris tendon. It is very close to its neighbour, which is the practical difficulty with it.

• 0.5 cun proximal to HT-07 Shen Men, on the radial side of the flexor carpi ulnaris tendon
• HT-07 is at the wrist crease, at the proximal border of the pisiform bone
• HT-05 Tong Li lies at 1 cun, and HT-04 Ling Dao at 1.5 cun, on the same line

Four Heart points within an inch and a half, each with a different classification. HT-07 is the Yuan-Source and Shu-Stream point; HT-06 the Xi-Cleft; HT-05 the Luo-Connecting; HT-04 the Jing-River and Metal point. They are separated by half-cun intervals along one tendon with no landmark between them. Substituting one for another substitutes an entire category, and this stretch of wrist demands more care in measurement than almost anywhere on the body. All four are held here.

On the name. “Yin Xi” means Yin Cleft. Xi is the same character used for the Xi-Cleft category itself, and yin marks the channel as a yin one — so the name encodes both the category and the fact that it is the yin-channel version, which is precisely the version that carries the bleeding indication. Like P-04 Xi Men (Cleft Gate) and LU-06 Kong Zui, this point’s name announces its classification.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (location and translation records, retained unchanged; HT-04, HT-05 and HT-07 classifications queried from our own data).

• A Manual of Acupuncture (p. 217): On the radial side of the tendon of flexor carpi ulnaris, 0.5 cun proximal to Shenmen HE-7.
• Chinese Acupuncture and Moxibustion (p. 165): When the palm faces upward, the point is on the radial side of the tendon of m. flexor carpi ulnaris, 0.5 cun above the transverse crease of the wrist.

How is HT-06 Yin Xi needled?

The standard texts record perpendicular insertion to roughly 0.3–0.5 inch, with moxibustion applicable. What follows is a neutral record of what the reference literature documents, not instruction for a reader.

• Angle and depth as recorded: perpendicular, 0.3–0.5 inch.
• Moxibustion: recorded as applicable.
• Regional anatomy: the point lies on the radial side of the flexor carpi ulnaris tendon. The ulnar nerve and ulnar artery run beneath and just ulnar to that tendon as they approach the wrist — entering Guyon’s canal at the level of the pisiform, which our HT-07 record documents.

Hazard, stated proportionately. The wrist has no body cavity beneath it and this is not a high-hazard point. The relevant structure is the ulnar neurovascular bundle, which lies close to this stretch of channel — and our HT-07 record names Guyon’s canal specifically at the pisiform, half a cun distal. That anatomy is HT-07’s and is attributed there rather than presented as describing HT-06.

A distinction this library has had to make twice. Our HT-03 record established that the ulnar nerve runs behind the medial epicondyle at the elbow, so HT-03 — in front of it — is not the ulnar-nerve point; SI-08 is. At the wrist the nerve is genuinely close to the Heart channel. Anatomy has to be checked per point, not assumed from the channel. No study measuring a safe depth at HT-06 could be located, and none is borrowed; no case report naming HT-06 was located.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (needling record, retained unchanged; HT-07's Guyon's canal anatomy and HT-03's ulnar-nerve correction queried from our own data), cross-referenced against multiple online sources; regional anatomy from standard anatomical description.

Is there research on HT-06, and what should a reader know?

No trial isolates HT-06. Where the point appears it is one component of a protocol, most often for sweating disorders or anxiety, and a study that includes a point in a protocol is not evidence about that point.

The calibration for this channel comes from HT-07. Our record for that point — the Heart channel’s most-used, and the one with most of its research attention — reports the honest result of the one trial that compared points directly: SP-06 outperformed HT-07 for insomnia. If the channel’s principal point has that as its best point-specific evidence, a neighbouring Xi-Cleft point should not be presented as having more.

What this page can state with confidence. The classification and what it predicts. HT-06 is the Heart’s Xi-Cleft point on a yin channel — which predicts acute conditions and bleeding indications, and our own record contains exactly those. Its night-sweating role is the one genuinely distinctive thing about it, and it rests on a coherent classical mechanism rather than on a trial.

A note on searching for it. “HT 6”, “HE 6” and “Yinxi” searches return protocol trials and unrelated material matched on the code or on a surname — and note that this library codes the Heart channel HT-, while some sources use HE-, which our own location record uses when referring to HT-07. Any claim attached to this point should be checked against what a study actually used.

Source: Sacred Lotus sources & references (classification and indication records; HT-07's research finding and channel-coding conventions queried from our own data).