Being active and exercising your muscles offers about a million health benefits. Give or take. And that sort of physical exertion usually spurs a byproduct, or what we consider a byproduct anyway — sweating. It turns out that working up a sweat isn’t just a good metric (sometimes) for whether or not your workout was good but sweating itself offers a few upsides for your health.
This isn’t really a new idea. In fact, many types of traditional medicine cite sweating as a treatment for various ailments or even a prevention strategy to avoid health problems. And if you spend any time in Scandinavia, you know the tremendous role sauna bathing has in those cultures. (And if you haven’t, get yourself a funny hat, a viht, not much else, and check it out.)
So, let’s take a closer look at the act of sweating and explore exactly what it can offer.
1. Cools Your Body
The main reason we sweat, also known as perspiration, is to keep our bodies from overheating. When you’re active and your body temperature starts to rise, your nervous system kicks into gear and tells your body’s millions of sweat glands to release sweat to help you keep cool. Sweat begins to appear from your skin’s pores where it evaporates and reduces the surface temperature of your skin. Without the ability to sweat (a condition known as anhidrosis), heat stroke or even death can result from getting overheated.
2. Cleanses Your Body
Sweat itself is a combination of water, salt, various proteins, and other substances. Now, those “other substances” are what can get interesting, as sometimes they hold various toxins. Now, we are very keen on the fact that “toxins” is a controversial word and subject altogether. And we’re not really implying that your body “scrubs” itself of these unidentified bad guys the same way an eager spring cleaner goes after a messy house. But studies have shown that sweat can excrete stuff like heavy metals, flame retardants, and other chemicals from plastic. And when you consider that the first rule of chemistry is that heat speeds up reactions, it makes sense that increasing your body temperature could help metabolize impurities.
3. Great for Your Skin
If you want your skin to experience a radiant, healthy-looking glow like no other, forget all the cosmetic promises-in-a-tube and make it a point to get your sweat on regularly. Opening your pores both cleans and revitalizes your skin from the inside out to reduce blemishes and promote an even complexion. Not to mention that sweat is a prebiotic for the healthy probiotic bacteria that live in your skin. Finish your workout with an exfoliating scrub and you’ll feel soft, rejuvenated, and refreshed beyond belief!
Work Up a Sweat With Us at Rhapsody Fitness
Are you feeling inspired to suit up in your workout gear and break a sweat? That’s what we do every single day here at Rhapsody Fitness and we’d love to have you come and join us. We’re fun, positive people, we love working out, and there are PLENTY of towels and spray bottles! And your first session is on us. Claim it now and get yourself on down here!
