Get Your Sweat On: How To Sweat and Why It Matters

Disclaimer: this post is not intended as medical advice. Please consult your doctor before adding detox practices into your routine. This post may also contain affiliate links. For full disclosures, click here.

Sweating is one of the most underrated ways of detoxing your body. It’s free, it’s easy, and it helps remove so many toxins from your system. What more could you want!

Fun fact — I used to not sweat. Like, hardly ever. When we were in college, my husband and I would sit in the dry sauna for 10-20 minutes at a time. He’d be DRENCHED and I would be bone. dry. My detox pathways were so clogged that my body just wouldn’t release anything!

It took some proactive work to get my body to sweat. Dry brushing and getting my ass in the sauna regularly made the biggest differences in improving my body’s ability to sweat.

Enough about me, let’s talk about why sweating is important.

Toxins Leave the Body Through Sweat

Your detox pathways are the route toxins take to leave your body. Sweating is one of the MOST important detox pathways, because certain toxins prefer to leave the body through sweat rather than through our other detox pathways. So let’s chat about what you might find in your sweat.

If you aren’t familiar with detox pathways, check out this post to learn more.

Heavy Metals

Studies have analyzed sweat and found higher levels of arsenic, cadmium, lead, and mercury when compared to blood serum and urine samples. That means these heavy metals are leaving your body more efficiently through your sweat than they are through other means of detox. These metals do not have any physiological benefits and in turn can harm the body when accumulated in the tissues, so sweating them out is beneficial for your health.

BPA

Bisphenol-A (or BPA) is a toxin that is commonly found in plastic, canned foods, and store receipts. It alters our hormones and is linked to reproductive, immune, and neurological problems. Studies have sown that BPA is found in much higher quantities when testing sweat compared to blood serum or urine. In some cases, testing didn’t come up with any BPA in blood or urine, but came back with high levels in the sweat. Again, this means BPA leaves the body more efficiently through sweating!

Pesticides

Even if you eat mostly organic foods, we’re exposed to pesticides all the time. Most restaurant food is not organic, and I don’t know many people who buy 100% organic food for their homes. Pesticides are so widely used that they’ve entered our water systems, as well. Exposure to pesticides is linked to leaky gut, digestive issues, cancer, and hormonal and fertility disruption. Along with heavy metals and BPA, the easiest way to detox from pesticides is through your sweat.

Phthalates

Phthalates are one of the toxins we are exposed to the most. It’s in our nail polish, perfume, shampoos, conditioners, body lotions, deodorants, and hair sprays, not to mention in our vinyl flooring, plastic packaging, garden hoses, and household plumbing.

It’s nearly impossible to get away from plastic these days, so phthalates are everywhere. The worst part? Studies show that phthalates bio-accumulate, meaning they stay in your body for long periods of time after exposures. Phthalate exposure is linked to hormonal imbalances, infertility, and organ toxicity.

The good news is—you guessed it—you can sweat out phthalates! High levels of phthalates were found in sweat when compared to blood and urine yet again. Have I convinced you that you need to sweat yet?

Best Ways to Sweat It Out

Dry or Infrared Sauna

Saunas are the best option for working up a good sweat with the least amount of effort. Both dry and infrared are good options for sweating, but let’s chat about the difference between the two:

Dry saunas are what you’ll typically find at your gym or in a hotel. They are hotter than infrared saunas and they heat your body from the outside in. You’ll sweat a lot quicker in a dry sauna, so it’s great if you’re in a time crunch. Check your local gyms for cheap memberships that include saunas — it’s worth it just for the sauna use alone!

Infrared saunas are lower heat and work by heating your body from the inside out. It will take a bit longer to work up a sweat, but they’re amazing for penetrating deeper into your cells for more effective detoxification. If you live in a big city, wellness centers like Perspire Sauna Studio are popping up all over. You can also purchase an infrared sauna for your home, such as Therasage (use code UNFILTERED for 10% off!) or Clearlight.

Note: If you’re buying a sauna for your home, it’s important to find a low EMF sauna (such as the aforementioned brands) — you can find cheap infrared saunas on Amazon but they will emit high EMFs which will negate the benefits of the sauna in the first place.

Detox Baths

Saunas are great, but I genuinely sweat just as much in a detox bath. Fill your tub with the hottest water you can tolerate and add 1/2 cup of epsom salts and 1/2 cup of baking soda. This combo will help draw toxins out of your body and the hot water will help you sweat!

For a relaxing ambiance, add a few drops of lavender essential oil to a handful of unscented soap or shampoo and mix it into the water.

Exercise

Exercise will certainly require more effort on your part, but it’s a great way to work your lymphatic system to mobilize toxins and sweat them out. Get a good weight lifting session in or bust out some cardio a few times a week to get sweaty. Bonus points if you workout outside!

Get Outside

Sunshine is not only great for your cells, your circadian rhythm, and your vitamin D production, but it’s also great at helping you sweat (and it’s free). Get outside to do some yard work, gardening, or just PLAY. Jump on your kids’ trampoline. Play soccer with them. Any activity out in the sun that will work up a sweat works just fine!

Stop Using Anti-Perspirants

This is a BIG ONE. We’ve been taught that sweating is gross and we try to prevent it any way we can. In reality, sweating is part of our physiology and it’s an important mechanism that we should never try to suppress.

Anti-perspirant deodorants use aluminum to clog the pores in your armpits and prevent them from sweating. Your shirt might stay fresher, but your body certainly won’t. Ditch the aluminum deodorant and opt for something without anti-perspirant, like Primally Pure or Beautycounter.

Bonus: Dry Brushing

This one isn’t technically going to make you sweat, but it will help your body sweat easier when you do the other recommendations. Dry brushing removes dead skin cells and opens the pores in your skin to allow your sweat to come through easier. It also helps move your lymphatic system which is an important part of your body’s ability to remove toxins. This dry brush was a game changer for me when my body just wouldn’t sweat!

For a full tutorial on how to dry brush, click here.

Final Thoughts

Sweating is one of the easiest and cheapest ways to open your detox pathways and sweat out the toxins. Try to work up a good sweat at least 4-5 times a week and see how much better you feel! It’s important to remember to always replenish your body with water and electrolytes after a good sweat, since you do lose some good stuff with the bad stuff. Go get sweaty and tag me in your #sweatstories on Instagram!