People can get sweaty palms for a variety of reasons. They may be agitated, it may be hot outside, or they may even have a condition called palmar hyperhidrosis. This can make life difficult on a number of levels – like trying to hold hands with someone.
You can do things about your sweaty palms, but if you don’t, using your laptop with sweaty palms can result in surface damage that is irreversible. While this mainly happens with Macs, it can also happen with Windows machines too, if you are not careful.
What Happens?
When you rest your sweaty hands on the laptop, it can have an effect on the color of the metal surface. Why is this? Well, Apple anodizes their laptops to give it a particular color.
They coat the surface with a layer of oxide. This is an important part of the process, since it does help protect it from being corroded over time. It doesn’t protect it from sweaty palms, though.
While it won’t do anything like break the laptop, it could leave an unpleasant mark on the exterior of the laptop. So, you will have to look at that every time you use it. It is just displeasing from an aesthetic standpoint.
So how can you keep this from happening? Here are a few things that you can do:
Wash Your Hands Often
One way to try to eliminate the sweaty palms is to wash your hands and thoroughly dry them before you start using your laptop. Do you use lotion to try to keep your skin smooth? That can also lead to discoloration of the laptop’s surface.
If you do this, then you can just put the lotion on after you have finished using the laptop. That way, you won’t have to worry about another possible source of discoloration.
Limit How Often You Use The Laptop
This one might be a little more difficult to accomplish, especially if you use your laptop for your job. You might have to spend a good amount of time on it, but if you do keep your hands as clean and dry as possible, then that will help.
Also, you can stop using the laptop when you have finished work for the day. Another possibility is to use your phone or your desktop for some other parts of your work. That way, you will be minimizing how much time you will have your sweaty palms resting on it.
Change How You Type
This may take a bit of work, but once you get the hang of it, you will find that you are typing much more efficiently. Most people type with the meat of their palms resting squarely on the base of the laptop. Instead, they should be elevating their hands and typing there.
This is a more ergonomic way of doing it and it can both save your laptop’s surface and your hands and wrists. Carpal tunnel syndrome is not something that you want to have on top of sweaty palms, right?
Get a Palm Rest Protector
There are plenty of these on the market. They look like a thin strip of foam or gel and you lay it at the base of the laptop. This way, you can rest your palms on that instead of on the laptop.
They are relatively inexpensive and can also help support your hands and wrists as you type to help you ward off possibly getting carpal tunnel syndrome.
Get an External Keyboard
Yes, you may think that this is redundant, why would you get a keyboard for your laptop which already has one? These keyboards are both affordable and are also made of material that will withstand your sweaty palms.
They can also keep your keys from getting smudged or even disappearing. That may not be a problem for those who are touch-types, but it can be extremely annoying for others. The external keyboard will keep that from happening.
If you find that your laptop is discolored, Apple will call that cosmetic damage and not do any repairs on it. You could try anodizing it yourself, but it is a technical process and you are far from guaranteed to get the exact color that you had before.
On top of that, Apple purposely makes it difficult to take apart your laptop to do that. Other laptop makers also tend to follow the same reasoning.
There are ways to cure sweaty palms. Surgery is one of them, and there is a 99% success rate. Some anatomical abnormalities prevent it from having a perfect rate.
But the vast majority of people who have this surgery find themselves cured of sweaty palms. The patients also discovered that they had a much higher quality of life after they had the surgery.
Many people deal with sweaty palms. You can be one of those who manages to take care of it. Your life will be better for it and you can enjoy things like holding hands with someone again.
It can be aggravating when something happens to your laptop due to your sweaty palms, but if you do the above things, then you can have a better chance of it not happening again with a new one down the road. Then you will be able to enjoy using it for work or leisure without worrying about your palms.