Causes of night sweats

What are the Causes of night sweats? That is what this entire web site is all about; female night sweats or male night sweats, night sweats in men, this site will help you. It makes no difference why you have night sweats or even if you ever have night sweats if you are just a hot sleeper you are at the right place.

lets start by understanding how the sweating system works. In humans, there are two kinds of sweat glands which differ greatly in both the composition of the sweat that is released and purpose, we are only concerned with the Eccrine glands: Causes of night sweats

ECCRINE SWEAT GLANDS

Location: entire body surface except the lips and part of the external genitalia

Function: regulation of body temperature very important

The Eccrine sweat glands, which are distributed over the entire body surface, produce sweat that is composed chiefly of water with various salts. These glands are used for body temperature regulation.

Eccrine sweat glands are coiled tubular glands derived from the outer layer of skin but extending into the inner layer. This is where the night sweat comes from so we just need to work with them. They are distributed over almost the entire surface of the body. The sweat glands are controlled by sympathetic cholinergic nerves which are controlled by a centre in the hypothalamus. These two areas can be effected by either physical conditions or medications that we take. If they are not working properly they tend to make us hot at undesirable times. Lets continue with the Causes of night sweats.

The hypothalamus directly senses core temperature (your inner body temperature), and also has input from temperature receptors in the skin (this tells the hypothalamus that the skin is either releasing enough heat from the body or not) The hypothalamus takes this data and modifies the sweat output. confusion in this area can be one of the causes of night sweats.

The skin temperature has a direct influence on the decision to release sweat. Is this one of the main Causes of night sweats? YES! Lets say for example that either a physical condition or a medication has things screwed up. If a medication is causing the dilution (thinning) of the blood to an extent that it makes the skin hotter than normal at varying times, (off and on all night long) then you have a recipe for a night sweat. Another example, a women is having a hot flash, when a woman has a hot flash the heart starts beating faster and our body says let some heat out. The blood vessels at the skin level open-up and the hot flash starts. The end result is the skin heats up. This is the most significant Causes of night sweats..

The hypothalamus takes a reading from your internal temperature and takes another reading from the skin. The skin has been over heated due to our medication, physical condition or hot flash. It makes a decision to Increases the output of sweat because the normal cooling methods, radiation and conduction (via air) are not working well enough. If the skin cools down fast enough the hypothalamus sees this and backs off on sweating. Got it, if the skin cools down there is no need for the sweating. If the skin can not cool down well that Causes night sweats.

So our skin is unexpectedly over heated due to a medication, physical condition, or a result of an irregular thermal conditioning signal. The hypothalamus is tricked into letting out the sweat because the skin is heating up without true cause, or is it really a needed process for healing. Bottom line is, if the skin was never over heated by the increase in blood flow we would not start sweating.

Causes of night sweats

Without getting too detailed, lets just say that the sweat glands start when one of two things happen. Either the internal temperature is too high and the skin temperature is high this causes night sweats. Or if the skin temperature is high, but the internal temperature is fine, you will still start to sweat. Having the skin heat up while you are sleeping is the biggest cause of night sweats. I hope you grasp this idea if you don’t please read it again. All of these physical conditions and medications we have listed and talked about cause the skin to be randomly and unexpectedly over heated. I can not stress this enough.

• Will all this apply to night sweats in men or male night sweats? YES.
• Is it one of the primary Causes of night sweats? YES.
• Is it the only cause for night sweats? Yes, unless you have a gland problem in that case this will still help.
• Will this method stop night sweats? You better believe it. So keep reading and you are on your way.

Keeping your cool

When sweat evaporates from the surface of your skin, it removes excess heat and cools the skin as well as the blood traveling in the skin. This in turn helps cool your body at night it the main Causes of night sweats. To convert water from a liquid to a vapor, it takes a certain amount of heat called the latent heat of vaporization. This heat energy increases the speed of the water molecules so that they can escape into the air. Typically, all of the sweat does not evaporate, but rather runs off your skin. In addition, not all heat energy produced by the body is lost through sweat. Some is directly radiated from the skin to the air and some is lost through respiratory surfaces of the lungs.

Causes of night sweats

The images below will show you the relationship between the three main methods of body heat regulation. Look at these methods and lets think as if that body, in the image, is wrapped in a blanket. The radiant energy (this is what you feel when you are in close proximity to someone that is hotter than you) would fill the blanket with heat and in turn keep the heat trapped in the blanket. The conductive transference of heat (by air) will be limited because of the lack of air flow. (Remember that you are wrapped in a blanket – no air flow) So the blanket is getting hotter from the radiant heat, which in turn helps heat the air surrounding this body. That leaves only one method to relieve the heat and that is via evaporation. That is not what we want, that is sweat..

Causes of night sweats

Now notice in the images below that as the air temperature increases the amount of heat dissipated from the body via air starts to decrease. At a point where the air temperature gets close to the core body temperature, the method of heat dispersion must switch to evaporation (sweat). If the air that is surrounding the body is saturated with moisture (humid), or becomes saturated, as it would between bed sheets, the glands start to release more sweat in order to cool the body faster. OH night sweats … is this making since now.. If not start over.

Causes of night sweats

Causes of night sweats

A major factor that influences the rate of evaporation is the relative humidity of the air around you. If the air is humid, then it already has water vapor in it, probably near saturation, and cannot take any more. Therefore, sweat does not evaporate and cool your body as efficiently as when the air is dry. Remember this is taking place in an environment that has stagnated, non-moving air, saturated with moisture and getting hotter because of the trapped radiant and conductive heat – another cause of night sweats. Trapped humid dead air is one of the main Causes of night sweats.

Finally, when the water in the sweat evaporates, it leaves the salts (sodium, chloride and potassium) behind on your skin, which is why your skin gets sticky and you wake up feeling like you need a shower. sound all too familiar..

Causes of night sweats

If you recall, many diseases cause the core body temperature and the skin to increase and decrease radically. In normal situations you would be able to compensate for these changes as they occur. Like when you are awake and you start to get hot, you fan yourself or take off some clothes or get in a cool area. Whatever it takes, you will do it to cool down, to cool your skin down. The same thing is true for many of the drugs that are listed. Some drugs cause swings in core body temperature, some cause hot flashes or flushing (a rapid increase in skin temperature) and some just confuse the temperature regulating nervous system. It all has the same effect. You Start Sweating while you are sleeping.

Causes of night sweats

It’s hard to cool yourself down when you start to overheat at night. The simple fact that you are sleeping makes it impossible. By the time you know it, you are all wet or you just toss and turn all night trying to cool down. Think about it, you roll around trying to find a nice cool spot in the bed, but when you can’t find one, you kick off the covers, spread your arms and legs try to cool yourself down. You need to COOL YOUR SKIN down before the sweat kicks in! By this time you are probably sweaty and the next thing you know you are freezing. So you cover back up and start it over again.. How ya gonna get any sleep like that? Makes me tired thinking about it.

Causes of night sweats

lets examine this one step at a time.

What are the Causes of night sweats.

1. Your body is not cooling down efficiently enough by Conduction (air) or Radiation.

2. The relative humidity surrounding your body is too high for evaporation to work.

3. Your body is captured in an environment that can’t self regulate and you are sleeping. (when is the last time you got yourself a cool glass of water while you were sleeping.)

4. You went to bed just fine, but as the night rolls on your body temperature and other factors change (hormones, hot flash, vascular dilation, medical or disease induced fever). What was a nice cool bed is now an oven.

All of these are major Causes of night sweats

You’re in your bed, all is well, but then it happens; your body temperature increases due to an illness or medication or natural causes (menopause and such) and there is NO air circulation between your sheets. Your mattress, your sheets and your comforter have absorbed all the heat that they can and they cant let it out any faster. The air trapped between the sheets starts to get hot. Your skin starts to increase in temperature. It can’t cool down and you cant just start fanning yourself because you are sleeping. Your regulating system (the hypothalamus) checks the skin temperature and decides there is no way it can cool the body down under these conditions. It turns on the water, and you start to sweat a little, it checks it again, its not doing so good because the trapped air is now becoming saturated, humidified, and hotter. So it has to really turn on the sprinkler, it wants to make a pool for you to swim in… maybe that will cool you down.. well the only thing that happens next is you wake up all sweaty and wet. That is not what we want.

Ok lets think about the variables here.. Causes of night sweats

1. Your core body temperature fluctuating for one reason or another is usually the root to the whole problem and it is hard to control.

2. Heat dispersion via radiation: the covers that you have over you are able to absorb only so much heat and pass that heat to the other side at a specific rate. That rate remains constant with a constant environment on the other side (the air in the room). You can only kick the sheets off to get your body cooler when the heat starts. This will in turn cool down the skin and keep you from sweating. Not a good choice, makes for a bad nights sleep.

3. Heat dispersion via air, or convection: as we know the air between the sheets is trapped and you can’t exactly expect it to help out much. It will get hotter and cause your skin to get hotter and in turn cause you to start sweating. So kick the sheets off again.. Still not a good nights sleep

4. Heat dispersion via evaporation: well again the trapped air will become saturated in time and cause the skin to heat up which causes more sweating, this is not what we want… Kick the sheets off again?

This heating of your skin while sleeping is the cause of night sweats. Take my word for it there are many people that were skeptical about this that are now sleeping better than ever now that they too have discovered this unique quality sleep system that gives everyone a restful night of sleep. It is very simple and once you use it you will be delighted.