Hello, curious kids! Do you have a question you’d like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to [email protected]. Please tell us your name, age and the city where you live. It usually starts with a sense of numbness or tingling in that area. This sensation, which people often also call “pins and needles,” is technically known as paresthesia. Even though it’s not causing any permanent damage, you might still want to avoid the uncomfortable feeling that comes when your foot falls asleep. Here are a couple of tips that may help:

In same cases, compressed arteries are to blame for paresthesia. When an artery is pinched, it is unable to supply your tissues and nerve cells with the oxygen and glucose-rich blood they need. But as mentioned above, this is not usually the case and nerve communication is generally to blame. Should You Worry If Your Feet Fall Asleep? Now comes the important question: Is this dangerous? Most of the time, when your foot, or any other body part, falls asleep, it is temporary and nothing to worry about. In fact, since it lasts for only a minute or two, you may not even remember it happened by the end of the day. Many people assume the strange sensation described as a foot falling asleep is due to restricted blood flow, but poor circulation is rarely to blame for a limb that has fallen asleep. The heavy, dull, weird feeling — called paresthesia in the medical world — is actually more connected to your nerves. Once you start to move around again, the pressure on the nerves is released. They “wake up” and you’ll start to notice a “pins and needles” feeling. Don’t worry, that feeling will only last for a few minutes and then everything will feel normal again.

Why Your Foot Falls Asleep