Physical Therapy near me

I wake up every night because my hands and arms fall asleep. What is wrong with me?

​

The short answer is that you sleep in the wrong position, but I’m glad you asked me and not your significant other that question. The long answer is that you are sleeping with your arms at the shoulder, elbows or wrists in the wrong position. Our hands and arms usually fall asleep due to nerve or artery compression somewhere in our upper extremities. The easiest way to figure out where you are “pinching” this nerve or artery is to note the position of your arms when the “numbness” wakes you. Do you sleep with your arms over your head? Are your elbows and/or wrists bent and tucked close to your chin and chest? These are the most common causes. When our arms are overhead and when we bend our elbows and/or wrists we can cause both nerve compression, restricted blood flow or both at eat each of these joints. When this occurs, we get the sensation of numbness or it feels like our “arms have fallen asleep”. The easy answer is to simply not sleep with our arms over our head or to not bend our elbows and wrists tightly up against our bodies, but this tends to be difficult to stop on our own. So if you cannot break the habit on your own, here are a few suggestions. For your wrists, try wrist braces that support your hands and will not let them bend. Put on a pair of elbow pads, the kind that hockey players or roller bladers use, but you must wear them over the front of your elbows to prevent them from bending. The most difficult position to correct, sleeping with your arms over head, requires a long sleeve shirt and some safety pins. Simply put on the shirt and pin the sleeves to your side. It may feel like you’re in a straight jacket, but your arms will not fall asleep.