What is the actual reason for it? The way i understand it, all other effects of stress, like increased heart rate, increase performance in fight or flight. How does sweat fit into that? don’t cooled muscles perform worse?
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Sweat is what makes humans so cool. It cools you down so you can run or otherwise perform physical activity without stopping all the time like dogs and panting. If your body is sweating you are primed to start schmovin without the risk of overheating
Other primates, like chimps, do not sweat to cool themselves. They do sweat, primarily on the hands and feet. It is thought that they sweat in response to stress to improve their grip.
Humans are believed to sweat in response to stress as a hold-over from the sweat mechanism in other primates.
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All the answers are correct, but in its physiological essence, stress activates the sympathetic nervous system. Some of the nerves of the sympathetic nervous system are connected to the sweat glands. When the sympathetic nervous system is activated, the ends of these nerves start releasing a chemical acetylcholine so we call them sympatgetic colinergic fibers. This causes you to sweat more.
So just like stress accelerates your heartbeat, breathing frequency, dilates your blood vessels in your mucles using the sympathetic nervous system, it also forces your sweat glands to secrete sweat. Why that’s useful was explained by other commenters.
If you ha e further questions, feel free to ask.
Body responds to stress, just like it would in fight or flight situation. It releases cortisol. Increased blood flow to various organs, muscles and skin. Like various other tissues, sweat glands have receptors for the hormone causing sweating. It’s function would be to release heat generated when tissues are in overdrive
did u just listen to the Science Friday on NPR about how ppl can tell when other ppl are stressed by their sweat
In addition to sweat cooling you down, it makes you slippery, which makes it harder for predators to catch you
sweat production, increased HR, and sympathetic activation all factor lump under the same umbrella. The neurotransmitters / chemicals released when you’re stressed have act on receptors throughout the body that are kind of the same, but not identical.
while sweat is designed to cool us down, the arteries carrying blood to our muscles actually vasodilate as an added response to this neurotransmitter release, expanding to allow more blood (and oxygen, by proxy) to our peripheral muscles.
Blood is rerouted from our GI tract and other visceral organs that are usually active when we are at rest.
Piloerector muscles that are responsible for raising the hairs on our skin are also activated in response to stress, and vasodilation also occurs in the series supplying blood to the skin, which is why you might feel warmer, experience flushing of the face, and/or contribute to sweat production in response to increased skin temp.
I know these are probably out of order but the sentiment still stands. Collectively, sweat production as a response to stress a part of a much larger systemic response which is basically our brain saying to us, “I don’t feel safe or relaxed right now, here is energy and the means to relocate to safety so I can feel that way again!”
Hey there’s a great science Friday episode just on this topic from last Friday https://podcasts.google.com?feed=aHR0cDovL2ZlZWRzLndueWMub3JnL3NjaWVuY2UtZnJpZGF5&episode=MDQyMWRlMWYtZGIxMy00NWMyLWI4NWMtZTJhMWExYWY5NTBl
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