Why do i feel numb all the time

Causes and Treatment for Emotional Numbness

Feeling emotionally numb or a general lack of emotion can be a symptom of several different medical conditions or a side effect of some medications.

Emotional numbness creates a sense of emptiness, isolation, or emotional disconnect from the rest of the world. The numbness can be unbearable for many people who experience it.

Find out what it’s like, why it happens, and how to manage and prevent it.

Emotional numbness, also sometimes called emotional blunting, can be difficult to imagine if you have not experienced it.

Some people describe it as feeling emptiness or despondency, while others report feeling isolated. Some feel as though they have no future or that there is no hope for the numbness to ever fade.

“Often I feel invisible, like I’m a ghost. I watch my family engaging with each other, but feel like there’s an invisible barrier that keeps me from joining them,” describes Amy H., who has experienced emotional numbness from depression. “I’m like a submarine drifting undetected, picking up on other people’s emotions like sonar. However, if you were to ask me what my own feelings are, I wouldn’t be able to tell you.”

Rebecca C.* has a similar experience with numbness caused by depression: “The world around me often seems slightly superficial, [like] I am simply going through the motions and can’t connect to my environment,” she explains. “It makes me feel as if there were analog TV static in my brain. I am unable to communicate or think deeply.”

Some people describe emotional numbness as feeling unfocused or ungrounded.

“It basically feels like when you zone out before you go to sleep,” Amanda D. said. “Feels like being unfocused. And sometimes, especially right when you are going through it, it’s really hard to understand how the world keeps moving when it should have stopped.”

*Some names have been changed at the request of interviewees.

There are a number of different things that can cause emotional numbness to occur. While depression and anxiety are the most common causes, others include the following:

Stress and stress hormones: Elevated cortisol levels can lead to emotional numbness in some people.
PTSD: Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which may change your stress hormone levels, can be tied to depression, anxiety, and symptoms like emotional numbness.
Medication: Some medications used to treat anxiety and depression affect how the brain processes mood and emotion. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) affect serotonin levels in your brain, which could also alter dopamine levels. Most evidence is anecdotal, but a 2021 review of research suggests this could explain medication-induced emotional numbing.
Depersonalization-derealization disorder: People with depersonalization-derealization disorder may experience numbness in their minds or bodies.
Fatigue: Experiencing physical fatigue and burnout could lead some people to have emotional blunting.

Despite how it may feel, emotional numbness is not permanent. Treatment is available to provide both immediate relief and long-term remission.

The first step in treating emotional numbness is to identify and treat the underlying cause. A healthcare professional can help with this, or they may refer you to a mental health professional.

You’ll be asked what medications you take and what other symptoms you have. If your doctor thinks one of your medications is to blame, they may substitute it with something else.

If you do not already have a mental health professional, the FindCare tool can help you locate one in your area.

Immediate relief options

To start getting more immediate relief from emotional numbness, you can also try several treatment options:

Make an appointment with a mental health professional

A mental health professional can offer coping techniques to help you regain your feelings. Some professionals, like psychiatrists, can prescribe different medications.

While antidepressants typically take up to 6 weeks to start working, your doctor may prescribe anti-anxiety medication like benzodiazepines or beta-blockers for you to take while the other drug builds in your system.

Rely on your support system

Even if you’re having trouble connecting, reach out to the people who love you. They may be able to help you connect, and you may find relief in telling them what you’re going through.

Exercise

When you’re feeling numb, the last thing you may want to do is get up and move, but it’s one of the best things you can do.

Running, swimming, yoga, and kickboxing classes are all great for stress relief, but even just taking a walk around the neighborhood can help flood your brain with endorphins. To get the best results, exercise daily.

Get plenty of sleep

Getting 7 to 9 hours of quality sleep every night could help improve your mood.

Long-term care

For long-term methods of treatment and prevention of emotional numbness, you may want to follow these tactics:

Eat a healthful diet: By eating nutrient-dense foods, you fuel your body to work at its best. Specifically, fish, fresh fruit and vegetables, and other antioxidant-rich foods can improve mood regulation.

Minimize stress: Minimizing stress or improving how you manage it can positively affect your body, reduce stress hormones, and help you regain emotional feeling. Reduce the stressors in your life, and practice stress-busting techniques like meditation or mindfulness to better manage stress.

Learn to identify and express emotions: For those who have been emotionally numb for an extended time, it can be difficult to identify or process different emotions. A mental health professional can help with this. Make an appointment with a professional in your area who can help you tap into your emotions.

If you’re experiencing emotional numbness, know that no matter how you feel, you aren’t alone, and it won’t last forever.

Reach out to the people you love and make an appointment with a mental health professional. They can help you bridge the gap and bring you one step closer to feeling your feelings.

Emotional Blunting: Causes, Symptoms, Treatment

With all its ups and downs, experiencing emotion is a normal part of life. Everyone has a different experience of emotions. Some people feel more strongly than others, while other people may have long-term or temporary difficulty feeling a full range of emotion.

That difficulty is sometimes referred to as emotional blunting. Depending on the cause, emotional blunting can last anywhere from a few minutes, up to months or even years.

There are various reasons a person might experience emotional blunting, and what’s causing it will determine how it’s treated. Read on to learn more about how emotional blunting feels, what causes it, and what treatments are available.

Emotional blunting is a term sometimes used to describe a person’s limited emotional reactivity. They may not even be experiencing any emotions to feel, and people with emotional blunting may report feeling an unpleasant numbness instead of emotions.

There are many reasons a person might experience emotional blunting. This can include psychiatric prescriptions, substance use, and having certain mental health disorders.

The defining symptom of emotional blunting is a numbing of emotional experiences. This includes how a person feels internally.

Emotional blunting can be accompanied by blunted affect. It might also be defined by an inability to express emotions in their face, behaviors, and other forms of communication.

The blunted affect that comes with emotional blunting is especially common among people with moderate to severe depression. It can also appear alongside schizophrenia or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

When people display emotions in a way most other people see as limited, experts sometimes refer to this as “flat affect.”

Emotional blunting may be associated with the following symptoms:

inability to feel happiness and sadness
restlessness
loss of sex drive
feeling disconnected from mind and/or body
difficulty speaking
lack of motivation
difficulty socializing, maintaining and forming relationships
fatigue
difficulty feeling love or affection toward oneself or others
indifference, even to activities or causes a person once found important
difficulty concentrating
forgetfulness
a compulsion toward, or active engagement in, reckless behavior or self-harm (in order to feel something)

Emotional blunting isn’t considered a mental health condition. Instead, it’s considered a symptom of an underlying physical or mental cause.

If you’re experiencing emotional blunting, you should schedule an appointment with a mental healthcare professional. They’ll screen your symptoms and review your mental health history to better understand your unique circumstances.

As mentioned previously, emotional blunting is a symptom. There are a variety of possible causes. These include:

Antidepressant medication. Research suggests that some people who take antidepressant medications like selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) experience a reduction in their ability to experience emotions.
Alexithymia. A little-understood mental health disorder, alexithymia is marked by a difficulty in recognizing emotions.
Schizophrenia. People with schizophrenia often experience “negative” symptoms that make them reduce or lose their ability to function normally, including their ability to experience emotion.
Major depressive disorder. Depression (and the medications used to treat it) can cause feelings of emptiness and make it hard to feel either positive or negative emotions.
Alcohol use disorder. Alcohol is a central nervous system depressant that can have a strong effect on a person’s mood. For some people who live with alcohol use disorder, alcohol can create feelings of numbness.
Drug use. For some people living with substance use disorders, drugs like cannabis or opiates like heroin can cause emotional blunting. This is because some drugs, like alcohol, can depress the central nervous system.
Borderline personality disorder (BPD). BPD is a personality disorder marked by intense changes in mood. However, in moments of severe stress, people with this disorder sometimes experience dissociation, emotional numbness, or detachment from their mind and body.
PTSD. People with PTSD or complex PTSD (CPTSD) also may experience dissociation while having trauma flashbacks or facing triggering situations.

It seems that some people are more likely to experience emotional blunting than others. Common risk factors for developing emotional blunting include:

schizophrenia diagnosis

BPD diagnosis
PTSD or CPTSD diagnosis
current diagnosis or past history of depression or anxiety
taking certain medications, such as antidepressants
history of drug or alcohol use

Finding care for emotional blunting

If you’re experiencing emotional blunting and looking for ways to cope, you should know that there’s help out there:

The first step is to schedule an appointment with a licensed mental healthcare professional. They’ll help devise a treatment plan that best suits you.
If you’re not sure how to get in touch with a mental healthcare provider in your area, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Helpline at 800-662-4357. This free hotline is a private information service, available 24/7 in English and Spanish. It can help refer people and families to local treatment centers, support groups, and community support organizations.

There are two sides to treatment for emotional blunting. One is going to involve working with a mental health professional, and the other is what you can do to help manage it on your own.

How can a professional help you?

Emotional blunting is best treated by addressing the underlying cause or causes. That’s why it’s important to see a mental healthcare professional if you’re experiencing emotional blunting.

Some potential treatment options a mental healthcare professional might recommend include:

Psychotherapy (talk therapy). This can address mental health conditions that can cause emotional blunting, such as BPD, PTSD, or depression.
Dose or medication adjustment. This is for people whose emotional blunting appears to be caused by psychiatric or other prescription medicines.

What can you do about it?

While emotional blunting and its causes should be treated by a licensed mental healthcare professional, there’s plenty that you can do on your own to help find relief from emotional blunting.

When you feel numb or empty, safely stimulate one or more of your senses. This may include cuddling with a stuffed animal, taking a warm bath or shower, gripping a piece of ice, or eating spicy or strong-flavored food.
Try getting back into activities that you once enjoyed. Even if you don’t feel the same amount of happiness that these activities used to fill you with, they can still provide a boost in mood and open up your emotional range.
Join a support group and create a personal support system to help cope with any diagnosed mental disorders.
Join a support group or program to help address substance use.

Emotional blunting is an unpleasant symptom with various possible causes. Treating the underlying causes of emotional blunting may help reduce its severity and frequency in your daily life.

It might take some time for you to see the effects of treatment. Changing medication doses, starting a substance use program, or beginning talk therapy, for example, won’t make emotional blunting disappear overnight. But they’re a start on the road to a fulfilling life.

Emotional blunting is a symptom of various mental health disorders. It can also be caused by certain medications, as well as substance use disorders. But there’s plenty of help available for people seeking treatment.

With the right treatment and a little time, it’s possible to keep emotional blunting at bay. This can help you get back to experiencing life with a fuller range of emotions.

Cramps numbness of the extremities: causes and treatment | 74.ru

Why does the legs cramp and fingers go numb: we analyze the causes together with doctors

1. Numbness or cramp?
2. When and which doctor should I go to?
3. Can he cramp his arms and legs for no reason?
4. How to understand the cause of cramps or numbness?
5. Is there a treatment?
6. Is there emergency assistance?
7. When is an ambulance needed?

Numbness or cramp?

Numbness in this case is a loss of sensation, which may be accompanied by tingling, and a cramp is a contraction, contraction of muscles, accompanied by painful sensations.

When and which doctor should I go to?

If you are wearing comfortable shoes, you have not had an injury, but cramps or numbness occur periodically, then this is a reason to consult a doctor. It is urgent to consult a doctor if there is a burdened history of diabetes, burdened heredity for strokes, heart attacks or varicose veins. A neurologist, surgeon or therapist will help you.

Can he cramp his arms and legs for no reason?

There should be no convulsions, but numbness and goosebumps can normally occur if a person has been in a certain position for a long time, for example, he squatted for a long time or lay with his arm thrown under his head.

“This manifests itself more often with age,” says Elena Krasilova, a neurologist and candidate of medical sciences. - But if you have this condition after an injury or is permanent, this is not normal, you need to go to the doctor.

Causes can be relatively innocuous, such as the wrong size shoes or uncomfortable insoles. In this case, there may be sensations of constriction, tingling in the toes, sometimes it reduces the foot or calf muscle. But even this can eventually lead to serious complications.

“This is especially true for women who like to wear high-heeled shoes,” says Anastasia Yakupova, a neurologist at the first neurological department of the New Hospital. - I will emphasize and remind you that the physiologically optimal heel is 3-4 centimeters. If you wear a heel more than 8 centimeters for a short amount of time, for some event, then you are welcome, but if you wear shoes that are not physiological all the time, be prepared for the fact that in the future there will be problems with veins, cramps , tightening and burning.

How to understand the cause of cramps or numbness?

You won't be able to do this on your own, and the doctors will decide only after a series of studies. Which ones, will depend on which part of the body it reduces.

— We must rule out the pathology of the vascular bed — varicose veins, thrombosis or thrombophlebitis, — says Anastasia Yakupova. “To do this, we refer the patient to ultrasound duplex scanning of the arteries and veins of the lower extremities. If the patient has a history of varicose veins, a surgical consultation is required. We can also send the patient for an additional neurological examination. This is electroneuromyography (EMG) of the lower extremities - an assessment of the speed of nerve impulses in the extremities.

If the hands become numb, both lower and upper limbs will be examined. This will help rule out polyneuropathies (for example, in patients with diabetes mellitus) or some kind of compression-ischemic neuropathy (for example, in people with anatomically narrow carpal tunnels or peculiarities in the location of the ligaments).

Also, cramps in the arms or legs, mainly at night, can be associated with electrolyte disorders: a lack or excess of substances such as potassium, calcium, sodium, chlorine and magnesium. Therefore, the doctor will prescribe a blood test for electrolytes.

Is there a cure?

Yes, it will be prescribed by a doctor and will depend on the cause of the cramps or numbness. For example, numbness of the fingers may indicate carpal tunnel syndrome, which can be treated with surgery (and more, read more in this material), and a lack of magnesium can be filled with special drugs.

Is there an emergency?

Yes, and you probably know her intuitively. In the event of a cramp, the muscle must be stretched. If it is the calf muscle, pull the toe of the leg towards you, if it is in the hand, pull the arm in the opposite direction. Clenched or numb fingers should be actively kneaded.

When do you need an ambulance?

Numbness, which usually does not seem to be a problem at all, can be a dangerous symptom.

“If a person stretched a limb, moved it, but it does not get better, sensitivity is not restored, then numbness may be evidence of an incipient stroke or a pre-stroke state,” warns Anastasia Yakupova. In that case, we call an ambulance.

Read more about stroke symptoms and prevention in this article.

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Why hands go numb at night, causes of numbness of fingers in sleep

Unexplained numbness of hands can be an alarming and unpleasant symptom upon waking up, but if it goes away within 5-7 minutes - do not worry.

A pinched nerve occurs when something (in this case, the position of the hands) puts extra pressure on the nerve.

If the arm is numb, it is probably due to compression of the ulnar, radial, or median nerves. Each of these nerves starts in your neck and runs through your arms.

Ulnar nerve pinched

The ulnar nerve helps control the muscles in the forearm that allow a person to hold objects. It also provides sensitivity to the little finger and the half of the ring finger next to the little finger on both the front and back of the hand.

The ulnar nerve is also responsible for the numbness, pain, or shock you may feel when you hit the inside of your elbow.

A pinched ulnar nerve is usually caused by too much pressure on the elbow or wrist.

If you sleep with your hands folded in or under you, you may feel numbness in:

Your pinky and ring finger
Part of the palm under these fingers
The back of the hand under these fingers

Continued compression of the ulnar nerve may contribute to the development of cubital tunnel syndrome. If numbness is accompanied by pain or weakness, make an appointment with your doctor. The doctor will recommend therapeutic exercises that must be performed at home or prescribe the wearing of a beam bandage.

Pinched median nerve

The median nerve controls the muscles and sensations in the index and middle fingers. It is also responsible for the muscles and sensations of the middle finger, ring fingers, and thumb on the palm side.

A pinched median nerve most often occurs at the elbow or wrist, so curling up in the fetal position may cause numbness:

on the front (palm) side of the thumb, index, middle and half of the ring finger
around the base of the thumb on the palm side

Prolonged compression of the median nerve at the wrist may contribute to the development of carpal tunnel syndrome, although sleep position is not usually the cause.

Pinched radial nerve

The radial nerve controls the muscles used to extend the fingers and wrist. It is also responsible for the muscles and sensations on the back of the hand and thumb.

Too much pressure over the wrist or along the forearm can compress the radial nerve.

For example, sleeping on the arm or wrist can cause numbness:

in the index finger
on the back of the thumb
in the strap between the index and thumb

Pressure on the radial nerve can also lead to a condition called radial tunnel syndrome, but you usually won't get numbness in your fingers or hand with this condition. Instead, you will most likely feel pain in your forearm, elbow, and wrist.

How to avoid numbness?

Nerve compression can usually be controlled by periodically changing the sleeping position.

Here are some tips that can help:

Avoid sleeping in the fetal position. Sleeping with bent arms and elbows can put more pressure on the nerves and cause numbness. Try to tuck your blankets in tightly so it's harder for you to roll over and curl up in your sleep.
If you sleep on your stomach, try to keep your arms at your sides. Sleeping with them under the body can put too much pressure on them and cause numbness.
Sleep with your arms at your sides, not over your head. Sleeping with your arms above your head can cause numbness due to poor circulation in your arms.
Do not fold your arms under your pillow while you sleep. The weight of your head can put pressure on your wrist or elbow and compress a nerve.

Of course, in a dream it is difficult to control the movements of your body.

If you find it difficult to keep your elbows and wrists straight during the night, you can try wearing a brace while you sleep. This will prevent your elbows or wrists from moving.

When should I see a doctor if my hands are numb?

If you have tried sleeping in different positions and still wake up with numb hands, you can make an appointment with your doctor.

Also see a doctor if you have:

numbness that lasts all day
numbness in other parts of your body, such as your shoulders, neck or back
Numbness of both hands or only one part of the hand
muscle weakness
clumsiness in hands or fingers
weak reflexes in arms or legs
pain in the arms or hands

IMPORTANT

Be aware that sudden numbness can sometimes indicate a stroke, especially when it occurs with the following symptoms:

weakness or dizziness
paralysis on one side
confusion or speech problems
loss of balance
severe headache

Stroke requires immediate medical attention. If you realize that you have these symptoms, call an ambulance.

Conclusions

Numbness of the hand often results from compression or pinching of the radial, ulnar, or median nerves. These nerves are responsible for the muscles of the hands and fingers.

Learn more