How to stop sweating

Sweating is a controlled by the nervous system and some people are genetically predisposed to having a more overactive and responsive system than others, and excessive sweating has been shown to run in families. Excessive sweating can be an embarrassing and unpleasant condition, but there are a number of ways you can help ease the symptoms.

Anxiety can be a key trigger of excessive sweating, so look at reducing stress in your life, and adopt a relaxation technique such as yoga or mediation that can help you stay balanced and calm. You should try to eat a healthy, balanced diet and maintain a sensible weight, as obesity can also exacerbate sweating. Also avoid alcohol and heavily processed foods, as these can stress your liver and digestion system causing them to overwork, which then increases internal body temperature making you sweat.

It follows that the hotter you are, the more you sweat so make sure you avoid unnecessarily high temperature situations such as hot baths or showers, and on hot summery days try to stay indoors or in the shade whenever possible. If you are prone to excessive sweating you will need to make sure you drink plenty of fluids every day to avoid dehydration.

Wear loose fitting, natural fibre clothing and shoes which allow air circulation and evaporation to take place, and if you find you get sweat patches on your clothes, you can choose colours like white or black that do not show the damp so noticeably. Change your clothes, especially your socks twice a day, and wash them straight away to prevent them from being stained by the sweat. If you have very sweaty hands, you can also buy hand-drying powders, which were originally designed for use in sports to improve grip on equipment like racquets and weightlifting bars. These usually come in the form of liquids that dry into a powder after being rubbed into the hands

Normal antiperspirants can help if applied regularly as these help block sweat glands and also contain deodorants that can help mask the odour of stale sweat. This is no excuse for not washing though, so try and shower at least twice a day to keep clean and fresh, and this will also help you keep cool on hot days.

If none of these preventative measures are effective you may want to consider more serious treatments. Botox injections can be used, which will numb the nerves that trigger sweat glands to excrete fluid. This can be an expensive treatment as you may need up to 30 injections in one area, and it is not permanent so will need to repeated every 2-6 months. There are also some surgical procedures that can permanently eliminate sweating in certain areas of the body. Once technique, which is said to be particularly successful on sweaty hands, is a sympathectomy that involves a keyhole incision to sever the nerves that stimulate the sweat glands completely. Some people have found that after this procedure they experienced an increase in sweating in other areas of the body, and occasionally some slight weakness in the hands may also be experienced.