Cold Hands and Feet – anxiety symptoms
Cold hands and cold feet, such as feeling like your hands, feet, or both are unusually cold, and no matter what you do, you can’t seem to warm them up are common anxiety symptoms, especially anxiety and panic attack symptoms. Even wearing heavy socks or using a blanket doesn’t seem to help.
This article explains the relationship between anxiety and having cold hand, cold feet, or both.
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Cold Hands and Feet Common Anxiety Symptom Descriptions
- Your hands, feet, or both feel unusually cold even though there isn’t a real reason for it, such as cold weather or temperature.
- Your hands, feet, or both feel cold even though you have warm socks on, gloves on, or have them wrapped in a blanket.
- Your hands, feet, or both feel uncharacteristically cold and for no apparent reason.
- Your hands, feet. or both feel cold even though they should be warm, such as when in bed and under the blankets, wearing warm boots or gloves, or in a warm environment.
- Your hands, feet, or both feel cold even though the rest of your body feels warm.
- No matter what you do you can’t seem to warm your hands or feet.
- Even though your body feels warm when using a heated blanket or warming bag, your hand, feet, or both feel ice cold.
This symptom can persistently affect the hands or feet only, can shift from hands to the feet or vice versa, and can affect both hands and feet simultaneously.
Cold hands, feet, or both can:
- Occur occasionally, frequently, or persistently.
- Precede, accompany, or follow an escalation of other anxiety symptoms or occur by itself.
- Precede, accompany, or follow a period of nervousness, anxiety, fear, and stress, or occur "out of the blue" for no reason.
- Range in intensity from mild, to moderate, to severe.
- Come in waves where it’s strong one moment and eases off the next.
- Occur for a while, subside, and then return for no reason.
- Change from day to day, moment to moment, or remain as a constant background during your struggle with anxiety disorder.
This symptom can seem more noticeable when undistracted, resting, trying to sleep, or waking up.
All the above combinations and variations are common.
To see if anxiety might be playing a role in your symptoms, rate your level of anxiety using our free one-minute instant results Anxiety Test, Anxiety Disorder Test, or Hyperstimulation Test.
The higher the rating, the more likely anxiety could be contributing to or causing your anxiety symptoms, including feeling like impending doom symptoms.
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What causes cold hands and feet?
Medical Advisory
Talk to your doctor about all new, changing, persistent, and returning symptoms as some medical conditions and medications can cause anxiety-like symptoms.
Cold hands, feet, or both are common anxiety symptoms. I (Jim Folk) had this symptom a lot when I was struggling with anxiety disorder.
Anxiety can cause this symptom in many ways. Here are the most common:
1. Anxiety-Activated Stress Response
Anxious behavior, such as worry, activates the stress response, which secretes stress hormones into the bloodstream that immediately prepare the body for emergency action – to fight or flee. This instinctual survival reaction is often referred to as the Fight Or Flight Response.[1][2]
Visit the “Stress Response” article for the many ways the stress response can affect the body and how we feel.
Many stress response changes can cause cold hands and feet. For instance, the stress response:
- Stimulates the sympathetic nervous system, increasing nervous system activity to be more sensitive and reactive to danger. Nervous system stimulation can affect the body in many ways, leading to cold hands and feet.
- Shunts blood to parts of the body vital to survival, such as the brain, arms, legs, and vital organs, and away from parts less vital for survival, such as the stomach, digestive system, and skin. It accomplishes this by constricting blood vessels in certain parts of the body and dilating them in others. Shunting blood away from the skin can cause those body parts to feel cold because blood keeps the body warm, which is why humans are often called “warm-blooded.”
- Heightens most of the body’s senses to be more aware of danger. Increased sensory awareness can also include an increased sensitivity to cold, especially in the extremities, such as the hands and feet.
- Increases heart rate, respiration, and metabolism due to the boost in energy. Increased respiration can lead to hyperventilation, which can cause cold hands and feet.
- Increases perspiration to keep the body cool and expel toxins. Increased perspiration can also make the hands and feet feel cold.
- Tightens muscles to make the body more resilient to injury. Tight arm, hand, leg, and foot muscles can constrict blood vessels, causing cold hands and feet.
- Affects other hormones, which can cause fluctuating hormone levels, resulting in cold hand, feet, or both.
Many people experience “cold and clammy” hands and “cold feet” when nervous; hence, the term “cold feet” means nervousness about something or loss of confidence.
The degree of stress response is proportional to the degree of anxiety. The more anxious you are, the more dramatic the stress response and its sensations.
Acute cold hands and feet are common symptoms of an active stress response.
2. Hyperstimulation
Frequently activating the stress response, such as from overly anxious behavior, can leave the body in a state of semi-stress-response-readiness, which we call “stress-response hyperstimulation” since stress hormones are powerful stimulants.
Hyperstimulation is also often referred to as “hyperarousal,” “HPA axis dysfunction,” or “nervous system dysregulation.”[3][4][5]
Visit our “Hyperstimulation” article for more information about the many ways hyperstimulation can affect the body and how we feel. Recovery Support members can read the more extensive explanation in Chapter 14.
Hyperstimulation can cause the changes of an active stress response even though a stress response hasn’t been activated. Chronic cold hands, feet, or both are common symptoms of hyperstimulation.
Hyperstimulation can cause cold hands, feet, or both in other ways. For instance:
- Nervous System Dysregulation: Hyperstimulation can cause nervous system regulation problems, including causing the nervous system to act erratically. An erratically behaving nervous system can cause many symptoms, including cold hands and feet.
- Homeostatic Dysregulation: Hyperstimulation can cause problems with how the body manages its internal balance (equilibrium). Homeostatic regulation problems can cause episodes of feeling hot or cold, including in the hands and feet.
- Hormone fluctuations: As mentioned, stress hormones can affect other hormones. Chronically fluctuating hormone levels can cause many parts of the body to feel cold, including the hands and feet. It’s also common for hyperstimulation-caused fluctuating hormone levels to cause hot flashes that are replaced with cold flashes, including in the hands and feet.
Hyperstimulation is a common cause of chronic cold hands and feet symptoms, and why these symptoms can occur seemingly “out of the blue” and without warning.
As long as the body is hyperstimulated, even slightly, it can present symptoms of any type, number, severity, duration, frequency, and at any time.
Having cold hands, feet, or both is a common symptom of hyperstimulation.
Other Factors
Other factors can create stress and cause anxiety-like symptoms, as well as aggravate existing anxiety symptoms, including:
- Medication
- Recreational drugs
- Stimulants
- Sleep deprivation
- Fatigue
- Hyper and hypoventilation
- Low blood sugar
- Nutritional deficiencies
- Dehydration
- Hormone changes
- Pain
Select the relevant link for more information.
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Treatment: How To Get Rid Of Cold Hands And Feet
When this symptom is caused or aggravated by other factors, addressing those factors can reduce and eliminate episodes of cold hands and feet.
When this symptom is caused by an anxiety-triggered stress response, calming yourself will end the active stress response and its changes. Anxiety cold hands and feet symptoms will subside as your body recovers from the active stress response.
Keep in mind that it can take up to 20 minutes or more for the body to recover from a major stress response. But this is normal and shouldn’t be a cause for concern.
When this symptom is caused by hyperstimulation, eliminating hyperstimulation will end this anxiety symptom.
You can reduce and eliminate hyperstimulation by:
- Containing anxious behavior.
- Reducing stress.
- Regular deep relaxation.
- Relaxed diaphragmatic breathing.
- Regular light to moderate exercise.
- Getting regular good sleep.
- Eating a healthy diet of whole and natural foods.
- Avoiding stimulants.
- Passively-accepting your symptoms until they subside.
- Being patient as your body recovers.
Visit our “60 Natural Ways To Reduce Stress” article for more ways to reduce stress.
As the body recovers from hyperstimulation, it stops sending symptoms of hyperstimulation, including cold hands and feet.
However, eliminating hyperstimulation can take much longer than most people think, causing symptoms to linger longer than expected.
As long as the body is hyperstimulated, even slightly, it can present symptoms of any type, number, intensity, duration, frequency, and at any time, including this one.
Since worrying and becoming upset about anxiety symptoms stress the body, these behaviors can interfere with and stall recovery.
Passively accepting your symptoms – allowing them to persist without reacting to, resisting, worrying about, or fighting them – while doing your recovery work will cause their cessation in time.
Acceptance, practice, and patience are key to recovery.
Recovery Support
The Recovery Support area of our website contains thousands of pages of important self-help information to help individuals overcome anxiety disorder, hyperstimulation, and symptoms.
Due to the vast amount of information, including a private Discussion Forum, many of our Recovery Support members consider it their online recovery support group.
Therapy
Unidentified and unaddressed underlying factors cause issues with anxiety. As such, they are the primary reason why anxiety symptoms persist.
Addressing your underlying factors (Level Two recovery) is most important if you want lasting success.
Addressing Level Two recovery can help you:
- Contain anxious behavior.
- Become unafraid of anxiety symptoms and the strong feelings of anxiety.
- End anxiety symptoms.
- Successfully address the underlying factors that so often cause issues with anxiety.
- End what can feel like out-of-control worry.
All our recommended anxiety therapists have had anxiety disorder and overcame it. Their personal experience with anxiety disorder and their Master's Degree and above professional training give them insight other therapists don't have.
If you want to achieve lasting success over anxiety disorder, any one of our recommended therapists would be a good choice.
Working with an experienced anxiety disorder therapist is the most effective way to treat anxiety disorder, especially if you have persistent symptoms and difficulty containing anxious behavior, such as worry.[6][7][8]
In many cases, working with an experienced therapist is the only way to overcome stubborn anxiety.
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Common Anxiety Symptoms
Additional Resources
- For a comprehensive list of Anxiety Disorders Symptoms Signs, Types, Causes, Diagnosis, and Treatment.
- Anxiety and panic attacks symptoms can be powerful experiences. Find out what they are and how to stop them.
- How to stop an anxiety attack and panic.
- Free online anxiety tests to screen for anxiety. Two minute tests with instant results. Such as:
- Anxiety 101 is a summarized description of anxiety, anxiety disorder, and how to overcome it.
Return to our anxiety disorders signs and symptoms page.
anxietycentre.com: Information, support, and therapy for anxiety disorder and its symptoms, including cold hands and feet anxiety symptoms.
References
1. Chu, Brianna, et al. “Physiology, Stress Reaction.” StatPearls, 7 May 2024.
2. Yaribeygi, Habib, et al. “The Impact of Stress on Body Function: A Review.” EXCLI Journal, Leibniz Research Centre for Working Environment and Human Factors, 2017.
3. Patriquin, Michelle A., and Sanjay J. Mathew. “The Neurobiological Mechanisms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder and Chronic Stress.” Chronic Stress (Thousand Oaks, Calif.), U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2017.
4. Teixeira, Renata Roland, et al. “Chronic Stress Induces a Hyporeactivity of the Autonomic Nervous System in Response to Acute Mental Stressor and Impairs Cognitive Performance in Business Executives.” Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports., U.S. National Library of Medicine, 2015.
5. Kinlein, Scott A., et al. “Dysregulated Hypothalamic–Pituitary–Adrenal Axis Function Contributes to Altered Endocrine and Neurobehavioral Responses to Acute Stress.” Frontiers In Psychiatry, 13 Mar. 2015.
6. Hofmann, Stefan G., et al. “The Efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: A Review of Meta-Analyses.” Cognitive Therapy and Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 1 Oct. 2012.
7. Leichsenring, Falk. “Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy the Gold Standard for Psychotherapy?” JAMA, American Medical Association, 10 Oct. 2017.
8. DISCLAIMER: Because each body is somewhat chemically unique, and because each person will have a unique mix of symptoms and underlying factors, recovery results may vary. Variances can occur for many reasons, including due to the severity of the condition, the ability of the person to apply the recovery concepts, and the commitment to making behavioral change.