Why Do I Jump in My Sleep?

Video transcription

Hello, my name is Dr. Robert Hernandez. I'm a psychologist in Miami, Florida and I'm president and owner of La Farfalla Retreat House. Do you have a partner or somebody that watches you sleep and they make fun every time you jump in your sleep. And why does that happen? Well these are called myoclonic twitches and basically the thought behind it is, that there's 2 theories that are behind that. One is that the body relaxes way too quickly and by doing that, the brain actually believes the person is falling. So a lot of the times people have these short little dreams or episodes where they feel they're falling. Well, the brain does feel that so it gets the muscles to contract very quickly and then relax, causing this twitch or jump, which is what they call the myoclonic twitch. Another thing is that the brain feels because it's going very unconscious, very quickly that it's a threat and then the anxiety comes in and the nervous system comes in which is the autonomic nervous system again causing the muscles to contract. And the person again jumps. So like I said before it's really not a big concern, just know that trying to get back to a restful place is important after a twitch.