I used to sit at my desk in February with my fingers turning white at the tips. Typing became clumsy. Holding a cold glass was genuinely painful. I assumed it was just poor circulation and there was nothing to do about it.

My doctor said it was probably mild Raynaud’s—a condition where blood vessels in the extremities overreact to cold and constrict too much. Not dangerous, but annoying. She gave me three things to try that were not “wear thicker socks.”

1. Warm Your Core, Not Your Hands

When your body senses cold, it prioritizes keeping your vital organs warm. Blood vessels in your hands and feet constrict to shunt warm blood to your core. If you warm your hands directly with a heater or hot water, the blood vessels dilate briefly—but then your core gets the signal that it is actually still cold, and they constrict again.

The fix: wear a vest. Keeping your torso warm signals to your body that it is safe to send blood back to your extremities. I started wearing a thin down vest indoors and my fingers stayed pink. A heated vest works even better—I have one with a USB battery pack that lasts four hours.

2. The Wrist and Ankle Trick

Your major blood vessels run close to the surface at your wrists and ankles. Wrapping those areas—not tightly, just covered—helps retain heat in the blood before it reaches your fingers and toes. I wear wrist warmers (look like fingerless gloves without the glove part) while typing. They look a little ridiculous. My fingers do not care.

3. The Quick-Reset Exercise

When your fingers go white and numb: swing your arms in big circles, like a windmill, for 30 seconds. Centrifugal force pushes blood into your fingertips. It is the same principle as shaking a thermometer to get the mercury down. The color comes back within a minute.

This one I learned from a ski instructor who dealt with frozen fingers daily. It looks ridiculous in an office. It works anywhere.

If your cold hands come with color changes—white, then blue, then red—that is classic Raynaud’s and worth mentioning to a doctor. But for the everyday always-cold person, these three things made a bigger difference than the expensive heated gloves I bought and returned.