Does my arm take long term damage if it falls asleep every third night? - eviltoast

My right arm is completly numb and I panic out of my bed sometimes. The reason is that I fall asleep on my shoulder and sometimes it takes a minute til it functions again.

Last night I fell asleep again and woke up and it it took longer than usual to get it back to moving. I started crying and was totally panic mode.

Is this something that can cause long term issues if this happens frequently or should I change the way I sleep? Can I ignore it?

  • TootSweet@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I’m not a doctor. Take what I’m saying with a grain of salt.

    Pretty sure the answer is “it’s fine.”

    I got really into meditation for a while. And sitting for 4 (or 6 or 8) hours in the lotus position and just forcing yourself not to move will result in numbness for at least part of the time.

    And it was common knowledge among the folks I learned from on YouTube and in books that such numbness wasn’t any concern long-term-damage-wise. (You wanted to be careful getting up from your meditation cushion just because numbness in the legs can result in falls. But that’s not related to what you’re asking about.) As long as you could “walk it off” and it didn’t last, say, an hour or more, it wasn’t an issue. Even if you meditated for 8 hours every day and spent 7.9 of that with agonizing numbness in your legs.

    Again, I’m not a doctor, and I couldn’t tell you for sure whether that transfers to what you’re asking about specifically, but that’s just what I’ve heard.