If heavy sweating has no underlying medical cause, it’s called primary hyperhidrosis. This type occurs when the nerves responsible for triggering your sweat glands become overactive and call for more perspiration even when it’s not needed. Primary hyperhidrosis may be at least partially hereditary.
If the sweating can be attributed to an underlying medical condition, it’s called secondary hyperhidrosis.
Well, it is a treatable condition, wherein you could be suffering from Hyperhidrosis. It is characterized by excessive sweating of the palms and soles of the feet. It occurs when the sympathetic nervous system gets overactive and creates more sweat than required by the body.
In this article, we discuss the causes, how to stop it and also some preventive measures you should take to prevent it.
What Causes Excessive Sweating?
- Exercise– When your body is proactive on the workouts and always on a constant run(literally). The heat inside the body tends to burst out in the form of sweat, hence cooling the body down.
- Hyperhidrosis – It is a condition that affects 3% population where people sweat more than what is considered normal. This excessive sweat can occur in the palms, feet, underarms etc.
- Emotions – Strong emotions like anger, excitement and stress can activate your sweat glands to exude profusely.
- Diabetes – For people with diabetes, excessive sweating is a common symptom. When sugar goes low, not only does the dizzy feeling come across but also comes with a load of sweat.
- Thyroid – Excessive sweating is a symptom of thyroid, and that’s as far as it’s concerned relating to thyroid.
In some cases, people mostly sweat at nights and why is that so? Well similar causes, just with more intense reasons such as :
- Menopause– One of the main cause of excessive sweating at night in women is menopause. Occurring mostly around the age of 50yrs, this is a natural condition.
- Infections– These range from tuberculosis to being a symptom of HIV. Bacterial infections also result in night sweats.
- Cancers– Night sweats may be one of the earliest signs to potential cancer. So be sure to get a check-up even on the slightest
- Medication– Antidepressant medicines most commonly result in sweats at night. So if you’re taking those medicines on a regular basis, you’re sure to sweat it out.
- Neurologic Conditions– Neurologic conditions including dysreflexia, stroke, autonomic neuropathy etc may increase sweating conditions causing excessive conditions.
How To Stop Excessive Sweating?
1. Proper Diet – The first lifestyle change that you need to make is to cut out spicy food and caffeine from your diet. Both these can stimulate your sweat glands, resulting in excessive sweating.
In fact, the next time you eat something really spicy, notice if you break out in a sweat. If you do, then you know that you definitely need to cut out these triggers.
2. Water– Drink a lot of water. Water helps keep your body cool as well as helps flush out toxins, both these functions are done by sweating as well.
So when you drink more water to take care of these vital functions, your body is less inclined to sweat in order to get rid of toxins and cool down your temperature.
– Always take a cold shower. Hot shower or baths do not really help with excessive sweating. Have you ever noticed that as soon as you step out of a hot shower, your body starts perspiring and sweating?
Well, this could be because of an immediate change in temperature from hot to cold. So always have a refreshing cold shower.
4. Kill The Bacteria– Use a strong antibacterial soap. If you sweat excessively, then the stinky smell that comes is a result of bacteria that rot and fester in your underarm and other regions.
Using an antibacterial soap on a regular basis, especially after your workouts, should help with this problem.
5. Get Rid of Underarm Hair Keep your underarms shaved or waxed. Keeping your underarms hairless will help the sweat to evaporate much faster. Also, when there is a lot of hair, it provides the perfect atmosphere for the bacteria to thrive, resulting in a foul smell.
6. Live In Light Clothes– Wear cotton clothing as much as possible. Letting your skin breathe will reduce sweating to a great extent. So wear cotton clothing, especially during hot days.
7. Acupuncture– So what acupuncture does is, it stimulates certain points in the body to balance energy and also relaxes the brain, by controlling the hypothalamus. It is definitely not painful, more on the tickle bone side. This can work in reducing sweat glands from oozing excessively.
8. Emotional Stability– Try to remain calm and at peace always, as too many emotions trigger can and will cause excess sweat.
9. Never Be Overweight – 90% of people with the excessive sweating condition are overweight. So it is good and healthy to first lose a few pounds before trying other tips and remedies.
10. Yoga– This is one of the most natural ways to control excessive sweat. The meditation, asanas to calm the nerves, subsequently lessen sweat production.
11. Sweat Pads – Make use of over-the-counter sweat absorbent pads. You can place them under your arms and in other such danger zones to absorb the excess sweat.
12. Avoid alcohol and cigarettes– The chemicals and toxins in the alcohol and tobacco cause a delay in blood circulation which quite naturally doesn’t help in controlling sweat. Drugs are included in this category too.
You may be wondering why I haven’t listed the more obvious solutions—deodorants and antiperspirants. While I agree that they are good fixes, always remember that they are temporary and do not really help you in the long run.
In fact, they can darken your skin and cause irritation and rashes. They don’t deal with the problem, but rather only mask it. So while you can go in for extra-strong deodorants, they cannot be your end solution to fight excessive sweating.
As sometimes, all practices might take a long time to control the excessive sweating, meanwhile do your part in avoiding the foul odor that comes from sweat.
Tips to Avoid That Excessive Sweating Smell:
- Avoid foods containing sulphur
- Avoid alcohol. (Yes, that’s right)
Now, what other concerns do we have? Our sweat patches have a solution which are sweat pads, but there are times we don’t have them in hand at the right time. So how do we dress right to avoid the sweat underarm stains or elsewhere?
- Never wear bright colours as sweat is most visible in those colours.
Prefer very dark colours like black, dark blue or go for very light colours like white. Both the extremes are comparatively safer options.
- Wear an undershirt beneath to absorb the sweat inside before it reaches to a stage we can all see. So be sure to layer your clothes.
- Cotton is your best option in a cool climate, whereas if you know you’re going to be sweating hard, it is your worst option. Cotton soaks up the sweat which can be visible far fetched.
Coming to your next concern, if at all, those sweat stains do happen, how do you get rid of it?
Fill up a bucket of warm water and add one big scoop of OxiClean to the water. Now submerge your shirt into the bucket, and let it soak for an hour for mild stains.
For not-so-mild and strong stains, let it soak overnight after which it can be laundered and ironed as usual.
Do you have any question? comment below.
