You had a football match with your pals, everyone one of you is as exhausted as you are but you decide to play those last 20 minutes with all your might. You scored for your team and made you win then you guys had your party together, dancing and jumping all around. You feel your jersey to be all wet. From the back, the frond, the underarms, every spot is wet. Why is that so??
Or let’s take another cue here-
The one thing that you never forget to apply when you step out of your home is not sunscreen is not your lip moisturizer or your mascara or eyeliner, it is something else. That one thing is which you spray on yourselves before leaving your home or might take it along with you and use it frequently throughout the day. That is your DEODORANT. If you are a person who sweats a lot, deodorants and perfumes are no less than a blessing to you and your friends who give you such gifts are no less than angels for you. Isn’t it? Well, I am not going to endorse any of the deodorant or perfume brands here; I will straightly jump on the reason why you need it? To put off your body odor. And that body smell is caused by SWEAT that your body releases.
SWEAT is the same reason for which your football jersey got all wet. Not only jersey but your whole body too. What is sweat? I will take up this question along with others like- What causes it? And Is it okay to sweat a lot?
Sweat is a liquid that your body-or sweat glands (to be more specific), releases. These sweat glands are present all over your skin. Sweat is almost water completely but it also has some other chemicals from the body like ammonia, urea salts (these are basically the by-products of breaking down of your body proteins), sugars, etc. These are present in very small quantities in your sweat.
And SWEATING is then the process of your body to release sweat. This is also called as PERSPIRATION.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Actually what happens is that when sweat is released out of the pores of your skin, it is actually helping you to detoxify your body. It releases toxins mixed with water giving you sweating feels.
Your sweat glands- eccrine are present all over your body skin and apocrine glands are present in hair follicles.
WHAT CAUSES YOU TO SWEAT?
Sweating is customary. You would find yourself to be sweating every day because of some or the other reason. Here are common causes of sweating of a person-
- High temperature: High temperature, either it is outside the body or within the body, makes you sweat above the normal level.
- Emotions: There are certain emotional situations like when you feel very angry; when you are nervous and anxious; when you feel embarrassed –your sweat glands release this liquid.
- Food: Really? Can food make you sweat? Yes, it can. Food which is spicy or hot beverages like coffee etc. can make you sweat.
These all were normal causes of sweating. Sometimes sweating is also one of the symptoms of many ailments such as fever, cancer, infection or other health issues.
WHAT ARE THE FUNCTIONS OF SWEATING?
Body odor is enough reason for many people to defame the sweating process of their bodies. But it is not just to make people averse of you; rather sweating has many health benefits those remain unknown commonly, which are-
- MAINTAINING BODY TEMPERATURE: Haven’t you ever thought that why do you sweat a lot in summers mostly and not in winters? This is because through sweating your body is maintaining your body temperature. Your body works at a certain temperature and your brain constantly tries to maintain that temperature of your body. That is why when it gets too hot, heat is flushed out of your body in form of sweat through sweat glands.
- DETOXIFYING METALS OUT OF YOUR BODY: A study revealed the conclusion that people who exercised daily or basically who release sweat often have fewer amounts of metals in their bodies while those who do not involve in such activities have high levels of metals. Earlier only urine was considered as a metal detoxifying agent, but the presence of metal in sweat led to the conclusion that sweat is also an agent to flush metals out of the body.
- ELIMINATING CHEMICALS: Certain chemicals are also released out of the body through the sweating processes such as Bisphenol A (BPA), which is an industrial chemical and used in making of resins, and Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCB), which are considered as a cause of many health ailments.
- BACTERIAL ELIMINATION: Sweat consists of nearly 99% of water and rest 1% is chemicals, metals (as stated above) and bacteria that is why the people who sweat often have fewer skin problems than those who don’t sweat out.
If we have such benefits from sweating then
WHY ARE PEOPLE AVERSE TO SWEATY PEOPLE?
It is because of the smell. Sweating causes foul or sour body odour. But many people don’t smell too bad when they sweat and some smell the worst when they do. Why so? The probable reasons:
- The sweat glands that are present in our hair follicles produces a smelly sweat while the other sweat glands may not secret a smelly sweat. If a person is suffering foul smell because of sweating it is possible because of his or her apocrine glands.
- Stress sweat: You sweat when exposed to heat and you sweat under emotional stress. The latter version of sweat smells worse than the former one. If any of your meeting deadlines make you sweat then you will also smell foul at that meeting.
- Health conditions: A person who is suffering from certain health issues such as sugar, kidney or liver malfunctioning etc. will not have normal sweat. He will have more sour-smelling sweat.
However, deodorants these days can be an effective option to eliminate this problem. People may also change their lifestyle and eating habits to normal for controlling sweat odors.
Apart from odor issues from their sweating people are also irritated by their excessive sweating.
This condition is also called “HYPERHIDROSIS”. It is when you sweat a lot than normal situations or normal levels. If you sweat even in a calm and cool situation then your body has an overactive sweating mechanism and you release four times more sweat.
This kind of sweating is caused by medications, high blood pressure, any other disease or any genetics syndrome. There may be many advantages of sweating but just like excessive of anything is bad, sweating also needs to be in a limit. This is because excessive sweating me excessive water loss from our body which may dehydrate you and can cause other health traumas and even death in worst cases. That is why people who feel they be sweating a lot should keep drinking water and liquids to avoid getting water drained from their bodies.
