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 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!”
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