This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
Pressure Centers gathers two of the nine centers in the bodygraph of Human Design, a modern system founded by Ra Uru Hu, the teaching name of Alan Robert Krakower, after a self-described 1987 experience: the Head, at the very top of the chart, and the Root, at its very bottom.
The Head is the source of mental pressure, showing up as inspiration, questions and the urge to think, which it pushes down into the Ajna center below it for processing; only a minority of people are said to have it consistently defined. It occupies roughly the position of the crown chakra of the older seven chakra system, but Human Design reframes that position as a source of restless mental pressure rather than a seat of spiritual attainment.
The Root generates the adrenal pressure the teaching associates with stress, urgency and the drive to get things done, pushing that pressure upward into the Sacral, Solar Plexus or Spleen depending on how a given chart connects. It occupies roughly the position of the root, or muladhara, chakra, and both are linked to survival and grounding, though Human Design casts this one specifically as a source of pressure rather than of stability.
Together the two pressure centers drive the bodygraph from opposite ends: the Head's pressure is mental, urging thought, while the Root's is physical, urging action, and the teaching holds that no other center in the chart generates pressure of either kind, only the Head and the Root, every other center receiving pressure from one of these two or from neither.