How Does Anxiety Cause Underarm Sweat?

Anxiety can cause sweaty palms and armpits -- but why? And how can you combat it? Learn more in this episode of BrainStuff.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works. Hey, there,
brain stuff, Lauren Vogel bomb here. So you're sitting at
a large table in a conference room with several of
your colleagues, or maybe in a crowded classroom. Soon your
manager or teacher will call you to the front of
the room to give a presentation. All you can think
about is how nervous you are. Your heart pounds, you

(00:23):
feel tense, and now there's that unmistakable wetness under your arms.
Why does feeling anxious about something like public speaking make
your under arms so sweaty. Anxiety can evoke a body
response called fight or flight, your body's way of readying
you to deal with a potential threat. While public speaking
isn't really a threat, the lower part of your brain,

(00:44):
which controls basic body functions, doesn't know that. Ultimately, you
can blame your hypothalamus, a part of the autonomic nervous system,
for your anxious sweating. When faced with a stressful situation.
It tells your adrenal gland to release dozens of hormones,
including epinephrin or adrenaline. Epinephrin is responsible for putting your
sweat glands to work. The idea is that your body

(01:04):
will need to remain cool and slippery during your supposed confrontation.
Not everyone has the same fight or flight responses. Some
of us sweat mostly from our apocrine glands when we're anxious,
such as those in the armpits in genital areas, while
others sweat more from the ecrine glands found on the
rest of the body. Ecrine sweat is bad enough because
it can mean sweaty palms, but in addition to potential

(01:26):
pit stains, apocrine sweat can make you smell bad because
it's full of protein and fatty acids. This makes it
prime fuel for bacteria that live on the skin, which
eat your sweat and excrete the stinky compounds that we
know as body odor. Anxious sweating can be a vicious cycle.
Worrying about whether others can see sweat or smell body
odor on you may make you feel even more anxious.

(01:49):
For most of us, the fight or flight response that
occurs when we're anxious goes away fairly quickly. We calm
down as we warm up to the stressful situation, or
at the very least, we feel better once it's over
and we can better control this anxiety through repeated exposure
to it. The more practice we get, the less scary
it seems. But some people have an extreme reaction to anxiety,

(02:09):
including excessive, under armed sweating that can last for hours.
A stronger antiperspirant can help deal with the sweat, but
sometimes an anxiety disorder is at the root of the problem.
If sweaty symptoms never seem to ease, don't worry. A
doctor can help fund a therapy that works for you.

(02:29):
Today's episode was written by Shannah Freeman and produced by
Tristan McNeil. For more on this and lots of other
bodily topics, visit our home planet, how Stuff Works dot com.