How To Get A Steadier Hand

Magazine | How to Keep Your Hands Steady

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/magazine/how-to-keep-your-hands-steady.html

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How to Keep Your Hands Steady

March 18, 2016

Credit... Illustration by Radio

''You can have coffee, just don't overdose,'' says Bryan Berg, who builds elaborate structures out of unfolded, free-standing playing cards. Walt Disney World commissioned him to assemble a replica of Cinderella's castle using 3,000 decks of cards. In Hong Kong, he constructed a miniature Beijing Olympic Village with more than 109,000 cards.

All bodies tremble; doctors call these shakes physiologic tremors, and stimulants like caffeine intensify them. How much coffee you can drink will depend on your tolerance; Berg keeps it to two large cups, to avoid ''the rattles.'' During a build, Berg works seven to eight hours a day for as long as a month. He tries to follow some basic behavioral rules. Get sufficient sleep (without it, ''the cards start falling,'' Berg says). Limit alcohol (surgeons tested on a laparoscopic simulator made more errors following a night of drinking, even after blood alcohol levels returned to zero). Eat regular meals (studies suggest that skipping meals increases twitching significantly).

Trust your inevitably wobbly, but nonetheless diligent, hands. The more you repeat the same task, the more comfortable you will be. ''Relax and let go — it's like riding a bike,'' Berg says.

Above all, maintain a calm psychological state. ''Your brain controls the micromovements of your body,'' says Berg, who trained as an architect. Faced with a detailed, high-stakes task, the mind tends to roil with worst-case scenarios. In order to derail negative thinking, Berg says, ''have something that is your go-to happy thought.'' Berg often visualizes the rural Iowa farm where he spent his boyhood, where his grandfather first taught him to stack cards when he was 8.

Special focus is needed when spectators are present. ''They've got their phones out, taking pictures,'' he says. ''It messes with you.'' And keep in mind the beautiful suspense that attends uncertain outcomes. Our bodies are not machines; they waver, knock things down. ''The fact that it could all go terribly wrong is what makes what I do cool,'' Berg says. ''It's not permanent.''