[twistedanimator]

I too have struggled with painfully cold fingers and feet while I code. My hypothesis of what is happening is that when you're resting your arms on the table, you are preventing the free flow of blood in your forearms to your hands. Without warm blood reaching your hands, they get very cold. The same thing applies to your feet as the seat you're sitting in constrains blood flow in your legs.

A good short term solution is to fill a paper cup with hot water and wrap your hands around that. This provides temporary relief but only treats the symptom. The effect wears off quickly.

I have also tried fingerless gloves, but those are completely worthless.

The only real solution is to do some light exercise. Most days after I eat lunch, I will walk around for 30 minutes. This light exercise creates heat in my muscles and thereby heats up my blood. The warm blood can also freely circulate to my hands and feet as nothing is constraining the flow of blood. After about 15 minutes of walking I can feel an internal warmth returning to my hands. The skin is still cold but I know soon enough my hands will be warm again. And the effect lasts the rest of the day.

[curun1r]

> My hypothesis of what is happening is that when you're resting your arms on the table, you are preventing the free flow of blood in your forearms to your hands.

If this is what's happening, perhaps taking up indoor rock climbing would help. I know of no better exercise for improving the body's ability to send blood to the forearms and hands than rock climbing since so much of it depends on grip strength. Failing that, there are grip strength training devices (example...not suggesting this particular one: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00HB7V6KS) that he might keep by his desk to use when he starts getting cold fingers.

[snowcrshd]

> A good short term solution is to fill a paper cup with hot water and wrap your hands around that. This provides temporary relief but only treats the symptom. The effect wears off quickly.

+1 for that. Where I work there's a central cooling system at it gets very cold around where I sit. So I periodically grab some hot tea and hold the cup to help heat my hands.

I too do some walking to help increase body temperature and blood flow. It alleviates the symptoms somewhat.

When I work remotely from home, I use a stand up desk setup. I've found that I don't get the cold feeling when I do this.

[Filthy_casual]

Much appreciate your input. I noticed the exact same thing, but it also happens when I put my keyboard in the lap. My theory is that it's due to the impact of my fingers on the keys that "tease" the flow to slow down.

[gvd]

Pick a more expressive language. Less code will mean less arms on the table. All kidding aside, exercise will have benefits on all levels.