Hey, I'm Ben Bowlin
with today's question.
What makes your arms,
legs, and feet fall sleep?
You get up out of your seat.
All you feel from one foot
is this weird, uncomfortable
tingling.
Or you wake up in the
middle of the night
and you can't move
your arm at all.
It's just kind of flopping
around behind you.
As your body parts wake up,
this strange tingling sensation
intensifies.
So what's going on here?
Usually, you'll
feel this sensation
after you've been putting
pressure on part of your body.
So sitting on a foot,
sleeping on an arm,
or something like that.
The pressure squeezes
the nerve pathways
so that the nerves
can't transmit
electrochemical
impulses properly.
The nerve impulses carry
sensation information
from nerve endings in
your body to your brain.
And they also carry
instructions from your brain
to parts of your body.
This pressure can
also squeeze arteries,
and it stops them from carrying
nutrients to body cells.
And that's important because
without these nutrients,
nerve cells may
behave abnormally.
And that can further
interfere with communicating
bodily sensations.
Due to both of these
factors, the information
transmitted from the body
part becomes kind of jumbled.
This causes you to feel that
weird tingling sensation.
So once you do move your
foot, or stretch your legs,
or roll off that arm,
the nerve impulses
begin to flow properly again.
You don't regain feeling
right away, however.
There's a certain amount
of readjustment time
before the nerves transmit
these impulses correctly again.
So this increases the intensity
of the tingling causing
those familiar pins
and needles sensations.
The tingling might be followed
by a more uncomfortable sort
of burning sensation before
your body part finally
returns to normal.
So this happens because
the nerves in your body
are made up of separate,
long nerve cells
and they carry different
sorts of impulses.
These nerve fibers also
have different surrounding
structures.
Some fibers have thicker
insulation around them,
so they take longer to begin
transmitting impulses properly
after they've been squeezed.
The fibers that transmit pain
and temperature information
are relatively thin,
though, so that's
why you feel the tingling
sensation pretty quickly.
Motor control fibers are thinner
than the ones carrying touch
information, and that's
why you can move the body
part before you've regained
complete feeling in it.
So eventually, all
your nerve fibers
are going to return to normal.
And then you'll regain full
use of your sleeping body part.
Thanks so much for watching.
We hope you enjoyed
this episode.
If you are feeling
charitable, why not
like, comment, or subscribe?
We'd love to hear some
stories about what
has happened to
your nerve endings.
But, you know, keep
it PG-13, all right?
That's it.
We'll see you next time.
