My Feet Go Numb After Meditation Round. Can This Be Avoided?

[Shantanu]

Hello all,

 

I practice meditation each day, sitting straight on yoga mat.

At the end of each round, my feet go numb, it is difficult to even stand for few minutes.

Is it common with meditation? Is there any way it can be avoided?

[charlie cho]

do you sit, and your butt gets pressed a lot? Just sit in a different position

[Markus]

With postures where you sit on the floor, on a mat, on a cushion, this is normal. These postures put pressure on your nerves so the signals don't get through. You're not actually cutting off blood circulation so don't worry about massive necrosis or anything like that  As your body adjusts to the posture, you probably won't go numb quite as fast.

Could pressure on nerves damage them? Theoretically yes, and there certainly are some stories of that happening. But if nerve damage does occur as result of a posture, it is gradual and you couldn't cause sudden damage or anything like that. Plus nerves have a good capacity to heal themselves so even if minor damage does occur, it should go away once you stop doing the thing that caused it.

To sum up, it isn't something you need to worry about. If you get up, and in a few minutes your legs are fine, everything's alright. There is a meditation technique called strong determination sitting where practitioners may sit for long hours, and they're allegedly fine as well. I'm personally practicing sds, building up the time I sit with adding 5 more minutes consistently. As long as the numbness subsides after the sit like it always has, I have nothing to worry about.

[Arman]

Markus nailed it. It's just a pinched nerve, not lack of circulation, so you'll be fine. Stretch out the limb or portion that's numb and wait a few minutes. If I'm doing 20m+ or endurance meditation, then sometimes I've found your leg can actually kind of move into the next level of numbness where it feels oddly fine like 10 seconds, then goes beyond the pins and needles sensation into a kind of awful hollow feeling that's hard to describe. Even that goes away after a few mins. 

It happens to lots of people. It's only an issue worth considering if it's effecting you in the rest of the day. Not even worth adjusting for in meditation itself.

[Shantanu]

@charlie cho Yeah, I sit with quarter lotus posture. 

@Markus Thanks for detailed description. I was not aware of the fact that pressure on nerves causes this.

 

Its my 19th day out of 30 days meditation challenge. I was never worried about legs getting numb. 

I was more interested whether there are any ways that this could be avoided.

 

 

 

 

 

[Markus]

@Shantanu I don't know whether it is avoidable. From my experience, as long as there is either crossing of legs or ankles pressed against a surface, the feet or legs will go numb. Even if it feels like there isn't any pressure, they still do. So as far as any lotus posture, whether quarter, half, full, or Burmese, goes, legs going numb is probably unavoidable...unless you adjust your posture during the sit, I guess. Since I practice strong determination sitting, that is not something I'm familiar with.

[Shantanu]

Thanks @Markus

It helped!

 

[Leo Gura]

How can you expect to sit on a yoga mat and not have those issues? Yoga mats offer almost no padding.

Buy yourself some serious cushioning if you intend to do long sits.

[Shantanu]

Sure @Leo Gura. I am OK with it since I am doing it just for 20 mins now. 

After my 1 month challenge, I would definitely try few things and update this tread. 

Thanks for your work! 

Edited February 14, 2016 by Shantanu