What causes the numbness in your parts of your body when sitting down for long p!
Question: Sometimes, when I sit down for periods or time my leg gets numb or "Sleeps", What causes this, and Why does it happen? And why do we get a tingly feeling afterwards?
Answers: Sometimes, when I sit down for periods or time my leg gets numb or "Sleeps", What causes this, and Why does it happen? And why do we get a tingly feeling afterwards?
It's actually not just a lack of blood. When you apply pressure for a prolonged period of time, you actually cut off communication from your brain to parts of your body. The pressure squeezes nerve pathways so that the nerves can't transmit electrochemical impulses properly. Nerve impulses carry sensation information from nerve endings in the body to the brain, as well as instructions from the brain to the parts of the body. When you interfere with this transfer by squeezing the nerve pathways, you don't have full feeling in that body part, and your brain has trouble telling the body part what to do.
This pressure can also squeeze arteries, stopping them from carrying nutrients to body cells. Without these nutrients, the nerve cells may behave abnormally, which can further interfere with communicating bodily sensations.
Due to both these factors, the information transmitted from the body part becomes somewhat jumbled, and the brain receives strange messages. Some nerve cells don't transmit any information and others start sending impulses erratically. This causes you to feel a strange tingling sensation, which actually serves an important function. Your foot falling asleep for 10 minutes doesn't pose any health threat, but if you were to cut off circulation for an extended period of time -- several hours -- you could suffer serious nerve damage. The initial tingling sensation tells you that you might want to readjust your position.
Once you do move your foot, stretch your legs, or roll over off your arm, the nerve impulses begin to flow properly again. You don't regain feeling right away, however. There is a certain amount of re-adjustment time before the nerves transmit impulses correctly again. This increases the intensity of the tingling, causing the familiar "pins and needles" sensation.
Reduced blood flow to the limb...
Cut off circulation right? Tingly cuz blood is flowing again?
I'm just guessing, I don't really know.
reduced blood flow to whereever your sitting to long.
The popular theory is reduced blood flow, but I learned recently that it's actually from a nerve being pinched from the way you're sitting. It talks about it on Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleeping_li...