this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2023
413 points (97.0% liked)
memes
10243 readers
2867 users here now
Community rules
1. Be civil
No trolling, bigotry or other insulting / annoying behaviour
2. No politics
This is non-politics community. For political memes please go to [email protected]
3. No recent reposts
Check for reposts when posting a meme, you can only repost after 1 month
4. No bots
No bots without the express approval of the mods or the admins
5. No Spam/Ads
No advertisements or spam. This is an instance rule and the only way to live.
Sister communities
- [email protected] : Star Trek memes, chat and shitposts
- [email protected] : Lemmy Shitposts, anything and everything goes.
- [email protected] : Linux themed memes
- [email protected] : for those who love comic stories.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
It is thought to be a safety system from our ape like ancestors. The system is designed to rapidly wake us, and make us latch on, if we start to fall. If you're sleeping in a tree, this could be quite a critical response.
Unfortunately, sometimes, as we are falling asleep, the brain shuts down the senses etc in the wrong order. As our sense of balance shuts down, we can momentarily feel like we are falling. This triggers the previous response. Our muscles twitch fire, to try and latch on to something, along with a burst of adrenaline to get us awake. This is obviously less than ideal, if you are trying to get to sleep, in a nice warm bed.
I believe there are genetic components, but disrupted sleep is the most common cause. Overtiredness, disrupted circadian rhythms, or sleep disrupters (bright or blue light, caffeine alcohol etc) can all make it worse. If they are excessively common, they could be a symptom of a larger, more serious sleep condition (e.g. sleep apnea). Don't stress about them, but don't ignore them either, if they are disruptively common.