Why can't I clench my fist when I wake up?

Factual Questions
1

I have searched high and low for the answer to this question, but I can’t seem to find a factual answer anywhere.

This has been happening for as long as I can remember. In fact, I didn’t realize that nobody else I know experiences this until a couple of years ago.

Every time I wake up from a deep sleep (whether napping on a plane, waking up in bed in the a.m… doesn’t seem to matter), I find that I can’t make my hands into fists. They’re sort of weak, but not numb at all. I can’t unscrew the toothpaste top-- that’s how weak my hand is-- nor pick up a heavy-ish book with one hand. It takes about twenty minutes before I’m able to perform normal tasks with my hands.

I have always thought it was just because my body is “slow” to waking up. I’m also one of those people who is extremely clumsy in the morning, and needs to just sit quietly in a chair, cupping my mug of coffee in both hands (because they’re weak!) before doing anything substantial.

This doesn’t happen when I’ve slept badly. Just after a deep sleep.

And there’s no pain, like a pinched nerve, or anything like that. I sleep in all sorts of positions. I can remember being five years old and rushing to the pile of presents on Christmas morning and being unable to fiddle with them because my hands were too “sleepy.”

Can anyone explain what’s going on here? I’m not particularly concerned but I am terribly curious.

Thanks!

2

I cannot help you in your question, but FWIW, I often notice myself as well (and have for years and years). I can make a fist, but there is NO strength to it. Takes a little while to get full strength.

You’re not alone, and I am curious as to what this phenomenon is as well.

3

How odd you should mention this, I had this when I was young, but hadn’t thought about it in many years. I’d like to know the answer too. I just assumed that sleep had somehow left some static in the motor neuron paths. Too much noise to signal ratio or something. When I grew to adulthood, my neurons seem to have gotten themselves sorted out well enough that the condition ceased.

Speaking of getting a grip immediately upon awakening, recall this passage from Riddley Walker by Russell Hoban…

4

I can’t make a fist when I’ve been laughing.

5

Had this happen myself for a long time, though not recently.

The best theory I had heard was that you clench your fists very tightly when asleep (possibly due to stress?) so that when you wake up, the muscles there are actually fatigued.

6

Potentially it could be arthritis.

i have had similar symptoms since i was young and it’s quite common for arthritis sufferers’ to be unable to manipulate their joints properly upon waking. Otherwise it could just be normal for you.

It may be worthwhile having your doctor check it out in case you do have some sort of problem.

7

fighting ignorant: hmm, it doesn’t seem to be the case that I clench my fists. The weakness-- how to explain? Perhaps LiveOnAPlane would be better able to describe the sensation. It’s not like muscle soreness, or that wibbley wobbley feeling of muscle fatigue. It’s like your hands are really really slow to catch on to the fact that your head’s awake. I guess.

Zelie Zelerton: I hope I don’t have arthritis! I doubt that, since I actually just had a checkup six months ago. Everything’s working fine. I’m not even close to anemic. Of course, it didn’t occur to me to ask about my sleepy crazy hands.

Johanna, your quote… :eek:

8

Can’t help much, but I’ll try.

It seems like the muscles are just not firing. No quivers, no shakes, no pain. It’s just that even when I’m bearing down so hard that my hand is literally shaking, no force is being applied. I can’t even squeeze my thumb, say, with enough force for it to hurt. After an hour, I can squeeze it enough to holler “Uncle!”

The muscles just won’t go beyond a certain point. I don’t feel like they’re weak, they just go up a certain level and no more.

No bother, it’s just dang strange.

Oh, and BTW, I can remember this happening since I was in my 20s. I’m 56 now, so it surely isn’t an indication of some dread disease that’s gonna get worse and maybe kill me. And yeah, it only happens sometimes, not every morning.

9

I’ll add it happens to me (26 years old) just after sleep ends and its as described, I can’t grip anything with what I would deem normal strength at all.

10

I experience it, and one of the causes is swelling in all the tissue. A small amount of swelling can make it hard to grip stuff. Try to bend your thumb to your palm, don’t push it into place. I can tell how badly I’m swelling, by how far my thumb can go. You can touch your thumb to palm. The slight swelling makes blood flow more difficult and sleeping decreases blood flow more. The swelling without the blood flow problem causes enough diffaculty in closing your hand, and sleep adds to the problem. I can’t grip anything after sleeping until I get the blood flow going, and the grip is weak until my swelling reduces to being able to touch thumb tip to palm.

11

This has been discussed previously, but I couldn’t find a Cecil column about it:

12

I have to say again that the descriptions DO sound like arthritis. It is a problem which can affect plenty of young people. I’ve had it since my teens for example. I think that most doctors are not likely to look out for that in anyone young so it can often go undiagnosed.

Not wishing to alarm anyone by saying that. i’m not saying it’s indicative of some dread disease! :stuck_out_tongue: My joint problems are no big deal and rarely hamper me - it’s just a case of working around them. And that might just be a case of lying flexing my hands in the early morning to get things in order.

13

I’m astounded by how common this appears to be on these boards. If this happened to me I would freak out. What if you had to wake up and do something in the event of an emergency?

14

You mean like a guy that has to go to the bathroom when they wake up?

You find work arounds for everything in time.

I once ripped down a pull blind. I have to wrap the cord around my hand and pull with my forearm. The shade cocked sideways, and busted apart instead of pulling up.

15

I remember having this phenomenon when I was kid, but I haven’t it in a long time. Could be I just haven’t tried to make a fist in the morning for a while, or maybe you can outgrow it.

16

You know, when I have been woken up by an emergency-- once some guy started banging on my fire escape door, which is about six feet from my door-- from what I can remember, I leapt out of bed and was just fine. Adrenaline seemed to counteract the wobblies. of course, perhaps I hadn’t been sleeping well that night.

Revtim, it’s impossible not to notice this sort of thing. It’s not just, “hey, I can’t make a fist!” but it’s along the lines of… having to pre-loosen my contact lens case caps so in the morning I can open then, and buying unbreakable mugs for the coffee because I drop them so easily, and so on.

Zelie Zelerton , I don’t know much about arthritis but since you seem pretty sure I’ll ask my doctor about it. Can one be affected by arthritis ONLY after sleeping? Kids can be affected by arthritis? I had no idea. I might add that I’m pretty athletic, and generally have never noticed anything unlucky or unhealthy about my body (except for accidents, of course). It has actually never occurred to me that this could be the result of arthritis…

DarrenS, thank you for digging up those threads. For some reason my search was futile… I found them interesting but I wish there had been some sort of resolution! Now this is becoming Bizzaro Hand quest.

Harmonious Discord, perhaps your situation is a big different from mine. I don’t experience any swelling that I can tell – though, granted, sometimes the weakness feels like my hands are sorta like big useless mitts. But, huh… :confused: Could it be that there IS swelling, but I just don’t notice it?

On a related note. This morning I woke up in a jolly mood. “Saturday, my honey’s home, and I’m gonna fix BACON!” I thought to myself. So I fairly launched myself out of my bed with joyous glee, momentarily forgetting my morning wobblies.

My legs hadn’t woken up. I basically yelled, “Yippee!” and threw myself onto my ass, on the floor next to the bed. :frowning: I have a big bruise.

17

Overwhelmingly the most likely cause is a compressed nerve. The more difficult question is where it’s being compressed and why. Sometimes people with carpal tunnel syndrome report this same thing. Barring that, the nerves that help you make a fist run all through the shoulder/underarm area, and it’s very easy to compress one or all of them if you sleep on your side. Could be something’s off about your anatomy or posture that makes you more prone to this. I don’t have the fist problem but I do have a problem raising my shoulder sometimes when I wake up.

18

It is 100% not arthritis.

I mean, give me a break - it starts in early childhood, isn’t associated with pain or visible swelling, and has a distinct (and unusual) temporal pattern. That is NOT arthritis.

Come on folks. This is GQ not IMHO.

19

Oh, and before someone admonishes me and points out that arthritis can occur in childhood (e.g. JRA), yes, I know. It can. But it doesn’t ‘present’ in the manner described by the OP or others in this thread.

20

It’s definitely not arthritis. It’s neural or muscular, whatever it is. I noticed it when I was a kid, but I don’t have it now. Artritis is chronic and affects joints not muscles.