6 Reasons Why Your Hands Are Shaking

Everything from a hard workout to underlying disease could explain your shakes.

Credit:www.prevention.com

Parkinson’s Disease

While essential tremor is apparent when your hands are active, the type of hand movement associated with Parkinson’s is called a “rest tremor” because it shows up when the hands are idle, says Michael Rezak, MD, PhD, director of the Movement Disorders and Neurodegenerative Diseases Center at Northwestern Medicine.

Stress

Every living person has a very mild—basically, invisible—form of tremor that results from their heartbeat, blood flow, and other processes going on inside their bodies. This is called a physiologic tremor. But under certain conditions, this tremor can become more pronounced, Jankovic says.

Too Much Caffeine

Just as stress can heighten your normally undetectable physiologic tremor, so can caffeine, Jankovic says. If you notice your hands shaking after coffee or other sources of caffeine, it’s time to cut back—or switch to half-caff.

That said, caffeine (and stress) can also make essential tremor more noticeable, he adds. If you think your tremors are more than a simple caffeine overload, let your doctor know about it.

Fatigue

Yet another cause of enhanced physiologic tremor: fatigue.

Whether you’re tired due to a lack of sleep or because you completed a long, grueling workout, both muscle fatigue and exhaustion are associated with tremors of the hands and other body parts, research shows. Ditto, anything that can mess with your sleep—like a night of heavy drinking.