When I stretch out my hand, it is not shaky at all. However, very often when I'm trying to balance some delecate, light object in my hand, it may start shaking uncontrollably. For example, I take a teaspoon of sugar to put in my tea, but decide that I took too much and must shake off a part of the sugar from the spoon. Often this results in my hand beginning to shake with increasing magnitude until I stop it with willpower (I need more willpower than just controlling my hand normally) or it bumps into some object. This doesn't happen with heavier objects, or when I am moving something around. It looks like those shakes are triggered by trying to keep something light in balance. Me trying to shake off some sugar is slightly disbalancing the spoon and then trying to balance it again.

I've asked several people, and their guesses vary from me having smked too much weed, which seems absurd (I've smoked, but in small amounts), to me being a guitarist (these people say that all guitarists have shaky hands).

So, do you guys have this problem, and what do you think may be causing it? Does playing the guitar really affect your hands?

Post has been edited 1 time(s), last time on Jun 12 2009, 1:33 pm by JaFF.

It's more likely to be a matter of balance rather than an effect of drugs or playing the guitar.

Maybe your hands also shake when lifting larger objects, only that the inertia of the object prevents it from doing so.
But hey, what do I know? I don't study every detail of the body. (Unlike some people around here.)

This happens to me when I play too much video games.
This is extremely annoying when I'm playing an instrument (viola, or guitar in your case), the hand starts shaking and it gets out of control.

But anyway, the cause is not guitar or weed based.

I don't play much video games. And this shakiness does not show itself in any other way; I'm perfectly fine when I'm playing the guitar.

Well... I have no personal experience with the problem, but I do have a mostly baseless guess from my ass!
Given that you specified it occurs when 'trying to balance light objects', perhaps you've got stray/confused signals going to your muscle about how to hold it steady? Like if one who doesn't know how tries to move their ear, they might make wierd faces because they don't know exactly how to tell exactly which muscles to contract.

Before you posted I didn't even know how to explain what my muscles do. I've tried it with the heaviest pen I could find, and here's what's going on:

I hold it with two fingers by one end, and try to sway it a bit. The shaking begins. It feels as if my brain knows which muscles to use, but uses too much foce and makes the movements too 'sudden'. So if I'm holding the pen with my thumb and index finger, with the index finger being on top, and the pen is moving down (remember that I'm holding it by one end), I know that I must contract certain muscles in my index finger to make it press the pen down a bit more, hence stabilising the other end which is also moving down. But I seem to do it with too much force, making the free end of the pen go up to much and then the same thing happens with the thumb.

This happens to me too, to a lesser degree. My theory is that it's psychological. Like if you tried to do it without thinking about it, you could do it fine. But when you think about it and how exactly to do it, it fucks with you and you can't do it right. That's at least how I think it works with me.

If I hold a pen sometimes my hand starts shaking like this.. the end I'm not holding moves everywhere, and usually ends with me dropping it. This usually happens when I'm writing a lot. If I move my hand it will stop, but if I put it back in the same position it starts again.
Normally (such as now), if I hold it horizontally so it is not making any other contact to my hand (between my index finger and my thumb, resting on my middle finger), I can see it shake a little.. but I think that is normal.
Maybe you just have horribly not-steady hands.

I thought this topic was about me.

Anyway, hi, Wikipedia! Or, more specifically, this part. Parkinson's is serious business.

There's a lot of medical conditions that can cause hand tremors, which is what it sounds like. I have Graves Disease, its very mild, but occasionally my hands shake uncontrollably. You could go see a doctor, but if you have a medical condition it probably isn't serious if the only problem is hand tremors...

It could also be dehydration. My hands shake a lot when I'm dehydrated.

With Parkinson's, they would shake if I stretch them out. But that is not the case.
Yeah, it's nothing serious. And it's not dehydration for sure. Not going to see a doctor because of it though - don't want to waste money over some hypothetical BS.

Also, I am trying to find a way to see if it's psychological or not. But it seems that every time the conditions are met for my hands to start shaking, I either remember that they actually started shaking or I don't remember the case. >_< I'll think of something though.

Pick a tremor, any tremor