My body feels very heavy!

[Sandy65]

I have had this happen over many years.  It only happens once in a while, but when it does it is a horrible scarey feeling.  I can feel the 'anxiety' feeling come over me, I sit down and 'beg' someone to sit with me.  I then get this feeling that my body weighs a ton and is literally going to crash through the floor, because it is so heavy.  I also get the feeling of my tongue swelling, tho' I never have convulsions or anything like that.  It lasts about 5 minutes or so and when it's over I feel very weak.  Any advice?

Thank you so much!
Sandy

[Joycenoelnew]

To Emman- I have read about this - it sounds like it is possibly a vitamin deficiency.but I can't recall which one!! If your doctor hasn't resolved this for you by now, I think it would be a great idea to learn more about vitamins, minerals & supplements. Good luck & God bless.

[MikeL3232]

Has a doctor not found his/her way in here yet and explained to us what the hell this could be yet? It just happened to me! First I started envisioning something heavy and very abstract and then it reminded of me a sensation I used to feel a lot when younger. Or maybe just remembering from in my past sleep but never could remember unless sleeping...as weird as it sounds. Then I actually thought more about it and even the pillow felt heavy or that it COULD feel heavy if I wanted it to be. Then I got these weird feeling like all four limbs were like, challenging me to go to sleep by how heavy it was feeling as if my body was asking me to turn my brain off. I was wide awake and thought I was hallucinating for a minute.

I guess this could be related to me having been thinking about what I would say at my wedding...it made me real anxious. A lot of people talked about having anxiety and this was a possible form of anxiety attacks? Maybe this our body trying to sway us into a slumber and we aren't actually supposed to recognize it when it happens? Wish we had an expert in here!

[sarahst85]

Not sure if this is the same thing you are describing but, The second I closed my eyes last night, my body felt heavy I had like nightmares or something where i was punching my self i would open my eyes which was difficult, they were heavy, and my arms hadn't moved and i did this for some time where the same thing would happen when i closed my eyes but i would open them and be fine..the past 4 days before this i would wake up in the middle of the night with this and would have trouble going back to sleep..what do i do about this?

[deXterBendigo]

I've only had the feeling you describe for 4 months now, when waking up through the night or after moving about for a while. I've managed to start to fix this issue with b vitamins. It seems that this was caused by a form of anemia. I was on Nexium for over a decade which caused a magnesium and b12 deficiencies (possibly others as well). Hope that helps.

[Hela35]

I used to have similar episodes when I was a kid, and yesterday night it happened again (I'm 35 now). I felt like I was raped in a big towel, it somehow felt soft, but heavy. I lost the sense of depth. My eyes could not decide on what was close and what far away from me.... and somehow some characteristic smell came to me. I recognized the sensation. I remember I could "control" and "play" with it when I was young, like if I could "switched on and off"; but yesterday I couldn't. I tried to "turn it off" and I couldn't. I was lying in bed between my small baby and my husband , and I had the sensation I could stop breathing any time and die without no one noticing it. It was scary. I new some kind of hormone that I managed to activate in my brain was doing this to me, but I couldn't stop it just by relaxing or deep breathing. My only chance was to try some endorphins and immediately the heaviness was gone. If someone knows more about this, please post it.    

[HeavyBody]

After being diagnosed with Adrenal Insufficiency, I experience these symptoms after being active for less than an hour and also when I am in the process of DECREASING the dosage of the medication (Prednisone) that I take for this condition.  I have tried exercising, napping, sitting to do tasks, yoga, deep breathing and so far nothing seems to eliminate the sensation that Sandy65 describes as --"feeling that my body weighs a ton and is literally going to crash through the floor, because it is so heavy."  

[KIMBERLY_SANNICOLAS]

I just had that feeling earlier this morning but with a nightmare.. My body was feeling very heavy like I couldn't lift myself.. so as I got up from my nightmare I was still feeling the heavy weight.. I woke my spouse and I was telling him what I was feeling, he told me to go outside and take deep breath and calm down.. It felt like I was going to die.. so then I Google "my body feels heavy" also.. and here I am..

[svotim]

Ive had this various degrees of heavy body feeling ever since i started to get MS symptoms (undiagnosed MS). I attributed it to depression & fatique which are MS symptoms, but thats only a guess. At its worst i have trouble holding my head up & eyes open, even breathing can be labored, just moving aggravates me (lil painful). I lay down & feel like its such a relief! Then i feel better & fall asleep, wake feeling better. Ive starting taking vitamins with dinner, have had less attacks

[Happy_Feet_15]

I used to get these attacks at 3am EVERY morning. Mine was due to low blood sugar, also I am borderline anaemic and these attacks were worse around my period. Also have these attacks when eating MSG containing foods. I have found that B vitamins and MSM have helped immensly :) I have also been re-mediated with a stimulant (Dexamphetamine) medication and have for 2 years now not suffered an attack since I also used to suffer from very bad sinus migraine, I don't suffer anymore unless it is a very dry hot day and if the pressure system drops or I climb a mountain....I'm like a walking barometer :p The only thing I have to keep an eye on now is my nutrition (mainly healthy now), blood pressure and liver health (from stimulant medication).

[Emmalou1]

Iv also had these symptoms from being as young as I can remember, I'm 35 now and still suffer from time to time where my body feels so heavy,and I feel like I can't move. I used to wake feeling heavy after the same nightmare, now it's when I'm trying to fall asleep. It scares the life out of me, Iv thought of going to see my gp about it for a long time but was worried they would think I'm strange. Iv just typed in the symptoms and all this came up that people suffer the same, it has answered a lot of my questions, I mever thought I suffered from anxiety before, but my daughter does really bad

[Caesar9542]

Also, this used to happen when I would wake up from a nightmare, now it seems more random.

[Caesar9542]

This used to happen to me when I was younger and now it's starting to happen again (I'm 23). I've never heard it described before, but reading these comments it all seems like the same. An odd sensation of heaviness, especially in my hands with seemingly no cause. Sometimes it includes a distorted sense of time. It's temporary and I get it every few months now for maybe 30 minutes at a time. I am often highly stressed, but this does not seem to correlate with that. If anyone learned more about this, I would like to know.

[Bexy30]

I have also had this feeling many times normally in bed. My body feels really heavy but light at the same time,my tongue feels fat too. I think my fingers feel so heavy I will never move them, yet I do and feel totally normal again. But within seconds can slip back into heavy feeling again! It's like floating on a speeding cloud but feeling heavy. I'm not normally stressed. I'm not scared it kind of feels nice. Heavily.

[muse4]

I've also experienced this, while standing and while falling asleep.
I'm a pretty anxious person so i was just brushing it off as being my nerves.
But one day i checked my blood pressure during one of these episodes and i noticed my blood pressure was pretty low: 108/50. It usually is around 110/60, and i'm kind of anemic.
I'm not sure if it's connected, but it makes sense since when you wall asleep blood pressure goes down and it would give you a strange feeling, for me, there's also a ringing in the ears.
Another time i checked my blood pressure and there was a spike in it.
So i would conclude that these sensations, for me at least, are causes by sudden changes in blood pressure and a little anemia.
Also, i noticed these changes occur during weather changes: when the weather is hot my blood pressure drops, and when the hot weather changes to cloudy cold weather my pressure rises along with aches in my joints.
I should add that i'm in my 20's.

[Disa87]

i want to ask more about this, i´m having this heavy feeling right now. i was in bed, like most of the times that i get this feeling. i wasn´t feeling any anxiety, i was just thinking about my day, then started blinking rapidly and feeling extremely heavy but still a felt a little like i was barely touching the bed, like i was beeing lifted a little. I feel confused when this happens, not because i dont know what it is... just confused, it has been happening for years. and funny thing, i also remember it happening ones while i was watching top gear :P

[rephlexe]

Oh I also forgot to add the fact that I also sometimes have the sensation of everything moving in fast-forward when in this "state"
Also the occurence of this "state" increases when I play computer games for an extended period of time, which leads me to believe it is caused by some sort of stress oh the body/mind
cheers

[rephlexe]

Hi Taylor, I am 20 study Biology and I have experienced almost exactly the same thing as you descirbed. I used to have it whilst asleep, and wake up as if from a nightmare, but the fear was something different, much greater.
I couldn't describe it to anybody as I couldnt find the words that would be appropriate. Just now I was lying on the sofa watching Topgear, and it was a scene showing a car driving on a country road, with very peacefull music.
I then suddenly felt my body growing very heavy and instantly recognised the feeling as what you described and as i remembered having when I was younger. I have learnt to not be scared by this anymore, as I have found that as soon as I talk to another person, the feeling vanishes completely.
What I tried was to focus on enhancing the effect. I closed my eyes and found myself staring into the blackness and trying to focus on an infintely far away point, which caused my eyes to blink whilst being closed. The feeling of weight kept increasing and I kept staring further into the blackness. I felt my heart beat harder and my breathing slow down.
What happend next was a bit wierd. I felt as if the darkness itself was an entity and was slowly crushing me, which I imagine was the feeling of the extreme weight of my body. Then for some reason I can't really explain I had the urge to say "Hello" which I then did, and opened my eyes.
The whole feeling was instantly gone. Feeling very curious and slightly light headed I googled "body feels very heavy" and found this page.

I hope this description of what happend will aid in someone in "diagnosing" what this sensation is. Studying Biology myself and taking courses in Neuroscience, this topic really interests me and I kindly invite anybody with any knowledge regarding this to please leave a comment!
Thanks for reading =)

[taylor32]

I have had this since i was a little girl. I call it my big hand attack. Im now 32 years old and still havnt a clue what it is. It happens most when im in bed, it worsened with stress and i seemed to have it every week when i was pregnant with my boys. But not with my girl. I had  an ecg when i was pregnant with my first. And quess what they found nothing. I have learned to live with it and when i feel an atack cUmming on i will count.Something to focus on. I never get up and walk around as it can feel like im fast forwooding my self or slowing my self right down, that is scary! I suffer with depreson and anxiaty and presently waiting for blood test as my doc thinks i have lupus. Hope my experiance helps in anyway. The only advice i can give is dont worry its not life thretening. It will not take your state of mind permenetly. And when you have it again just calm down and consentrate on someting else and it will pass. Good luck.x

[sapphire250]

I have the same thing happen to me. I noticed it coming on me periodicaly after I lowered the dose of my anti-depressant. I think stree and anxiety can be the cause. When you find out please let me know. I will be consulting my doctor on January 18th.
It is very scarey feeling!!
Sapphire250

[JainMD]

Hi Sandy,
How frequently do you get such symptoms?
Do you think these could be seizure episodes? If yes, have you evaluated for it?
I think it could be due to seizure disorder. It might be absence seizure.
I think you should be consulting a neurologist at earliest and decide regarding imaging study and EEG.
Alternatively, it can also be stress and anxiety.
Yes, Stress and anxiety can do this. Stress is the condition that results when person-environment transactions lead the individual to perceive a discrepancy, whether real or not, between the demands of a situation and the resources of the person's biological, psychological or social systems. Anxiety is a normal reaction to stress.
You can try yoga, relaxation and meditation to ease yourself.
Keep me informed about your ailment.
Hope this helps.
Bye.

[sandangel21]

JainMD, I agree with you...I have absence seizures...I do this at night while trying to sleep, which, I get little of,  I have so much pain all through out the night and my body feels like it weighs a thousand pounds and i can't roll over...I experience this about 3 to 4 time a week.  I'm so glad I came across your post.  Thank You.

[Suri123]

Hi, how about your work schedule. I feel you seem to be stressed. Spend more time with your family or close friends and relatives. You can call you family physician and get checked once.