Medical astrology offers a rich lens through which to understand health. Not just as a series of physical events, but as an intricate dance between body, psyche, spirit, and the celestial patterns that shape our lives.
While planets and signs often receive the spotlight, the astrological houses tell us where energies express themselves both internally and externally. In the context of medical astrology, the twelve houses can be read as a map of the body’s systems, health themes, and healing potential.
Below is a guide to how each house corresponds to particular areas of health and wellbeing. You’ll find not only anatomical associations, but also energetic, emotional, and spiritual insights.
The 12 Houses in Medical Astrology
1st House – Constitution & Vitality
Your physical appearance, energy levels, immune strength, and the body's natural resilience. It shows your general health and how you meet life physically.
The 1st House rules your physical body as a whole - your appearance, vitality, immune strength, and general resilience. It speaks to how you move through the world and meet life with energy (or depletion). In health readings, it’s the first stop for understanding constitutional strengths and weaknesses.
2nd House – Throat, Voice & Nourishment
Relates to speech, self-worth, eating habits, and how you physically receive and hold onto nourishment—both food and emotional.
Linked to the throat, vocal cords, and neck, the 2nd House also reflects nourishment, including how we receive and hold onto sustenance, both literal and emotional. Issues with speech, self-worth, or eating habits may have roots here. This house can highlight the connection between value and vitality.
3rd House – Lungs, Hands & Nervous System
Breathing, coordination, and how the nervous system handles stimuli. Often linked to anxiety, mobility, and communication-related strain.
The 3rd House governs the lungs, shoulders, arms, hands, and nervous system. It reflects how we process and communicate information, as well as how we breathe, both literally and metaphorically. Anxiety, overstimulation, and stress-related conditions often show up here.
4th House – Emotional Roots & Gut Health
Links to emotional security, inherited conditions, gut-brain connection, and how stress at home impacts the body.
Home to our emotional foundation and gut-brain connection, the 4th House is deeply tied to security, family patterns, and inherited conditions. It can reveal how early life stress or emotional instability affects digestion, immunity, and overall well-being.
5th House – Heart & Vital Joy
The emotional and physical heart, reproductive health, creativity, and how joy or lack of it influences health.
This house rules the heart, both physically and emotionally. It reflects joy, creativity, fertility, and the capacity to feel alive. The 5th House is associated with the reproductive system and the emotional vitality that sustains good health.
6th House – Digestion, Routines & Functional Health
Daily habits, stress responses, chronic illness, inflammation, and all maintenance systems of the body.
Perhaps the most “medical” house of all, the 6th rules daily habits, digestion, inflammation, immunity, and chronic health conditions. It shows how we care for ourselves (or don’t), and how stress manifests through the body’s maintenance systems. Functional disorders, allergies, and stress-related conditions live here.
7th House – Hormonal & Relational Health
How relationships impact health, hormonal balance, kidneys, and shared energetic dynamics like co-dependency or caretaking.
The 7th House governs relationships but also kidneys, adrenal glands, and hormonal balance. It reflects how we hold emotional balance through partnerships. Co-dependency, energetic enmeshment, or chronic caretaking may contribute to imbalance here.
8th House – Elimination, Crisis & Regeneration
Sexual health, reproductive organs, psychological transformation, surgery, deep healing crises, and detoxification.
This house governs the reproductive organs, colon, bladder, and eliminative systems. It’s also associated with deep psychological transformation, trauma recovery, surgery, and detoxification. The 8th House points to health crises that lead to profound healing or awakening.
9th House – Liver, Hips & Belief Systems
Health affected by belief, travel, liver function, sciatic issues, and how philosophy or dogma shapes health behaviour.
The 9th House relates to the hips, thighs, liver, and sciatic nerve. It governs how belief systems, cultural frameworks, and the pursuit of truth influence health. Issues here may arise from dogma, overextension, or moral rigidity which sometimes resulting in liver imbalances or sciatica.
10th House – Bones, Skin & Public Stress
The body’s structure (bones, teeth, knees), career-related health impact, and chronic tension from outer responsibilities.
The 10th House rules the skeletal system (bones, knees, teeth) as well as the skin, which forms our boundary with the world. This house reflects how external pressures and responsibilities (especially career) affect the body. Chronic stress may show up as burnout, joint pain, or skin conditions.
11th House – Circulation & Community Impact
Circulatory system, nervous energy from social environments, and stress or health benefits from community belonging.
The 11th House governs circulation and the flow of energy both in the body and in social systems. It reflects how community, networks, and social belonging affect our health. Nervous energy, blood flow issues, and emotional isolation often express here.
12th House – Immune System, Subconscious & Isolation
Hidden illnesses, hospitals, sleep, addiction, psychosomatic conditions, and spiritual roots of disease.
Often called the house of hidden things, the 12th governs the immune system, sleep, hospitals, and the subconscious. It relates to psychosomatic illness, addiction, emotional exhaustion, and the spiritual roots of disease. Healing here often requires solitude, surrender, and deeper soul work.
The twelve houses are not simply astrological placements, they are gateways to understanding the body's deeper story. Whether you're a student of astrology, a healer, or simply curious about your health from a more holistic lens, studying the houses provides profound insight into where your challenges and your healing may lie.
