Why a person can twitch when falling asleep and in a dream - disturbing causes of startle. How to explain the phenomenon of twitching before sleep? I twitch a lot when I fall asleep

It would seem, what surprises can the body bring if a person is completely healthy? However, often people are faced with such a problem as a strong start at the time of falling asleep, which abruptly returns to wakefulness. Of course, in the daytime, when you need to perform any duties, this is very handy and is unlikely to cause anyone dissatisfaction, but at night this phenomenon can cause difficulty falling asleep. To top it off, before the awakening shudder, many feel an extremely unpleasant feeling of a rapid fall, which, in a half-asleep state, can be very frightening. There is a similar shudder for various reasons and cannot be regarded as a disease. It is most correct to consider this phenomenon as a physiological reaction of the body to any natural stimuli, which turned out to be too much. Even people who always fall asleep easily and quickly experience such an awakening sharp shudder from time to time. When it occurs, a visit to the doctor is not required, but only if there are no other negative manifestations from the body.

Reasons why a person twitches

In the process of falling asleep, the human brain goes through several stages, which doctors call sleep phases. In order for the body to completely relax and move into a state of complete rest (deep sleep phase), it takes about 90 minutes after falling asleep. It is during this period that the shudders that interrupt sleep predominantly occur. Most often, the fact that a person twitches in the process of falling asleep is explained by the following reasons:

Viability check. For the brain, the process of falling asleep to a certain extent is similar to the process of its death. Because of this, in some people the brain wants to make sure that everything is fine and neither he nor the body is in a state of death. To this end, the brain sends impulses to the muscles, causing them to contract sharply, which becomes an indicator of the norm for the central nervous system. When this process takes place in a normal rhythm, it does not cause awakening and the person does not even notice it. When the brain suddenly experiences a persistent feeling of dying, which is usually caused by alcohol or drug intoxication, the impulses sent by it to the muscles become too strong. From such a shudder, awakening occurs.
sound effect. When a person is in a state of falling asleep, his body goes not only into a rest phase, but also into a state in which it reacts with increased sensitivity to any sound effect. The reason for this mechanism lies in ancient times, when the first people lived surrounded by many predators and at any moment had to be ready for protection. As a result, today, when a person falls asleep - and especially after a day full of emotional stress, any rustle or even a strong gust of wind outside the window causes a sharp muscle contraction. This reaction is aimed not only at awakening, but also at bringing the body into a state in which it can quickly move on to active physical actions. Thus, the phenomenon can be called protective. Usually it does not occur if a person does not have emotional overload, which always provokes, albeit hidden, a sense of danger.
Load shedding. In such a situation, a start at the time of falling asleep occurs in people who have received physical overwork or suffer from chronic fatigue. Startles allow you to eliminate muscle tension and relax as much as possible, using up the remaining energy in the muscle fibers. Most often, this reaction does not cause discomfort and does not interfere with falling asleep. If the condition disrupts normal sleep, this means that the body urgently needs rest, since it has to use too much force to relax, and this is already a symptom of overwork.
Uncomfortable sleeping position. Sometimes a person in the process of falling asleep begins to twitch for the reason that the position chosen by him for sleeping, or the bed, turned out to be uncomfortable for the internal organs and blood stasis occurred in them, or, conversely, its insufficiency is noted. As a result of this, the brain gives a signal that it is necessary to change the position, and after that it causes the muscles to contract strongly and sharply several times in order to activate blood circulation. It is these muscle contractions that cause awakening from a startle.

How to fall asleep without shaking

Most often, shudders in the process of falling asleep do not annoy a person, and he may not pay attention to them. If they still cause discomfort, you can resort to several methods to prevent them. Required for restful sleep.

Watching a sleeping person at night, you can see how he shudders or twitches in his sleep. These movements may involve the entire body, the legs, or may originate in small muscles. But they do not always lead to awakening. In the morning, after waking up, the body is fresh and full of energy. Is this a norm or a pathology, why does a person twitch in a dream?

Waking up while falling asleep is medically called hypnogagic twitching.

The physiology of sleep has not yet been well studied, but there are many studies showing how a person falls asleep, what happens to the body at this time. Muscle movements are not always a sign of a disease. For example, eye movements are observed during REM sleep. Some people experience muscle twitches at the same time. There are several reasons why people move when they sleep.

Norm or pathology

If a person shudders in a dream, then this may be a physiological reaction of the body or a sign of a disease. Startles are often observed in children. They are associated with the imperfection of the nervous system of the child and the fact that the sleep of a child differs from that of an adult in the duration of the phases.

Physiological movements associated with sleep

Motor activity of the muscles can occur during the transition from one stage of sleep to another. The stages differ from each other by the different activity of the cells of the nervous and muscular systems. Phase change does not occur immediately and muscle twitching is a phase conflict. This is why a person twitches when falling asleep. The same movements can be during the transition from slow to fast sleep.

It is interesting! There is a hypothesis that sleep is like training before death. The heartbeat slows down, breathing slows down, the muscles are relaxed. The brain perceives this as death and sends a pulse to the muscles to check if its owner is alive.

Everyone noticed that during an uncomfortable posture, numbness, “goosebumps”, tingling may occur in the limbs, this is due to blood flow disorders. The body has receptors that respond to reduced blood flow. They send an impulse to the central nervous system, which causes muscle contractions and a change in body position. Startle in bedridden patients is associated with impaired blood flow, in such cases it is necessary to stretch their muscles or massage them.

Strong physical activity and stress before bedtime can also cause involuntary movements. After active work, the muscles cannot completely relax. Therefore, the impulses sent by the brain and causing them to twitch help relieve stress and fall asleep. Night terrors are also accompanied by shuddering, screaming or crying. People twitch with an external stimulus (sound, touch) when they take a nap. Snoring is also a reason leading to a motor reaction, as the level of oxygen in the blood decreases, and the brain tries to wake the person up.

Movement in sleep is a symptom of the disease

If movements in a dream disturb a person, he often wakes up, feels tired in the morning, then this may be a sign of illness. These diseases include:

Restless legs syndrome. The patient feels tingling, “goosebumps”, numbness in the legs, in severe cases they spread to the body and hands. Usually the attack begins at night, at rest. There is a desire to move the legs, stretch them. The disease is caused by a malfunction of the dopaminergic system. It is necessary to address to the neuropathologist.

Restless legs syndrome is manifested by paresthesia in the lower extremities and their excessive motor activity during sleep.

Syndrome periodic movements lower extremities or nocturnal myoclonus. The patient bends the legs at the ankle, knee, less often hip joints and unbends thumb, movements are periodically repeated after 10–80 seconds. The patient may wake up, but not even remember that he was moving. The diagnosis is made after polysomnography.
"Sleep epilepsy" rare case epilepsy, seizures occur when the patient falls asleep. Convulsions cover the whole body.
Nocturnal paroxysmal dystonia. May lead to attacks of involuntary movements in the limbs that occur at night or upon awakening. They can be short or last up to 1 hour. The movements are active, sharp, injuries are possible. The disease is poorly understood, resembles epilepsy and is treated in the same way.
Bruxism is contraction of the jaw muscles or "teeth grinding". It can occur in both adults and children. Do not drink coffee or smoke before going to bed. Caffeine and nicotine enhance it.
Neurological diseases (Parkinson's disease, Alzheimer's disease, senile dementia, and others) can also cause legs to twitch during sleep.
Taking medications (antipsychotics, some antidepressants, lithium preparations).

All these diseases should be treated only under the supervision of a doctor, because in most cases drugs are prescribed that must be taken according to a certain scheme, their dosage is individual, they have contraindications and side effects.

What to do if you twitch when you sleep

If you find yourself experiencing symptoms of the above diseases that cause persistent sleep disturbances, then you need to visit a doctor. He will conduct additional studies in order to make a diagnosis. A good result is obtained by examination on a polysomnograph. This device registers muscle contractions while a person is sleeping, which helps to make a diagnosis.

Polysomnography is modern method diagnosing sleep disorders

When movements at night in a dream, due to physiology, treatment is not required. Only in cases where they interfere with a good night's sleep or are associated with constant nightmares, you can contact a specialist to prescribe sleeping pills. But it's better to try:

properly organize your day;
avoid too active physical exertion;
do not overeat before bed;
create a comfortable environment (muffled light, quiet music);
take a bath with decoctions of medicinal herbs;
drink mint tea or warm milk at night.

Startles when falling asleep and in a dream do not always speak of an illness - this is a normal physiological reaction of the body that does not require treatment. But if there is a suspicion of an illness, or against this background a person does not get enough sleep, depression appears, one should consult a specialist.

Kalinov Yury Dmitrievich

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In the evening after work we hurry home. The day, as usual, was difficult: meetings and communication with many people who are not always pleasant for us, running around, accompanied by hassle, rush jobs, conflicts with management, and so on. The house is our safe haven, where you can relax, unwind, relieve yourself of the burden of fatigue, daytime negativity. And now, after a delicious dinner, we sit in our favorite cozy chair or lie on a comfortable sofa. As usual, the TV flickers, on the screen of which the heroes of the next series save the world, we plunge into a slumber ... And suddenly a sharp push, from which the legs tremble, makes us wake up. Similar sensations come from electric shocks. A familiar picture, isn't it? Where does this push come from, and why do the legs twitch when falling asleep?

Myoclonus: signs and characteristics of the syndrome

In medicine, the phenomenon of startling during sleep, in which involuntary sharp muscle twitches occur, is called nocturnal myoclonus. When the body reaches its highest level of relaxation, active muscle contractions can occur, which is called positive myoclonus.

The appearance of such a syndrome is also possible when muscle tone decreases. In this case, myoclonus is called negative. The described syndrome also has an alternative name - hypnagogic flinching.

Myoclonus can be affected by local areas of the body, for example: only the right leg or even one of the muscles of the leg. In more complex cases, all limbs can twitch, sometimes the facial muscles responsible for facial expressions. According to the nature of the course of myoclonic convulsions, they are classified into rhythmic, arrhythmic, reflex, spontaneous, asynchronous, synchronous.

What is the essence of myoclonus? The brain is the control panel of the body. The movements of each part of the body are provided by certain muscle groups. To start moving, muscle tissue must receive the appropriate signal from the brain, which comes through the channels of the nervous system. The result of such signals is the excitation of muscle fibers, followed by contraction. muscle tissue. If for some reason there is a simultaneous excitation of a whole group of channels of the nervous system, then the body or its individual parts begin to shudder. This phenomenon is called myoclonic seizures.

It's all the fault of the hypothalamus

In the intermediate part of the brain is a section called the hypothalamus. This area is formed by a large number of cell blocks and is responsible for the normal operation of many body systems. For example: it regulates metabolic processes, controls the endocrine, cardiovascular, and also controls the vegetative and many other systems. When a person is immersed in slumber, the first phase of sleep begins, there is a decrease in body temperature, a fall blood pressure. The mode of breathing changes: a much smaller volume of air is inhaled into the lungs and exhaled. This whole complex of changes in the performance of the body is similar to the processes characteristic of death.

The hypothalamus regards such a situation as dangerous, and in order to “resurrect” the body, return all its systems to an active state, it sends a discharge, shakes it up. Result: a sharp increase in muscle tone, expressed in a shudder of the body.

Hypnagogic wince has no age, social or gender restrictions. This syndrome can manifest itself in one form or another in each of us. How to determine: is it worth worrying and making an appointment with a neurologist if you find myoclonic seizures or not? The determining moment is the duration of the startle in a dream. If this phenomenon is short-term, sometimes present in the initial phase of sleep, then you should not worry. This level of myoclonus is within the normal range, does not threaten health and good sleep.

Everything is much more serious if myoclonic convulsions accompany sleep throughout the night. Such a pathology does not allow you to sleep, the body does not recover. Pathological myoclonus indicates significant health disorders and can provoke the emergence of new diseases. In such circumstances, without qualified medical care, of course, is indispensable. The sooner treatment begins, the more effective the results will be.

Quite often, many people experience sharp short-term “twitches” of the whole body during falling asleep. Most often this happens either at the stage when the brain starts to turn off and the subconscious “draws” the first dreams, or late at night, when a person is already immersed in sleep.

So why do you twitch when you fall asleep? Is it a problem, a disease, or is it just a normal reaction of the body? And if so, why doesn't everyone have this reaction every night? In this article, we will try to answer all these questions.

A bit of history

In ancient times, people believed that sleep is like a “rehearsal” of death, when a person’s soul does not completely go to another world. Then it was believed that everything that a person sees or does in a state of sleep is the tricks of the devil. In connection with this idea of dreams, "twitches" during falling asleep were called the "touch of the devil."

Why when you fall asleep you twitch - the thoughts of scientists of the 20th century

In the 20th century, when scientists had already sufficiently studied the state of sleep, this issue was elucidated from a completely different point of view.
In fact, the answer to the question why when you fall asleep you twitch is quite logical.

The scientist A. Ts. Golbin, who studied a person in a state of sleep for a long time, said that “twitches” are the result of the transition of stages of sleep from one to another, while preventing the person from deepening into sleep non-physiologically.

A. M. Vein believed that the answer to this question lies much deeper. He said that a small part of the brain, the hypothalamus, reacts with sharp muscle contractions, which responds to a slowdown in breathing and heartbeat. Thus, by contracting all the muscles of the body, the body tests vitality, since the state of falling asleep is very similar physiologically to the pre-coma state.

Modernity. Why do you twitch when you fall asleep?

But today, scientists and psychologists give a completely different explanation for myoclonus - a small short-term twitch during falling asleep. It is believed that myoclonus helps to relax all the muscles in the body.

If you observe, it turns out that you twitch when you fall asleep most often after a hard and hard day. Physical and psychological stress on the body makes it necessary to keep the muscles in good shape throughout the day, which greatly complicates their relaxation before bedtime. Then the brain sends short-term impulses that make the muscles twitch, after which they are completely relaxed. And those light dreams that most often accompany “twitches” (for example, a fall or a blow) are painted by the subconscious mind so that we do not fully wake up.

During the night's rest period, people rarely sleep in one position. They move their legs and arms, roll from side to side, twitch their limbs, or even flinch. Often they don't even notice it.

What causes muscle spasms? Is it a physiological need or the cause of a possible disease? This feature is called by scientists as hypnagogic twitching or nocturnal myoclonus.

In 70% of the population, this is a physiological feature. It often occurs during the early stages of sleep. It has no symptoms, passes on its own and, only in isolated cases, is pathological.

Norms of twitching in a person’s sleep

Most of humanity has experienced myoclonus, calling it twitching. This is a feature of the physiological state.

Occurs when frightened or during the first stage of sleep. Usually only once and goes away.

Muscle contractions also occur after exercise. In babies - during intensive growth. Even hiccups are classified as physiological myoclonus.

You should not worry if these contractions are single, pass quickly and do not cause physical discomfort.

But, if the symptoms tend to become more frequent and intensify, interfere with rest and are observed at the time of wakefulness, you should be wary and seek help from a specialist.

Who is most likely to have myoclonus?

The baby twitches in a dream as much as an adult or old man. Moreover, twitches occur more often in initial stages falling asleep. This implies the conclusion that the problem has an equal diffusion for all age categories.

Factors affecting twitching during sleep

There are several main factors that can affect the intensity of nighttime jerks:

psycho-emotional situation at work, scandals at home, increased suspiciousness, depression lead to mental disorders. They are one of the main factors of restless stay. Can cause neuralgic syndrome and lead to pathology;
physical overstrain of the body during the working day. Excessive supply of lactic acid to the muscles causes tone and involuntarily reduces them;
the process can also be influenced by external stimuli, such as: the light of street lamps, noisy neighbors, extraneous noise from the street. These factors negatively affect sensory systems, disrupting not only sleep, but also mood;
experts say that the position at the time of rest is very important. The blood flow should not be disturbed, the muscles should be in a relaxed state, should not be clamped internal organs;
not unimportant factor is the excessive intensity of the brain during the daytime. This problem is associated with people whose work involves brain activity. As well as creative people;
excessive consumption of alcohol, energy drinks and caffeine will contribute to restlessness;
the computer and computer games excite the brain, which can provoke nighttime impulses.

Causes

Most physicians do not consider nocturnal myoclonus a pathology. They refer to it as a natural function of the nervous system.

Before going to bed, the muscles relax sharply, and the body perceives this situation as a dying process. The signal is sent to the hypothalamus. Muscles begin to contract rapidly to wake up the body and renew vitality;
in a state of sleep, vital processes are dulled, but the brain continues to work intensively and control the situation. It sends pulses to make sure everything is working properly. These slight tremors are imperceptible. They do not disturb and carry a purely physiological direction;
shuddering can also indicate a lack of minerals and trace elements in the body - glucose, sodium, potassium;
intensive growth in children can cause the syndrome. But there is no reason for concern. This goes away naturally after the baby grows up;
for people who suffer from severe snoring, a sharp flinch may indicate respiratory arrest;
medications or abrupt discontinuation may cause limb spasms and convulsions;
the syndrome can appear in people who have had a traumatic brain injury or concussion.

Sometimes a similar phenomenon can occur as a result of a viral disease.

When is the help of a specialist needed?

In 70% of the population, myoclonus is a physiological feature. But there are also pathological features that require the help of a specialist.

For example, when a person twitches even during wakefulness, and there is an increase and aggravation of convulsions.

Trembling and twitching can be the cause of a number of diseases:

epilepsy;
diabetes;
pinched nerves;
gout;
muscle dystrophy;
violation metabolic process;
avitaminosis.

If myoclonus does not disappear for a long time, interferes with healthy sleep and contractions increase, it is better to see a specialist and identify the cause.

Timely diagnosis will help prevent a number of hidden diseases.

Treatment

It is worth noting that all medications should be taken after diagnosing and identifying the origins of involuntary muscle contractions.

Medical treatment it is prescribed only by the attending physician, since there can be many causes of the syndrome.

Anticonvulsants from the group Anticonvulsants - occupy the main place in the fight against spasms.

Barbiturate;
Clonazepam;
Volproate;
benzodiazapine;
bioactive additive L-tryptophan;
Tryptophan.

How to help a person get rid of myoclonus

If night tremors are often disturbing and do not give you a good rest, you need to adhere to several simple rules:

make and follow a daily routine. Determine the hours at which you need to go to bed and what time to wake up;
In the evening, do not exercise intensively. If you wish, you can do a series of light relaxing exercises. And here are the exercises gym or fitness, transfer to morning or afternoon time;
improve the microclimate in the bedroom and prepare a sleeping place, nothing should constrain you, the bed should be comfortable and spacious;
it is desirable to sleep in complete darkness without extraneous stimuli and noise. If this is not possible, there is an option to purchase a sleep mask and earplugs;
don't overeat at night. The use of fatty high-calorie foods negatively affects well-being. Fast carbohydrates are also not suitable, they immediately saturate the body with energy and provoke to action;
it is necessary to exclude the use of coffee drinks before the evening rest;
do not take energy drinks and alcohol at night;
try to avoid stressful situations in the evening. If during the day you were too overstrained and you can’t calm down even at night, try breathing exercises or meditation;
give up computer entertainment before bed. They excite the nervous system and prevent sound restful sleep.