Let ‘Em See You Sweat

In undergrad out west, we didn’t have air conditioning. We had swamp coolers. Anyone who’s ever been in the inter-mountain west knows what I’m talking about; so the remaining 99% have no clue. A swamp cooler is a giant refrigerator size box that sits on top of your house (they do have funny looking window units). The tap water in the Utah Mountains felt to be just barely above freezing; so what they do is run it through coils and blow air over it and through the house.

Sweating is our bodies’ natural swamp cooler. As the water evaporates, it creates a cooling effect that cools us down; in theory. Obviously evolution did not occur on the Gulf Coast.

Sweating is also an effective way of balancing electrolytes. As we have all noticed, our sweat is quite briny. As we sweat, we rid our bodies of sodium. Most of us have sodium imbalances that lead to hypertension, aka the silent killer.

In certain areas of our bodies (pits and low back mainly) our sweat is extra special, it’s much more viscous due to the presence of enzymes that are to protect us from harmful invaders (hence the yellow stain).

Yet for its good, we should be mindful of our sweating habits. During the summer, an average adult can sweat up to 4 liters, with most of it evaporating before we even notice. At only 2% dehydration (a 200 lbs man loosing 4 lbs of body weight to the water loss associated with sweat-not hard to do, back in HS football in S Texas I would loose 10-15 pounds per practice) we loose 20% function. So without out having to do all the math, I’m pretty sure that 4 liters is close enough to cause problems. Dehydration can have the same affects on the body as sleep deprivation and intoxication. Chronic dehydration is associated with headaches, muscle pain and spasm, fibromyalgia, sleep issues, overeating, inability to loose weight, kidney stones, irritability so on and so on.

So, what do we do? Get regular chiropractic adjustments. That doesn’t really affect your water balance, (but water balance does affect the effectiveness of an adjustment) just thought I’d throw that in there. But seriously, you need to drink water. Not coffee, not tea, not even any scotch in the water, just water. 8 glasses a day. More if you’re outside or drinking that scotch.