In order for us to enjoy optimal levels of health and fitness, it doesn't take a genius to work out that a healthy diet and plenty of physical exercise are both crucially and important. When we exercise we tend to get out of breath, struggle to breathe at a controlled pace, and we often sweat, sometimes some of us sweat worse than others. Now, when people think of sweating, they think of it as a pretty disgusting bodily function and rightfully so as when sweat comes into contact with bacteria it does tend to smell pretty disgusting. However, despite the fact that we don’t tend to smell too great when we sweat, the truth is that sweating is actually very good for us and plays a pretty crucial role in the daily goings on of our bodily functions and processes.
Why do we sweat? – In basic terms, we sweat to help to regulate our core body temperature. When we exercise and engage in physical activity and exertion our heart rate increases and our core body temperature rises. To ensure that our core body temperatures don’t rise too much, our bodies secrete sweat, which actually cools our skin down by evaporation. It’s basically the same premise as a cooling system in a car engine, just to ensure that we don’t overheat our body secretes liquid sweat which cools us down as we evaporate. As well as helping to regulate our body temperature however, sweating also offers us numerous other benefits as well.
Sweating helps to rid our bodies of toxins – As well as regulating our core body temperatures, sweating is also beneficial because it actually allows us to excrete harmful toxins out of our bodies. Every single day we’re exposed to toxins all around us. Some of them are found in foods and drinks that we consume, some of them are in the air due to pollution such as vehicle exhaust fumes, and some of them are caused by poor lifestyle choices such as smoking. These toxins and free radicals are especially dangerous however, because they can attack the cells in our bodies, causing them to oxidise and mutate, sometimes mutating into cancerous cells. Sweating acts as a filtration system however, allowing our bodies to excrete these harmful toxins through our skin before they have time to invade our bodies and do any real lasting damage.