Although sometimes sweating feels pretty good after exercise, it’s less than pleasant when your face is so damp that you can’t even put on makeup, or when all of your light shirts seem to be discolored. Sweat, however, is our body’s cooling system. When the temperature of your body rises, the nervous system enables sweat glands to activate, and then moisture comes out on your skin and eventually evaporates after cooling your body down. So even though we need sweat in our lives, we’re always working against it, always aiming to smell less, trying to prevent it before a meeting or pushing ourselves to lose tons at the gym. However, if you take the time to pay attention to your perspiration, you can actually learn a whole lot about your own health. These are 8 things your sweat is trying to tell you.
You are pregnant or about to go through menopause
Everything that has to do with the endocrine system can make you feel a great deal more sweaty than you usually do. 85% of women experience hot flashes before going through menopause. However, pregnancy can also be a factor, since hormonal changes can play around with the brain’s thermostat, thinking that you have gotten too hot, and then releasing the sweat response.
You are over stressed
If you are constantly wondering if it’s you that smells, try to take a minute to think about what you’ve been going through lately. If you are anxious or stressed, your armpits are probably the culprit of the smell. The sweat produced from being hot comes from the eccrine glands and is water and salt, for the most part, that is released throughout the whole body. However, when it comes to stress, it comes from the apocrine glands which are in the armpits and smells a lot worse than other types of sweat.
You are full of happiness or fear and are spreading it
Believe it or not, the people surrounding you can tell what you are going through based on how your sweat smells. An experiment had women smell men’s samples of sweat that had just watched clips that intended to either make them happy or scare them. The study shows how a woman who smelled the sweat from a guy who had been scared, had a more scared facial expression towards to him, and the same went for happiness.
You are a risk for heatstroke
You’re on a summer walk and then you suddenly stop sweating and feel dizzy. This is known as anhidrosis, which is an inability to normally sweat and is actually very dangerous. It does not allow your body to naturally cool you down. If you do not hydrate properly or relocate to a cooler area in such a situation, you are at risk for heatstroke or heat exhaustion. Long term anhidrosis can be caused by some medications or nerve damage, so if you see a significant reduction in how much you sweat, make sure to talk about it with a health care professional.
You have low blood sugar
Your blood sugar is supposed to be between 70 to 100 milligrams per deciliter while you’re fasting. But when it goes below 70, you might feel the drop and one of the symptoms could be sweating excessively Luckily in most cases you can raise your blood sugar up again by drinking or eating someone. If it does rise, however, you will need to seek medical help.
You are not eating properly
If you are experiencing bad odor, there’s a chance you have a disorder called trimethylaminuria. It’s a rare genetic disorder in which your body is not capable of breaking down this chemical compound while digesting certain foods such as fish, eggs, and legumes. And in turn, you body release excessive trimethylamine through your breath, urine and sweat with a terrible smell similar to rotting fish.
You may need to drink more
If you’ve been sweating so much to the point that it’s dripping in your eyes and even stings, or have dried white sweat marks on your face then you are most likely a salty sweater. This is not uncommon among people who have low sodium diets, and you will need to opt for a sports drink or electrolyte tablet.
You may have hyperhidrosis
If even your doctor cannot explain your excessive sweating, then perhaps you have focal hyperhidrosis. This medical condition is generally noticed by sweating so much that it interferes with one’s daily life. Sweating is supposed to happen when you are either hot, stressed or exercising, and not at all times. Experts are still not quite sure what causes it but are aware that it is genetic.
