Anxiety and cold hands

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I've been performing for decades.
I started as a mime and slowly moved to talking.

I've noticed prior to starting my level of nervousness is proportional to temperature of my hands.
Once I start and get a reaction ( a laugh or response to a harmonica riff) I relax and move on to warmer hands.

Anyone else notice that temperature change?

That definitely sounds like a bodily reaction to anxiety.

When you get adrenaline in your system from anxiety, your body prepares itself for getting away from danger. So, for example, your heart rate and blood pressure rise. Your body also diverts blood flow to the big muscles that you need for running away, and the places it's needed to give you a quick boost in energy. The blood flow to extremities like fingers and toes is less vital, so they get less warming blood flowing through them - making them seem colder, and often less flexible or more/less sensitive to touch.

I used to get a similar thing back when I was playing in bands - for the first song or two, I would feel like I was playing my bass with rubber fingers, until I settled down a bit and my tactile sensation of the strings recovered.

Yes that's it though it would be ukulele rather than bass on a string thing. It also affected my hands especially with coin magic. I used to dream I dropped them( coins)
Big time anxiety during contest including talent & sports ie. regional air hockey tournaments back in the 70's .... Though I digress as usual. I think they call it clutching when anxiety gets the best of you in sports.

If your doctor is prepared to prescribe it, propranolol (a beta-blocker) can be beneficial, I've found.

I only take them an hour or so before events that I foresee as being stressful - there's no need to take it every day, as with traditional anti-depressants. Beta-blockers target the physiological changes associated with anxiety - but since brain activity also alters as levels of adrenaline change, they can also reduce the mental affects as well.

Of, course, that's just my experience - there are no letters after my name! But I've found it's helped me to stay out of the "red zone" of over-stimulation much more easily when used sparingly.

PS) Used to play a bit of uke' myself years ago - I had a reasonable little repertoire of George Formby songs for a while. Haven't picked it up for ages - the walls here are too thin, so I stick with electric instruments that I can play on headphones.