WHY YOUR FINGERS WRINKLE LIKE OLD CLOTHES IN WATER

I was washing clothes last Saturday and I stayed long inside water. When I finally brought my hands out, I just looked at my fingertips. They were all wrinkled like I have suddenly turned 80 years old. My toes were even worse.

For many years I just thought it was because skin soaks water and swells up. It feels like that is the obvious answer. But i made. research and that is not what actually happens.

What really happens is controlled by your nervous system. When your fingers stay in water for a looooong time, your autonomic nervous system tells the blood vessels under your fingertip skin to constrict and shrink a little..... When the vessels shrink, the skin on top looses volume and folds into wrinklees. So it is not water entering the skin, it is your nerves pulling things tighter underneath.

And there is a very clever reason for it. Those wrinklees are not random. They work like the treads on a car tyyre. They drain water away and give you better grip when things are wet or slipperry. In the past, this would have helped our ancestors hold wet branches...., gather food from streams...., or walk on wet rocks without slipping.

That is why only your fingertips and toes wrinkle, and not your whole palm or the back of your hand.....(making sense right?), The body only wrinkles where you actually need grip.

There is one more surprising part. If the nerve to your finger is damaged, your finger will not wrinkle at all in water. Doctors even use this test to check if nerves in the hand are still working properly after an injuryy or not.

So next time you see your skin looking old in water, it is not damage at all. It is your body preparing you to grip better.

Have you noticed your toes wrinkle faster than your fingers? Mine always does.

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