If you’ve ever felt your body suddenly jolt, jerk, or snap you awake just as you were drifting off, you’re not alone. Many people describe it as a sudden shock of alertness, a rush of adrenaline, or the feeling that their body “misfired” at the edge of sleep.

It can be frightening, especially when it happens repeatedly. The mind often jumps to worst-case explanations, wondering if something is wrong with the heart, brain, or nervous system.

If this keeps happening, it does not mean something is wrong with your heart, brain, or nervous system. What you’re experiencing is a stress-response pattern — one that commonly shows up at sleep onset and feels far more alarming than it actually is.

This experience is often referred to as jolting awake from sleep anxiety, and while it feels intense in the moment, it is a well-recognized and reversible nervous system response.