Everyone loves to sweat! Right? There’s a large stigma around sweating and I want to break that stigma! Some people view sweating as gross, uncomfortable, and look to avoid it at all costs. But sweating is very important for your health! Just like the infinite ways our body regulates itself, sweating provides multiple pathways towards repairing and keeping you healthy.
What You Don’t Know About Sweat And Your Health
You have two different sweat glands in our body. The main sweat gland, aka “eccrine gland” is found all over the body with the exception of hard skin areas (hands and the soles of your feet). The lack of them on your hands and feet is because you use the palms and soles for “push-off power” as slipping during that push-off would be a disaster! Imagine trying to run away from a threat, but wearing shoes on a sheet of ice. You’re not going to get very far!
The secondary type of sweat gland is called an “apocrine gland”. This gland is found in only two places; the groin and the armpit. This sweat gland produces liquid that attracts bacteria to the skin. The bacteria metabolizing the sweat and convert it into various proteins. This is the main reason everyone’s body odor is unique – so be grateful that it’s only found in a few places on your body! Keeping those areas of your body clean is the best way to mitigate body odor from becoming an issue. Some people notice an increase in body odor as they detox. It is important to note that the more proteins that are brought to the skin surface the more the bacteria have to feast on!
From a neurological perspective, sweating is controlled by the autonomic nervous system. This means that you can’t think “more sweat” and make your more sweat. The amount is based on the need of the body. The sympathetic nervous system controls the output of neurotransmitters that regulate fluid excretion through sweat. Knowing this, you might see how your spine and its alignment is responsible for you to maintain a healthy amount of sweat!
There’s also a concept known as ‘emotional sweating’ which is used in psychology as a way to measure lie-detection. This is the easiest way to detect a lie as only the palms of your hands become sweaty when you are asked a question for which you lie. This is a telltale sign that you are not telling the entire truth!
Why you should sweat! – Let’s get down to it. Three metabolic reasons to sweat on a daily basis!
⦁ Sweating is one of the bodies natural detoxification systems – Sweating has been proven to clear out a range of toxins in you body. In a recent study, participants sweat contained a range of pesticides, including DDT/DDE, endosulfan, and methoxychlor. By the way, these are all parent compounds of major pesticides! What’s more interesting about this is that these same pesticides were NOT found in participants blood and urine samples, suggesting that the pesticides were only metabolized and removed through the sweating process! So if your are someone who avoids sweating, you can imagine that these major toxins are being stored in your body and causing all sorts of dysfunction! Phthalate is a compound found in numerous plastics. In a study of testing phthalates in blood, urine, and sweat, sweat was found to have a 2x effect at removing the toxin compared to both blood and urine.
⦁ A pathway to move heavy metals – Sweat has been found to contain as much as 20x more cadmium, nickel, lead, and aluminum than urine, making it a much better way to remove the metals from the body. Many of you know your metals levels from the functional testing we do in our office. If not, get your heavy metals tested! We have an amazing detoxification program depending on what metals your body may be holding onto, and now it’s known that if you add sweating into your detox routine it will only amplify the detoxing effects. In addition to heavy metals, Bisphenol A (BPA), a major toxin found in plastic was best removed from sweat pathways. In fact, this endocrine-disrupting compound was removed 10x more in sweat than through the blood/urine stream.
⦁ Regulating your temperature through sweating – One of the best ways to regulate fluid in your body is to sweat. Sweating is as easy as sitting in your car on a hot summer’s day (one of my favorite activities) or sitting a sauna. At the moment, many of us are doing the exact opposite to regulate our body temperature. We are losing water in our bodies being in overheated homes. Keep the temperature in your home as low as possible so it’s less of a ‘shock’ to your body every time you enter your home. In a similar manner, during the heat of summer, sweating will help to balance your body temperature and cool it off.
It is important to note that sweating is an adaptation process by the body. As amazing as it is to sweat out heavy metals, pesticides, and other toxins, sweating can also remove key minerals from you body as well. After a good sweat, replenish key minerals that may have been lost. These include zinc, copper, selenium, chromium, and potassium. These should be added to the water consumed as they also need to be replaced. What’s amazing is that once your body adapts to sweating consistently, it will get better at removing the toxins, while leaving more of the minerals in your body.
A research study was done looking at the effectiveness of sweating in an infrared sauna versus a steam sauna. While each has their unique benefits sweat from the infrared sauna contained more bismuth, cadmium, uranium, chromium, and mercury. Sweat from the steam sauna contained more arsenic, aluminum, cobalt, copper, nickel, manganese, lead, tin, thallium, and zinc to be excreted. If you know the type of heavy metal toxicities your body is dealing with you can easily cater your ‘sweat therapy’ to best detoxify your body!