Picture this: It’s the middle of August in Florida, you just blow dried your hair and put on your brand new green button up shirt. It is the perfect day to look presentable. Until a wet, moist, drop of liquid starts gliding down the side of your temple from your head. In a blink of an eye, your freshly done hair is frizzy and wet at the roots and your shirt now has stains on your underarms. All because of Miami’s number one public offender: the weather.
Living in Miami, sweating is a commonly known concept and it can be very frustrating. The heat can be unbearable and then on a random winter morning, your teeth cannot stop vibrating as the vigorous winds paralyze your bones. So why does it happen and can you stop it?
For those who don’t know, the human body has a reason for everything and is the most well built machine on the planet. It does not sweat for fun. When our bodies are in natural stable conditions, it is in what scientists call homeostasis. The human body does everything to try and get every system into this perfect balance. However, nature and the environment do not agree. Due to environmental or external forces, the body must make changes or adjustments. Much like when a flu comes your way out of of nowhere, the body must do everything in its power to fight it; it will do the same when it’s too hot or too cold. When our heads hurt or we sneeze, it is the body’s reaction to a virus or illness. This is the body’s way of staying stable or fighting off an unnatural stimulus.
In biology, this is called a feedback loop. Feedback loops are the body’s way of dealing with changes. A negative feedback loop is when the body rejects or fights against a stimulus. The body will do everything it can to retract the reaction and go back to homeostasis. This is where sweating would fit in. Heat being the stimulus, the body is thrown off its usual or stable temperature range. To bring the body back to its normal temperature range, it must release heat energy. So we sweat off water which will be evaporated to cool the body. Our sweat glands get activated and release sweat as a way to combat any kind of extreme metabolic activity.
This also happens when running or exercising. The body is thrown off its usual stable range and the body wants to regulate body heat or increased metabolic activity so we don’t get overexposed to heat or damage our muscles. Many think we sweat or shiver as a reaction to heat or the cold, but it is actually to keep our bodies safe. We sweat to keep our bodies cool and we shiver to keep our bodies warm. This also happens in diabetes. The body is stimulated by an increase in blood glucose levels so the pancreas releases insulin to get glucose levels to decrease and stop that reaction from permanently altering our body’s homeostasis state.
On the other hand, a positive feedback loop is the opposite. Although less common, it is seen in one of the most natural occurrences: labor. Positive feedback loops are when the body pushes past the stimulus and goes even further away from homeostasis. Instead of trying to bring us back to a stable condition, it will push us farther away from stability. This is seen in labor. During labor, the body is out of its normal range of stability. Contractions, oxytocin release, and the overall childbirth goes against what the body is used to on a day to day basis. However, instead of trying to stop these contractions or labor, the body pushes these stimuli even further to complete a reaction. These kinds of feedback loops usually have an endpoint in mind since they are not trying to stop an action, they are trying to complete one. Contractions will come more often and stronger than the last, but they happen to serve the purpose of childbirth.
Nothing the body does is an accident. Feedback loops like these are very important to natural and biological systems. They play a vital role in the sustainability of the human body, and even though the sweating or the shivering can be annoying, they keep us healthy.
