
Ask HN: How do you deal with cold hands whilst coding? - code177
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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jcr
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.

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djloche
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.

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curt
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.

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Mz
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.

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bigohms
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.

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Mz
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.

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

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chronomex
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.

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

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leslieMichaels
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...

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Mz
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.

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sixtofour
Try wearing long sleeves. And/or a hat.

If your body is cold, your extremities get screwed.

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biotech
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.

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minalecs
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.

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

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

