I'm not used to having warm hands and feet

From perpetual cold to warm all the time

When we last saw our hero (me, duh), she had just written about how she got a part-time job on a pig farm! Truly everything her parents ever dreamed for her.

On my first day of training, I went in the house and ate chili because I didn’t know I was supposed to bring lunch. There, I met Miss Sandy, who is Bob’s wife. (elysiumpigs.com)

I shook her hand.

And MISS SANDY SAID, “Oh, wow, your hands are so warm.”

Listen up, folks. My hands have never been warm. My hands and feet are perpetual icicles, and I’ve vaguely heard it has to do with thyroid (never checked myself) and blah blah blah

Even as a little girl my mom helped me put my cold feet into a bucket of nicely heated water before bed so my feet would be warm when I went to bed.

A few months ago when I was living in San Diego I even noticed my left pinky was especially cold, colder than the rest of my hand for a little while, and I wondered if I should try acupuncture for it or not.

But do you know what I did starting the very day before my first day on the pig farm? (Meaning I was two days in when I went to work)

I started doing qigong videos off of YouTube. Qigong, an energy movement practice that my Thai Massage teacher Rose has touted for decades (and a decade+ of knowing her), which I always assumed would do me good but had never bit the bullet on.

I don’t know what the exact video was but one of the first ones I did was from this guy, who does quite a good job:

Before I decided to be racist and only look for videos with Chinese people to start my journey with. My absolute favorite is this woman:

I thought this extremely popular guy was so terrible it made me want to start teaching again

My favorite lady up there blatantly talks about the chi (qi) balls you’re making in your hands, uses graphics sometimes, and uses sounds sometimes, like in this video. She also breaks down the movements in longer videos. I am sure I used the above ten minute video in replacement of my snooze button on the day I got up to try out the pig farming job. Rolled out of bed and put it right on to wake up my body and energy.

I haven’t done qigong every day since, just some days, and my hands remain warm. My feet still remain warm. Very warm. I’m still weirded out about it. I’ve had one day in the last month where my feet seemed cold.

I’m just not used to my hands being warmer than the rest of my body. I’m used to placing my hands between my thighs when I go to sleep at night in a desperate attempt to warm them up.

Ages ago I met an old Chinese healer man who told me that his warm hands meant he had good qi built up.

Is it possible that I just needed two sessions of qigong to achieve and unlock greater energy balance throughout my system? Maybe.

I love that it (with some instructors) so blatantly embraces energy language. I love the frequently rhythmic movements for pumping fluids through my body. I love the variety of movements. It’s been around basically forever and is at least part of all those viral videos of ageless Chinese aunties and uncles in the parks still moving so well.

The search terms I used:

• “qigong arm swings” - for a client who is doing them for shoulder health

• “qigong (insert number of minutes you have)”

• or just “qigong” and scrolling through to pick something intuitively and give it a shot

Do you have cold hands or feet?

I’d love to do a mini study among us and see if anyone else experiences this effect after a few days to a week of YouTube qigong.

Then get used to heat radiating out of the palms of your hands and feet.