Q; Which is your favourite activity to sweat it out? Sometimes I train in a hoodie but also use a sauna at the gym three times a week.
Our favourite activity to sweat it out is renewing our SA passport. The experience is best exemplified by that constant, gnawing feeling of uncertainty — with an ounce of dread — as we plod along to the 2024 election.
Of course, this is only one definition of “sweating it out” — enduring a state of extreme anxiety waiting for something to be resolved. I remember the matric biology exam like yesterday. I left everything to the last minute, and didn’t get to the ear and eye and some other topics covered in the last few kicks of matric.
I sweated it out in the moments before the exam when classmates showed off among each other how well they understood the eustachian tube. Not one question on it in the exam! A miraculous turn of fate had it that the topics I did study, dominated the paper. Yes for the win! After 88% as a final matric biology result procrastination was normalised for the rest of my life.
The other definition of sweating it out, according to Collins, is to cure or lessen the effects of (a cold, respiratory infection, etc) by sweating. This definition is a favourite among the masses who force themselves into the same space as us at gyms, shops and braais.
This is one of those strange oddities in life. There is a formal definition for it, but it is a load of BO BS. You do not detox by sweating — you may well sweat out rubbish from your bloodstream, but you’ll also sweat out the good stuff.
In the most remarkable article on the age-old human taboo of sweating, The Guardian recently referenced an SA nurse. She was horrified, and terrified, that her sweat had turned red. Was it blood? Was she dying? Turned out she had binged on spicy tomato NikNaks. Who does that?
Nasty ones
Alcohol can be detected in sweat — I am sure we have all caught a whiff from a colleague getting hot under the collar in the boardroom after being held to task for not finishing the report on time — and by the cue of one of the senses at least, chose the pub instead. It all comes out eventually, beware.
That may, for some people at least, be why they believe that sweating is a detox of sorts. We have eccrine glands all over our bodies — an evolutionary trait that probably helped us wobble up the food chain by hunting in the searing heat — and apocrine sweat glands in our groins and armpits. These are the nasty ones activated during puberty. Another of Mother Nature’s practical jokes.
These glands produce a more fatty, high protein sweat. Turns out that some skin bacteria enjoy eating this Banting feast, with a side-effect known euphemistically as body odour. The biochemical phenomenon behind this is, according to those who study perspiration, a microbe that transforms an odourless molecule into something delightful, which The Guardian says in its masterpiece is also seen around hyena anuses. Useful information.
The idea that training in a hoodie or visiting a sauna will detox you is a myth, as is the idea of drinking celery juice for a week. That is the job of our organs, and our kidneys, if they are functioning, are very good at it.
That said, there are some benefits to be found in the sauna. Most of them tend to be around stress reduction, some potential cardiovascular benefits and some pain relief, which all appear to have to do with improved circulation. There is also some degree of postsauna sweat euphoria, a bit like a runner’s high. Yes, that exists.
There are also health risks, especially regarding blood pressure and dehydration and so it would be useful to use a dose of common sense.
Perspiration is normal, and if you love doing it then you know how to achieve more of it. Just realise that beyond managing your body temperature — and possibly communicating to others in a primitive way — you are not making yourself any healthier just by sweating.
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