Summer Is Here and the Sweat You Hate Is Actually Good For You!

Summer is here and while high heat and humidity can be unpleasant and energy-sapping, the sweat that accompanies the sweltering weather actually plays a major role in keeping us healthy.

By now, we all know that sweat actually helps the body cool off in the dog days of summer. But experts now say that sweat also helps with everything from detoxification to inducing a runner’s high and can even help in healing and aiding antibiotic effects.

Sweat, which comes from a staggering 2 million to 4 million sweat glands across the average human body, is simply water plus salts such as sodium and potassium, trace minerals including copper, iron, nickel, and zinc, and waste products.

Over the years, you may have heard a snarky expression about sweat that traces all the way back to the Victorian era: “Horses sweat, men perspire, and women glow.”

Whatever ladies and gentlemen of a bygone era liked to think, the reality is there is not much difference between the sexes when it comes to sweat. Our sweat is produced by two types of glands. Eccrine glands, which can amount to up to 3 million glands on the average human, excrete simple sweat. Apocrine glands, which can be up to 1 million in number and are under arms and in the groin, release a fat-thickened sweat that emerges odorless but turns smelly when bacteria living naturally in these areas digest and excrete it.

However and wherever it occurs, as the website the healthy.com explains, sweat performs several basic jobs. First and definitely foremost, as it evaporates on the skin, sweat helps keep our bodies at a safe temperature, preventing the overheating that might lead to heat exhaustion, heatstroke, and dehydration.

Second and sadly, while mild exercise-producing mild sweat after a night on the town may improve your mood, it does not speed up eliminating alcohol from your body so, no, you can’t sweat away a hangover.

On the other hand, recent research suggests that sweating may reduce the possibility of a number of medical unpleasantries. Data from a Finnish study published in the Mayo Clinic Proceedings indicates that regular sauna bathing, with its obvious sweat-inducing heat, may lessen the risks of a bunch of health issues, including “high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, stroke, and neurocognitive disorders, as well as pulmonary diseases and even the common flu.”

Up top on your body’s surface, sweat increases the flow of blood to the skin, making it smoother and more flexible to give you that glow the Victorians noticed. (Even if you’re a male.) Better yet, exercise-induced sweating releases endorphins, the body’s mood enhancers that create the well-known “runner’s high.”

Once you add to its smoothing your skin, and alleviating arthritic pain, you might think about heading for the hot room. Mother Nature probably knew all this because sweat’s also a natural immune-system booster. Remember how you might run a fever when suffering a viral or bacterial infection. Why? The bugs making you sick are vulnerable to heat, which can wipe them away.

In addition, intriguing data from a study published in the journal Psychological Science suggests, but does not prove, that we might be able to “communicate positive emotions like happiness through the scent of our sweat. When we experience joy, our bodies produce specific chemical compounds, or ‘chemosignals,’ that others can detect through the smell of our sweat, potentially influencing their mood as well.”

Which leaves a final question: Does sweating have a downside? Nothing is perfect, so the obvious answer is ”yes.” For some individuals, sweat can irritate the skin, leading to issues such as heat rash or dermatitis. And for one and all, excessive sweating isn’t just uncomfortable. It may lead to dehydration if fluids aren’t adequately replenished. That is why at every workout you’re reminded to drink liquids while exercising to keep yourself properly hydrated.