Stopping Cold Hands

Everyone hates the touch of cold hands in the winter! If you suffer from cold hands all the time, it can be a real pain to try and keep your hands warm without investing a lot of money in gloves. Better to take care of that circulation problem!

The limbs of the body stay warm when proper circulation gets to them. Oftentimes the hands become cold when blood circulation is restricted either in the wrist or forearm, or up around the neck & shoulder. Then, when the weather becomes cold, the hands cool off faster than blood circulation from the body can keep them warm. So, to keep the hands warm, you need to keep in mind a few things:

1. Keep stress & tension in the body low.
Sometimes this is easier said than done, but there are ways to lower your overall stress level. A few minutes each day of mindful meditation, or focusing on your breathing can help you feel more relaxed. When doing this it helps to pay attention to different areas of your body and imagine these areas becoming more relaxed as you breathe, or to physically tense a muscle or limb for 5-10 seconds and then allow it to relax as fast as possible. This can take out of a lot of muscle tension.

2. Keep the neck & shoulders mobile.
Tight muscles in the neck and shoulders can be a big problem for cold hands. To relax these, gentle exercises to use your full range of motion can help, but getting a massage can go a lot further.

3. Stretch out the wrists
After the neck & shoulder, keeping the muscles of the forearm loose is the next best help. The best ways to do this are to bring the wrist into full flexion for 5-7 seconds, and then also back into full extension for 5-7 seconds. This may be combined with turning of the wrist (pronation and supination). To get a better grasp of what is being said here, please watch the video!

If you’re having trouble pinning down the source of your cold hands, there may be other areas of the body that need work that are not obvious, or some other factor could be involved. In these cases it’s best to schedule your consultation and we can help you out!