Why do limbs fall asleep?

Pressure on nerves can cause the nerves to stop sending impulses to the brain, causing limbs to fall asleep. Learn more about limbs falling asleep in this HowStuffWorks podcast.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuffworks dot com where
smart happens. Hi Marshall Brain. Have you ever gotten up
from your chair or woken up in the middle of
the night and discovered that one of your arms or

(00:20):
legs is falling completely asleep? What causes that? Most of
the time when something falls asleep, it happens because your
position squeezes some nerves. The pressure causes the nerves to
stop sending signals, so your brain can't control any of
the muscles, and you also can't feel a thing. Once
you remove the pressure, you don't regain feeling right away.

(00:43):
There's a certain amount of readjustment time before the nerves
can transmit impulses correctly. Again, some nerve cells don't transmit
any information, and others start sending impulses erratically. This causes
that strange tingling sensation. Motor control fivers are thinner than
the ones carrying touch information, so you can often move

(01:04):
the body part before you've regained complete feeling in it.
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