WHAT CAUSES EXCESSIVE SWEATING?

Excessive sweating refers to levels of sweating that make daily activities difficult. Having an excessive amount of sweat can disrupt your day-to-day life and cause crippling anxiety and embarrassment. Some people even avoid certain social or work events because they’re worried they’ll get too stressed or nervous and sweat to an embarrassing degree.

COMMON CAUSES OF EXCESSIVE SWEATING

Excessive sweating is commonly caused by stress. Two other factors are genetic make-up or an underlying medical condition. If excessive sweating has no underlying medical cause, it simply means that the nerves responsible for triggering your sweat glands are overactive and prompt sweat production even when it's not needed. It’s important to see a qualified physician to receive an accurate assessment before you can rule out any underlying medical conditions, such as diabetes, malaria, menopause or obesity.

STRESS

Did you know that stress is a major cause of excessive sweating? There is good stress and bad stress. Good stress can keep you focused and determined on meeting deadlines and overcoming challenges, but bad stress causes all kinds of inconvenient body reactions including excessive sweating.

Bad stress can be triggered by all kinds of things in our daily routines - speaking in front of an audience, getting stuck in a traffic jam on the way to an important meeting, or going on a first date.

These stressful situations are often crucial moments in which we need to be our best, so it’s no wonder that it is in these circumstances that people from all around the world are most concerned about the embarrassing side effects of sweating.

EMOTIONAL CHANGES

Unlike thermal sweating, emotional sweating is often referred to as “having cold sweats" because it is not linked to the outside temperature and can occur even in shade or air-conditioned buildings.

Stressful situations trigger a typical series of body responses: our heart beats faster, the blood supply to the muscles increases and adrenalin is released into the blood stream.

This adrenalin rush triggers a rapid 'burst of sweat' - mainly in the underarms but also on the soles of the feet, the palm of the hand and the face. The apocrine sweat glands also become active and secrete the fatty sweat that skin bacteria feed on. This results in the unpleasant body odour - which is significantly more unpleasant than in the case of thermal sweating.

HORMONES

Changes in hormone levels can cause us to sweat, for example during menopause. This is because hormones are responsible for regulating body temperature.

NATURAL AIR CONDITIONING

Sweating is our body’s natural way of cooling itself down. It works in 2 ways, firstly when your skin is wet it makes you feel cooler especially when a breeze goes past it. Secondly, your sweat will absorb heat energy and then evaporate off your skin taking the heat energy away with it.

ALCOHOL

When we drink sometimes our heart rate can speed up and blood vessels can dilate, this makes the brain think it's exercising which triggers a reaction to try and cool down; by sweating.

DIET

Eating certain things can cause you to sweat more than others, for example a certain component in spicy foods sends a signal to the brain which makes it think body temperature is increasing. Another example is meat, sometimes the body uses a lot of energy to metabolise meat and so body temperature can go up, which can cause sweating.