I spent my childhood summers on the east coast of Florida, playing outside on thick lawns and sunlit driveways. The sweltering heat and the sound of crickets buzzing in the background are forever burned into my memory. We played endlessly and sweating was always a done deal, and rarely discussed.
Then a deep-seated stigma against sweat revealed itself as I got older and entered high school. I walked to school every morning, up a short, steep hill, and often entered class with beads of sweat on my forehead. My classmate Jeremy jokingly said, “You look like you ran a marathon in a sauna.” Eventually I became self-conscious and asked for a ride.
The stigma surrounding sweating is extensive and symbolic of a 20th-century shift in thinking about our bodies that could become problematic given the state of the world. Temperatures are rising due to global warming, with 2023 being the hottest year on record. Our sweat glands, these things we think of as annoying hindrances, may very well help us move forward in an uncertain future, just as they did thousands of years before.
The stigmatization began when advertisers infiltrated our psyches and convinced us we smelled, turning deodorant into an $18 billion industry. Commercials featuring sweaty models smelling their armpits and then grinning across our TVs. In the early 20th century, print advertisements targeted women, saying their body odor could become offensive and ill-mannered. Then marketers realized they were missing out on 50% of the market and everyone was in trouble.
The word sweat turned into a negative connotation. In gaming, sweating is a ‘try-hard’, to the extent of annoyance. When I was in high school, “sweating someone” meant heading to a disinterested party. Even the late George Carlin quipped, “Don’t sweat the small stuff and don’t pet the sweaty stuff.” As global temperatures rise, it’s necessary to recalibrate what sweating actually means to us and our culture.
Biothermal regulation as a saving mechanism
The big misconception is that sweat itself stinks. In reality, sweat almost has no smell. However, when sweat comes into contact with bacteria on your skin, the salt and water release an odor. Therefore, someone who has not showered for several days and is exercising is more likely to produce a disgusting odor.
Disgust evolved to protect us from things that could make us sick. Dirty skin in combination with sweat is an evolutionary signal that someone is slightly infected – but also a false signal. Sweat generally doesn’t make anyone sick. Even your apocrine sweat glands, which produce a waxy substance packed with pheromones, don’t have a strong odor.
I conducted an experiment and showered thoroughly right before my workout at my home gym. I was exerting myself hard and was drenched in sweat. Then I asked my partner to smell me. She was initially and understandably hesitant. But when she did, she was surprised that there was barely any smell. The point I’m making: If you are hygienic and shower regularly, you don’t have to worry about “smelling sweat.”
Be grateful. On the scale of evolution, our cooling mechanism could have been so much worse. We might salivate like dogs to cool down, or relieve ourselves on our own two feet, as vultures do.
You should be amazed at those little water droplets. Your body is littered with between two and four million sweat glands that can save your life if necessary. Your body can release as much as five liters of sweat in one hour and is functionally unparalleled on a pound-for-pound basis.
These glands allowed us to run and hunt more effectively in the heat. According to Andrew Best, biological anthropologist, “If your goal is to maintain a high metabolic rate in warm conditions, sweating is definitely the best.” It outperforms panting and hiding from the heat by a wide margin. And this is why people with anhidrosis (the inability to sweat) are at increased risk of heatstroke.
How your body’s AC actually works
For a long time I thought that the sweat cooled me like cold water on my body, as if I had jumped into the Pacific Ocean. The real reason is much more interesting: physics. Converting liquid into vapor requires energy, and that energy is heat. When a drop of sweat evaporates, it steals the body’s heat and functions as an exit for that heat, which rises desperately. This is why you sweat when the fever finally breaks out. Your body realizes that it can lower its temperature, which allows the sweat glands to turn back on and allow the heat to escape.
As a testament to human adaptability, your body can learn to sweat less but more efficiently when exposed to high temperatures for long periods. This mirrors my experience when I returned to Florida after years in Southern California. The first few weeks the heat was killing me, but now? I’m doing absolutely fine. I tell people that Florida isn’t nearly as hot as outsiders think.
As a species, we have a highly adaptable body, yet we stigmatize one of its most distinctive features. My American peers are obsessed with stopping any sign of sweating, and I’m not entirely innocent on this front. I wear antiperspirants every day and tend to shower as soon as I get sweaty.
Our quest for a polite and hygienic society is a just and valuable pursuit. Unfortunately, there is still a tendency to associate sweating with loss of control. It is an automatic phenomenon and may remind us of someone losing control of their bladder or other bodily functions.
We need to stop associating sweat with someone who is unkempt, dirty or classless. One thing is certain: in the future, more of us will be sweating, especially those who live without access to air conditioning.
Use renewable energies and prepare for more heat in the coming decades. Thank your sweat glands for the work they will do. Know that exercise can increase your ability to sweat while decreasing your need to sweat. Finally, stay hygienic. Don’t let my article give you an excuse to stop showering. And when you see that little bead of sweat on your forehead, remember that it’s not a problem. It is your beautiful legacy.
