How to Stop Excessive Sweating

There is nothing abnormal about sweating, it is a regular biological phenomenon. However, as the popular saying goes, "excess of anything is not good". The same applies to sweating as well. Excessive sweating is not only uncomfortable and embarrassing, but it can also lead to certain health issues down the line. So what causes those extra-sweaty palms and feet? How does it affect one's health? Does there exist any sort of treatment for the same? Let us answer all these questions one by one.

Reasons
Excessive sweating is not limited to the geographical location, lifestyle, or nature of work of a person. Both, a person sitting in an air-conditioned room in London, as well as a taxi driver in the sweltering summer heat of Mumbai are equally prone to excessive sweating. The following are the common causes of excessive sweating:

• intense physical activity
• prolonged and direct exposure to bright sunlight
• genetic or hereditary reasons
• obesity
• improper or unhealthy diet
• chain smoking
• heavy, regular intake of alcohol
• diabetes, thyroid problems and certain other medical issues
• high intake of caffeine
• consuming piping hot drinks
• anxiety or extreme nervousness.

Effects
Excessive underarm sweating is a condition that many people experience. It can be quite disturbing as it leads to formation of sweat stains on clothes as well as body odor. If kept unchecked, this can lead to social embarrassment and can severely dent one's self-confidence. Excessive facial sweating and head sweating can be extremely problematic for actors, models, television anchors and presenters, reporters, stage performers, etc. It not only ruins makeup but makes for an unpleasant sight as well. In addition to social, cosmetic and appearance-related reasons, excessive sweating is also bad for your body and your long-term health. This is because those suffering from heavy perspiration lose a lot of water and salts in the form of sweat. In order to compensate for this, it is necessary that one drinks plenty of water and liquids to replenish the body's fluid content. Failure to do so can lead to dehydration, weakness, headache and other health related issues.

How to Prevent
Here are the different ways and methods of controlling and reducing excessive sweating and perspiration:

• Natural Remedies: Let us have a look at some natural treatment methods first. Cutting down on caffeine, spicy food and processed food can reduce sweating to an extent. Also keep your body hydrated by drinking lots of water. Make sure your diet has an equal balance of proteins, vitamins, minerals and fiber. Additionally, some people believe that applying a patch of baking soda and cornstarch on your underarms can help in reducing sweating. Although there is no conclusive evidence to support this, you can try it out as a home remedy.
• Antiperspirants: Using aluminum chloride-based antiperspirants can somewhat help in combating excessive sweating. These are commonly available in all cosmetic stores, shopping malls or department stores. They are available in many brands and variants, therefore choosing the right one which suits your needs may require a little bit of trial and error.
• Iontophoresis: This process involves subjecting the concerned patch of skin to mild electrical pulses through water. It is said that this makes the sweat producing glands produce less amount of sweat at the skin surface. The effectiveness of this method varies from person to person and from body part to body part.
• Botox Treatment: In this case, the affected skin area is subjected to a number of Botox injections, the purpose of which is to close the underlying sweat pores and thereby prevent sweating in that particular area. However, these injections can be quite painful to both, you and your pocket. Also, the effects are rarely permanent and one has to repeat the procedure anywhere between 2-3 times a year.

A combination of the above treatment methods can help in lessening, if not eliminating, the torment that excessive sweating causes. To conclude, one can safely say that although there can be no cure for sweating, the future could well see a possible cure for excessive sweating.