by Alan Baker
Think about it. When was the last time you made it through a day without being anxious about something and suffered the unfortunate result of sweating profusely because you couldn’t control the way your body reacted to the stress. Even the cavemen had anxiety in their lives. The thought of a wooly mammoth bearing down on you as you raced for the security of the cave with nothing between you and him but a little stick pointed on one end is enough cause to make you sweat profusely. We’ve come a long way from the caveman days, but we still have plenty of situations that cause anxiety and the resultant sweating. The unannounced summons by your boss to the inner office (”Please close the door behind you.”), to the kids not being home when they were supposed to be, to your wedding day—all of these are stressors in our lives that can overwhelm rational thought processes and cause our bodies to react and sweat profusely.
So what to do about it. What are some of the ways that we can get our lives into a workable state that will help to prevent this anxiety sweating from happening. How about a weekly schedule that can be broken down into a daily record of what you need to do and when. That would help get you on track so that you are prepared for life’s ups and downs and are not knocked sideways when the unexpected happens. Regular exercise helps too. When you are fit, you feel better and you are not so likely to go off the deep end when emergencies strike or just plain stresses occur, and you can control yourself better and not succumb to a tailspin of pounding heart and sweating. Or how about biofeedback. When stress occurs and anxiety sweating is just around the corner, stop; get your ducks in a row and mentally force yourself to listen to your breathing, breathe deeply, and take a few minutes to just calm down. It works.
Okay, now let’s think of other ways to keep stress and anxiety under control as much as possible. How about your job. Make sure you allot the needed amount of time everyday that surrounds your work and keep it organized while balancing your work hours with your time at home. Don’t be constantly rushing around at home trying to catch up because you spent too much time at work; your homelife is just as important as anything else and it can suffer bigtime if you let the work/home balance get off kilter. And your finances. Let’s get them into a stable condition so that you don’t have to cringe every time you walk past the desk where the bills are, or don’t have to figure out a way to rob a bank just to pay the electric bill. Balance is important, and your bouts of anxiety sweating will decrease markedly as the sources of the stress do too.
One big factor that can cause unbelievable stress in many people’s lives is their relationships with other people and how they handle them. Your marriage may leave a lot to be desired, or maybe you have been recently widowed, or your co-workers on the job are not the type of people you want to deal with on a daily basis. Any of these scenarios can cause stress in your life and you are then at the mercy of your emotions which in turn will lead to an active bout of anxiety sweating. Just step back and take a good look at how your interpersonal relationships fit into your life, and for anything that causes a negative reaction, get to work on it. Take some decisive action and make sure you evaluate just what part of your life your relationships with people plays, and work on that angle so that you can change whatever factors need to be modified and made positive so they no longer pose a threat as a stress producer.
Now we need to take into consideration just what is going on when your body reacts to stress and anxiety sweating in all its glory is the end result. We are still cavemen at heart. Genetically we have not progressed much from the days of outrunning the wooly mammoths and our bodies are designed to have just two choices on how to react to stress: stay and fight, or run like hell. We may have all the techno-stuff that our little hearts desire from cell phones to beds that react to us and cars that talk to us; but we still can’t manage the genetic programming that drives our inner core. When we are presented with a stressful situation, the body reacts by pumping out adrenaline from the adrenal glands so we can run like hell if we have to; but our more sophisticated brains say: “Wait a minute, this is not right, I’m going to do something about this and take care of the problem.” So we have an inner battle going on, and the body’s mechanisms are pumping out all kinds of chemicals that will help us either win the fight or make it over the next hill running our butts off. As a result, we sweat. The body is overheated with the fire of impending doom, and it is trying desperately to cool down and sweating is the means to that end. And because most profuse sweating of this sort is usually the result of some kind of stress in our lives that we can’t immediately squelch; then anxiety sweating is what rears its ugly head.
But, don’t despair. There are many ways to relieve yourself of stressful situations without making your body go through all that. Plan time to take a walk, and truly involve yourself in the walk. Listen to the sounds around you, look at the colors, smell the smells; let yourself bond once again with the most basic of needs we have as humans, to be one with Mother Nature. That old adage rings true when someone advises you to “stop and smell the roses”. Life is more than schedules and alarm clocks and deadlines; it is pulsing with excitement and fun and happiness. You just need to slow down and let it happen. Keep your life on as even a keel as you can muster in your own little corner of the world and you will find that the better you feel about yourself and your way of life, the less you will be subjected to bouts of anxiety sweating because you are in control.
All being said and done: life is full of excitement, happiness, danger, and stress. You are the one that needs to take control and keep your life in balance so that the negatives don’t outweigh the positives. When there is too much negativity in your life and you have a hard time seeing the silver linings, then it is time you took stock of your way of living every day and examine it closely to see where you can make changes for the better and can make it a more positive experience. Opportunities are all around you and are there for the taking; you just need to recognize them, and recognize that you need to make changes that will allow you the freedom to grab some of them before they all pass you by. Life is one big parade, and there is no better way to live it fully than to stop standing on the sidelines with your anxiety sweating consuming you, and step into the line of march, get in step, feel the rhythm of the positive drum beat, free yourself of worries, and go for it.
