Put your feet up and chill for a minute. Here’s everything you need to know about sweat. 

Why do people sweat when they’re hot?

As miserable and gross as you might feel when you’re hot and sticky, you would be much worse off if you didn’t sweat. Sweat helps your body with thermoregulation, a fancy word for maintaining a normal body temperature. When you exercise, or when it’s a sunny ninety degrees, your body produces sweat to help you cool down.

How does sweating help people keep cool?

Sweat keeps you cool through a process called evaporative cooling. When water heats up it evaporates, changing from a liquid to a gas that then becomes part of the air. Think about the steam that rises from a boiling pot: that’s water vapor evaporating from the pot and into the air. Water must very hot to evaporate; the water that remains behind is cooler as a result. 

Same thing with sweat; the hottest portion of sweat produced by your body evaporates, leaving cooler sweat behind on your skin. This cools the blood near the outside of your body, which then circulates to your core to keep you from overheating.

If sweat is meant to keep people cool, why do some people sweat when they’re nervous? 

When we’re nervous or anxious, we experience a fight-or-flight response, a primal reaction that prepares us to either face or flee from danger. Our body releases the hormone adrenaline to help us cope with whatever is coming. Blood circulation and breathing rates increase and our bodies produce sweat to keep us cool on, say, a long run from a predator or a fight to the death. 

Most nerve-wracking situations don’t involve life or death, thankfully. If you find yourself with sweaty palms just before a job interview or presentation, take a few deep breaths and take heart: things could be a lot worse. 

Do all animals sweat?

No. Only a few – primates and horses – sweat as much as humans do in order to keep cool. Different species have different ways of keeping cool in hot weather. Dogs pant to release hot air through their noses and mouths and elephants extend their ears to release extra heat. Interestingly, pigs do not, in fact, “sweat like pigs.” They hang out in cool mud or water to control their body temperature. Many animals also hide out in shade or in burrows or caves when it’s too hot out, which is good advice for everyone.

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