Ask HN: How do you deal with cold hands whilst coding? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you deal with cold hands whilst coding?

6 pointscode17715 comments

I find that my hands and fingers get very cold whilst coding. Does anybody else have this happen, and if so what (if anything) do you do to counter it?

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Gloves. Yes, seriously. There are a number of skin-tight insulating gloves on the market, typically for arthritis and often designed to improve circulation. Some have open fingertips (or you could cut the tips off yourself) so they don't get in the way of touch on the keyboard. It's not the coolest fashion statement, but they really do help.

I have this problem only if I haven't exercised and/or eaten that day. I would suggest regular meals (every 3-4 hours you are awake) and exercise in combination with using space heaters to warm the air within your area.

From a medical perspective your problem is circulation, exercise, eat right, use supplements, and take a break every couple hours by walking around, working out, or anything. It'll go away in a couple months.

From my perspective, a relevant medical factor is germs. I clean my keyboard and wash my hands frequently for this reason. I've also worked on lots of underlying medical stuff (including circulation), but that's a long terms process (and can take way more than a couple of months depending upon what the underlying issues are). In the short term, killing the germs on the keyboard and on my hands does wonders.

I'm sorry, you've lost me here with the correlation between cold hands and "germs". This seems like more of a psycho/physiological condition.

It's okay, I lose a lot of people. But I'm getting well when doctors say it can't be done, so I'm pretty confident of a lot of my observations, the rest of the world's disbelief not withstanding.

Peace.

Forgive my delay, glad things are looking up. Best to you.

I tend to keep my keyboard on my lap, where it gets fairly warm and radiates onto my hands. When even colder inside, I use a laptop, which essentially has a heated keyboard.

Knitted hand warmers. They're fingerless gloves, basically.

I went to school in a very cold place, and this was a problem. Gloves didn't do squat. Sometimes I got the feeling that they made my hands colder.

I programmed under the blanket.

If that's not an option, you could (god forbid) exercise strenuously (do 50 jumping jacks), after which you would be very warm for several minutes. :D

There are those hand warmer things that you can get at any gas station. You shake them and they're hot for hours. You could put one in each glove...

I wipe my keyboard down before I get started, wash my hands with warm water, get adequate amounts of good quality sea salt, and drink warm coffee. I also worked on my underlying health and my hands are less prone to getting cold now that I am less anemic and such.

Try wearing long sleeves. And/or a hat.

If your body is cold, your extremities get screwed.

If you smoke or drink caffeine, these can cause vasoconstriction which reduces blood flow to your hands.

If the problem is really serious, it could be a medical problem called Raynaud's Syndrome.

heh.. i seriously have this problem too. Funny you brought it up.. anyways I use a small desk heater, I blow across my keyboard area. Not sure how I feel about using gloves, and I do drink a big cup of hot coffee, and generally doesn't help much.

yes I use a blanket, but then again I work from home.

I find getting a hot cup of tea / coffee works.

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