When I sleep, sometimes the circulation to my arms gets cut off. I understand that it’s good to get a deep sleep, but your limbs shouldn’t be going to sleep on you, as well.

In fact, when your arms do get all pins and needles, it wakes you up from whatever depth of sleep you were in so your arm won’t turn blue and need to be amputated.

I’ve been sleeping the same way my whole life, so to have this arm-numbing feeling rouse me in the middle of the night is a little disturbing. It never used to happen.

I’m thinking it’s an age thing. Stuff inside gets pinched or constricted in some way and, BAM, all of a sudden you’re dreaming about an elastic band being wrapped around your arm just above the elbow.

There have been a couple of times I’ve woken up and haven’t been able to feel my arm. I worry that my arm will get so starved of blood it’ll become useless to me. I will have to walk around with my arm dangling and I’ll be unable to use it or stop it.

Just the other day, however, I discovered that my muscles are too tight and that’s what’s causing the circulation in my arms to be cut off.

Apparently, I need to loosen up some of the muscles around my neck and shoulders. I’m wondering if I had have stretched more if I wouldn’t have this problem now.

I’ve never liked to stretch. I know experts say you should stretch before and after you work out, but I’ve never done it; I’ve never felt the need to. I’m not the most flexible guy, but I never thought it has hurt me in any way.

But maybe if I’d been stretching all these years, my arms wouldn’t feel like a couple of 2×4’s attached to my body at two in the morning.

Another theory I have is the older we get the tighter we get, the more tension we carry in our muscles, and the more they start to put the squeeze on our nerve pathways until they can’t transmit information from the brain to that limb or back.

It’s like when you’re driving and talking on your cell phone to a friend (using hands-free bluetooth, of course). When you suddenly enter an area that doesn’t have a cell tower to give you a signal, your phone call goes dead and you’ve lost the connection with your friend.

With a phone, you have to re-enter a cell area and make a new connection. The good thing with your arm is you just have to wait a few seconds until the connection is restored automatically.

So now I’m doing some exercises and stretches to limber up my muscles in hopes that my arms won’t take any more liberties of catching a few extra zzz’s while my brain doesn’t know what’s going on.

In the mean time, if I find my arm is tingling at 4 am, I know it’s not my “spidey sense” and that the “Sandman” isn’t robbing an armoured car or something (Spider-Man 3 movie).

Here’s the thing: Prayer is one of the greatest connections we have with God. If we restrict our prayer with God, we will for sure hinder our communication with Him. Praying regularly and often will keep the connection flowing and prevent you from having that numbing feeling when you have lost the means to transmit your thoughts and needs to God.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What causes you to restrict your prayer times with God?

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