Beware: You may be at risk from the dreaded 'Saturdaynightitis'!
How you may get Saturdaynightitis
Step 1: Go out to a
pub or
nightclub, or stock your house as if it were a drinking/socialising establishment, ie, lots of
alcohol and
the will to get pissed.
Step 2: Drink the alcohol. The
consumption of drugs is optional but not neccessary.
Step 3: Drink more. And more. Repeat steps 2 & 3 until you are capable of step 4.
Step 4: Get to a place to sleep (preferably your own
bed) and
pass out. Do not
clean your teeth, do not drink any
water, do not do anything
except pass out. If you do anything to wake yourself up, such as drinking
coffee, you won't experience Saturdaynightitis.
Step 5:
Wake up around 12 hours later. If you've done steps 1 to 4 correctly, you may have slept on your
arm, or
hand, or
leg, on a weird angle. You may be experiencing the feeling of a body part being "
asleep";
tingling, kind of
painful, uncapable of movement for a period of time decided by how long you lay on the body part undisturbed.
The science that explains Saturdaynightitis
(This explanation uses the hand as an example body part. You can replace 'hand' with arm, leg, foot or any other limb/extremity.)
If you fall
asleep with your hand under your body in an
unusual position you may exert pressure on the
nerves in that hand. Such
pressure will squeeze the nerves and stop the
messages that travel from your
brain to your hand (
"Move your hand, you idiot! It hurts!"). As the messages are blocked, so is the oxygen that would usually travel along the paths in the hand. If you're passed out, your brain doesn't get the message to the hand as it normally would if you were
awake.
When you wake up after an extended period of sleeping in a weird position your "asleep" body part may take a while to get the blood and oxygen flowing normally again. There's the usual tingling sensation, then the burning pain as the fibres which control pain and temperature get back to normal. Finally, the numbness is the last to go; it took a friend about a day to get full use of her hand back after sleeping on it.
Saturdaynightitis is the colloquial name given to the described phenemenon as it usually happens to young crazy kids after a night out- most often a Friday or Saturday night.
How to avoid Saturdaynightitis
Don't
drink to excess. According to the doctor who told us about this terrible affliction, it's one of the only ways to avoid the agony. Or avoid sleep. Your choice.
science stuff from http://www.uselessknowledge.com/explain/pins_needles.shtml