A good stretch is supposed to feel satisfying. For a small number of people, most of them adolescent or young adult males, arching the neck back and stretching the shoulders ends in a brief loss of consciousness.
Doctors in Texas are calling attention to the condition in a case report published Sept. 8 in the Annals of the Child Neurology Society. The title makes their argument: "Self-Induced Stretch Syncope: An Underrecognized Condition." The authors are Samia M. Khan of Texas A&M University's Naresh K. Vashisht College of Medicine and Vandana J. Vedanarayanan of the University of Texas at Austin Dell Medical School.
