Sweat It Out

As I sat in a sauna, I began to think about why it’s even beneficial to sit in this machine and sweat for thirty minutes of my life. I truly only use it because it comes with my monthly wellness package (shout out to Coco Greens). Upon doing research to understand why a sauna is beneficial to my health, I learned a few of the physiological benefits of sweating. The more I read, the more a deeper message stuck out to me. I’m going to use our body’s natural reaction to heat and pressure as a way to encourage us to allow our lives to sweat, metaphorically speaking that is (or metamorphically...science joke....heat and pressure makes metamorphic rock...okay), and why it’s beneficial.

The science. Sweating boosts our endorphins. Endorphins are the hormones that make us happy and make us feel good. Sweating can flush the body of alcohol, salt, and cholesterol as well as purge the body of toxins that cause pimples and acne. Induced sweating can help our bodies get rid of all of these things. That’s good!

Because sweating helps release some of the salt in our bodies, it lowers our chance of getting kidney stones with the retention of calcium while the salt is being removed. Our sweat also contains natural substances that can kill germs and bacteria that could cause colds and other viruses. Some say sweat is even more effective than antibiotics for certain germs.

All of these benefits are great. I think we could all agree that we need to sweat and the more we can sweat, the more we are benefiting. Be it known that we can only sweat when we are in places with high temperatures or when we are under high amounts of pressure, which scientifically, heat and pressure can go hand-in-hand.

Now the caution, excessive sweating can lead to dehydration. Because we’re talking about the kind of sweating where you sit in a heat box for 30 minutes, that’s a lot of water leaving from our bodies. If we’re going to allow our bodies to lose that much water, we know that we have to what….? We have to hydrate. And are we going to replenish it with that liquid that we’re sweating out? Of course not! We’re going to drink clean, healthy water. So when I’m allowing my body to sweat so much, I’m getting rid of a lot things that are not helpful to my health, but I’m also replenishing with good water which ultimately improves my health and my general sense of well-being.

So, how this stops being a science lesson. Let’s sweat you guys. Let’s be okay enough to allow ourselves opportunities to sweat. This may be by intentionally placing ourselves in uncomfortable situations like how sitting in a heatbox dripping sweat isn’t exactly the most comfortable thing to do in the world. However, sitting in these types of situations allows us to opportunity to let toxic things go and be open to receiving something better.

I personally think that the best people in the world are people who aren’t afraid to let themselves sweat a little. They dive into known and unknown situations knowing that there’s something to be learned. They trade their fear for curiosity and many times that curiosity becomes knowledge and something we really need today, empathy.