It sounds simple, but avoiding and eating certain foods can make a world of difference when it comes to reducing how much you sweat, whether you suffer from full blown hyperhidrosis or mild sweating. While you’ll still want some protection in the form of antiperspirants, powders, wipes, clothes etc. to put your mind at ease, a good diet will not only improve your health and figure, but also control your sweating.
What You Should Drink
Water
Your new favorite drink should be water, and lots of it. It is one of the most simple and readily available drinks to control excessive sweating. It may sound counter-intuitive to drink more water, as you would think that it would mean that your body has more to sweat out.
On the contrary, when you are properly hydrated, your body doesn’t have to work as hard to regulate your body temperature, keeping sweat at bay.
Sage Tea
Drinking sage tea is such a good idea to control excessive sweating because of its astringent and antiperspirant properties that work to regulate your nervous system, thereby helping to regulate the amount of sweat your body produces.
If sage isn’t your cup of tea (pun intended) or you haven’t got the time for a cuppa every day, fortunately you can purchase it in a drinkable extract, diffuser oil or capsule form.
Tomato Juice
Tomato juice is not only a fantastic source of vitamins and minerals, but is also loaded with antioxidants that can help eliminate toxins that cause your body to sweat excessively too.
Tomato juice is also able to regulate your internal temperature and keep your body from overheating, which when not regulated is the reason why we all sweat, some of us more than others.
What Drinks To Avoid
Caffeinated Drinks
You don’t need us to tell you that consuming caffeine is a terrible idea if you want to stay sweat free, as we’re sure that you’ve made the link yourself. So just as a gentle reminder, try and avoid it as you go about your day.
This is down to caffeine being a stimulant, causing the release of adrenaline and thereby raising your internal temperature.
Alcohol
Alcohol is the very worst fluid you can drink if you want to control sweating. Alcohol may make you feel good and can turn an otherwise boring night out into something much more fun, but it also greatly affects the central nervous system, the circulatory system, and virtually every part of your body.
Alcohol dehydrates your body, increases your heart rate, dilates your blood vessels, and ultimately raises your body temperature, triggering perspiration. If staying away from alcohol is a near impossibility due to its prominence in your social life, at the very least cut down the number of drinks you have.
Hot Drinks
With the exception of sage tea (which can also be drank cold), hot drinks are a big no-no.The reason is the same as always: hot drinks raise your internal temperature, activating your body’s cooling mechanism, causing you to sweat more.
What You Should Eat
Calcium Rich Foods
Consuming foods high in calcium is a good idea because calcium works to regulate the activity of the autonomic nervous system that stimulate the sweat glands. Incorporating more of these foods into your diet is not only healthy but can also ensure that you autonomic nervous system is working more efficiently.
Magnesium Rich Foods
It may come as a surprise to learn that you are probably currently deficient in magnesium. In fact, the percentage of people who have a magnesium deficiency is as high as 68%, according to the Journal of the American College of Nutrition. And if you associate yourself as someone who excessively sweats, then that figure is even higher due to the amount of magnesium lost through sweating.
Not only does magnesium help regulate body temperature, but it also helps to decrease anxiety, which is another cause of sweating, making eating foods high in magnesium one of the best things you can do for your condition.
Vitamin B Rich Foods
Vitamin B rich foods play a vital role in helping to maintain and regulate the nervous system, in particular the sympathetic nervous system which triggers the sweat glands. Again, not only are these foods healthy, but they also make a difference to the amount you sweat, so there is no excuse for not incorporating some of the following foods into your diet.
Olive Oil
If you regularly reach for the vegetable or sunflower oil when cooking, it’s time to substitute them for olive oil.
Not only is olive oil one of the healthiest fats that lowers cholesterol and blood pressure, which both play a role in how much you sweat, it is also very simple for your body to digest, which helps keep it running efficiently and regulate your body temperature effortlessly.
What You Should Avoid Eating
Spicy Food
You’ve undoubtedly noticed that spicy food makes you sweat, but you may be unaware why this is the case and why spicy food should be avoided.
The active ingredient in spicy food is capsaicin, which is able to stimulate the nerve receptors in your mouth, “tricking” your nervous system into thinking you’re hot. As is the common theme for the release of perspiration, your brain sends out a signal to activate your sweat glands in order to cool you down and regulate your body temperature.
Processed Food
We get it. Processed food just tastes so damn good that it’s unthinkable to cut it out. But consuming white bread, chocolate, ready meals, sweets, and of course fast food, among many others should be avoided or at the least drastically cut down.
If in doubt over what constitutes processed food, a quick look at the ingredients should help. A handful of ingredients you’ve never heard of, or a long list of ingredients likely means that it is processed.
Processed food is harder to digest because your body has to work extra hard to process these foods that have turned into something very different from their original, natural state, causing you to sweat more.
Hot Soup
Just like how hot drinks raise your internal temperature, activating your body’s cooling mechanism, causing you to sweat more, hot soup should be avoided for this very reason.
Instead, you should opt for cold soups like Gazpacho, Okroshka and Borcht, or at the very least consume soup once it has cooled down a bit.
Food & Drink Myths
Onions and Garlic
Consuming garlic and onions may make your sweat smell worse, and so they are probably a good idea to avoid if you suffer from hyperhidrosis, but there is no evidence that consuming either will increase sweating.
Salt
Considering that people who sweat a lot lose a lot of salt everyday through the process of sweating, hyperhidrosis sufferers, if anything, should up their intake of salt. Although, this is of course a bad idea due to the risks of damaging the heart, aorta, and kidneys.
The myth that salt intake should be limited if you want to sweat less has some basis in truth because your body works to get rid of the excess sodium partly through sweating it out. However, hyperhidrosis sufferers do not need to worry about this.
Peppermint Tea
While peppermint tea isn’t a common drink, you may have read online that it is equal to sage tea in its ability to help regulate sweating, so it’s worth knowing that drinking it should definitely be avoided.
The reason sage tea is effective against sweating is thanks to its astringent and antiperspirant properties. Peppermint, on the other hand, is known as a diaphoretic, which is able to induce sweating. This is why peppermint is recommended for people who suffer from a fever and want to “sweat it out” – another myth that is often found online, as you can’t “sweat out” a fever.
Supplements
It may not always be possible to get enough calcium, magnesium and other vitamins and minerals from your food, due to the price of many foods high in these sources, and active lifestyles that don’t allow for much time spent grocery shopping and in the kitchen.
Therefore, it is advisable to purchase the very best magnesium supplements and best calcium supplements to help you increase your intake of these vital vitamins and minerals. A good multivitamin is also recommended so you can ensure that you are getting the RDA of everything you need, whereas your calcium and magnesium intake should be much higher than the RDA.
Other Things to Avoid
Nicotine
There’s no shortage of reasons to give up smoking, but what you may not know is that nicotine causes your body to release the chemical acetylcholine, which stimulates the sweat glands.
It also has the ability to raise your body temperature and blood pressure, which further contribute to excessive sweating.
Heavy Meals
The fact that consuming food and drink that make your digestive system work as effortlessly and efficiently as possible should be driven home by now.
For this reason you should avoid overeating, as heavy meals reduce your ability to get rid of heat because they redirect blood flow to your digestive tract instead of your skin surface.
Food Intolerances
You may think that you don’t suffer from any kind of food intolerance because you have never vomited or swelled up after eating certain kinds of foods. However, this likely means that you’re confusing food allergies with intolerances.
Food intolerances don’t have to have such a drastic, noticeable effect, and are a significant and overlooked cause for the over activity of the sympathetic nervous system.
This results in your body, and specifically digestive system (immune system response is associated with food allergies), working overtime to protect your body, resulting in the sympathetic nervous system activating the mechanisms that are in place to help you during stressful situations, including the production of sweat.
Some of the most common intolerances include dairy, histamine, wheat and gluten, yeast, and alcohol. It’s a good idea to get yourself checked out for any kind of food intolerance, whether professionally or at home with a self-testing kit.
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