There is a reason why your legs sometimes feel numb when you sit for too long
When you’re sitting with your legs crossed, sometimes a feeling of numbness occurs in one of them. Or both. When you experience a tingling feeling or numbness in your leg, it is usually not something to be worried about. But what actually happens when your leg falls asleep?
Numbness
The tingling feeling or numbness can occur in every part of your body. But usually it happens in your legs, feet, arms or hands. It generally happens when you’ve been stuck in one position for too long, when you’ve been leaning on one arm or when you’re wearing shoes that don’t fit right.
Explanation
So, what happens when your leg (or a different part of your body) falls asleep? It is actually pretty simple. When your limbs go numb, it means that some of your nerves have been compressed (which is what happens when you put one leg over the other or lean on one arm). And that results in an inability of your leg to send signals to your brain. You lose feeling in your leg and it feels as if your leg has fallen asleep. All you have to do, is shift your leg or arm and the feeling will slowly come back.
Issue
If your legs or arms fall asleep a lot, even when you’re not sitting down or leaning on something, then there might be something else causing the numbness in your legs. If your leg falls asleep more than average or if you experience a tingling sensation in your limbs, you might be dealing with a vitamin B12 deficiency, a hernia, a thyroid problem, diabetes or a stroke. So, if you feel like your legs fall asleep a lot, you might want to pay the doctor a visit to get it all sorted out.
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