The causes of excessive sweating vary wildly, but you’ll always find one thing in common: they all have a trigger. With a little research, I discovered how the various causes of excessive sweating are often related to each other. Unfortunately, you may find many of the triggers of excessive sweating while sleeping difficult to manage, which compounds the challenge for physicians attempting to help their patients.

I hope my list will provide a sound foundation for your research into this uncomfortable and frustrating physical phenomenon, but I encourage you to study further as well.

Puberty and Menopause

Adolescents are inclined to perspire a lot. The reason might be psychological, because they’re confronting changes in their bodies and are being exposed to things which inaugurate them to adulthood. Simply put, teens in their pubescence stages tend to be more sweaty than those who are older or younger.

Like pubescence, menopause comprises a critical stage in an individual’s life. However, only women experience menopause. Menopause can set off excessive sweating in the same manner which puberty triggers changes within an individual’s biology. Menopause night sweats can be particularly frustrating.

Oddly, men experience a kind of andropause as well, so night sweats in men is getting more attention lately.

Heredity

Many physicians consider excessive perspiration a function of your innate genes. This means that if your parents tend to perspire heavily, you might also be more prone to heavy sweating as you mature. In cases of extreme sweating for no apparent reason primary hyperhidrosis, also known as idiopathic hyperhidrosis, may be the cause.

Spinal Cord Problems

The spinal cord is a significant component of the central nervous system. It is the nervous system which really moderates the sweating mechanism of your body. Specific afflictions in the spinal area may trigger hyperhidrosis. Syringomyelia is one such problem, though it only triggers sleep hyperhidrosis in rare situations. Lesions and tumors within the spinal cord area might also cause hyperhidrosis.

Nerve Malfunctions

The perspiration glands are positioned all over your body. These glands do the work of producing sweat. In the same manner, the nerves, which work as the brain’s receptors, are positioned all over the body. They are responsible for sending the messages to the brain from which it may act upon the sweat glands. If the nerves fail to function accurately, they may ask the brain to perspire due to incorrect stimuli. This may lead to hyperhidrosis or excessive sweating and even sweating while sleeping.

Abnormal Brain Responses

Perspiration is controlled by the hypothalamus. It’s the same component of the brain that handles hungriness and thirst. It’s likewise in control of making certain that the body sustains a reliable temperature level to assure its regular cognitive operation. The brain might have a corrupted sensory response, inducing the body to perspire excessively. This is particularly true if you’re persevering specific diseases or infections.

In and of itself, the brain might order the body to react by sweating as it believes that the temperature inside is rising. There may be a few emotional elements at play here as well. If you’re nervous, depressed, or distressed, your mental processes can get confused, leading to hyperhidrosis.

Obesity

Obese individuals tend to suffer from excessive sweating more than people whose body proportions are within a healthy range. This is because their sweat glands tend to operate twice as much to relinquish all excess minerals deemed undesirable by the body. The more obese you are, the more prone you are to developing excessive sweating.

Overweight people are also more prone to suffer from GERD or acid reflux. Acid reflux at night can cause sweating at night.

Specific Food Allergies and Reactions

Did you know that some of the foods you eat may be among the reasons why you perspire so much? If you eat a lot of hot and spicy foods you may eventually suffer from excessive sweating. If you are experiencing excessive sweating at night try to decrease your consumption of these spicy foods, especially at night, and determine whether or not it provides relief from your excessive sweating. Consider keeping a food journal so you can watch for patterns in what you eat and how much you sweat at night.

Heat And Hot Weather

This is fairly obvious but worth mentioning. The hot weather may cause you to perspire uncontrollably and it can even cause heat stroke. This is because your body needs to cool off when it reaches it’s peak temperature, but if the surrounding environment is too hot and your body temperature is too high, your body may have a difficult time trying to cool itself so it can trigger heavy and lasting perspiration. Heat stroke can also cause fevers and sweating while sleeping.

Additionally, if you’re in a humid location and you’re accustomed the colder weather, you might suffer from excessive sweating more than those who are accustomed to the warmer climate.

Rigorous Physical Activities and Exercise

Another fairly obvious cause of excessive sweating is a result of rigorous exercise. Whenever a person’s body works, it heats up. And so if you do manual labor, you will tend to excrete perspiration to a higher degree than those who work in a standard air conditioned office. This is normal, of course. Any rigorous activity will trigger your heat to rise and thus your sweat glands to excrete. Rigorous exercise at night can cause night sweats in some people because it can take a while for the body to cool down after this type of exercise. It is better to do it in the morning or afternoon to avoid sleep disruption.

If you still sweat long after the exercise, even when you’re not doing anything, then it may be time to visit your doctor to see if there is another cause.

I hope this illuminates the primary causes of excessive sweating. Of course, there are many more causes of excessive sweating to describe, but as you can see this is already a relatively long page. See if you can categorize yourself in one of these primary categories of excessive perspiration, then consult your physician to help you further define and address your condition.

Thank you for reading and thanks again for visiting Night Sweats.