Leaving sweat marks on chairs is one of the most embarrassing experiences you can ever have, especially if you like socializing. It can have a serious effect on your self-confidence when you are in public spaces. Fortunately, there are simple ways to prevent this problem.
Read on to learn important tips on how to stop bum sweat on chairs.
Why Do I Sweat When I Sit on a Chair? 7 Causes
A sweaty bum is both uncomfortable and embarrassing. Although it’s normal to sweat between your legs and buttocks, sometimes excessive sweating can point to an underlying health problem. Here are the main causes of excessive sweating in your bum and between your legs.
1. Hyperhidrosis
Your groin carries several sweat glands known as apocrine glands. These glands are responsible for sweating in the bum and between your legs, especially when the temperatures rise or during intense physical activities. This kind of sweating helps the body to stay cool.
But sometimes you can experience excessive sweating in this area even when the temperatures are extremely low and you’re not engaged in extreme physical activities. This kind of sweating is normally caused by a condition referred to as hyperhidrosis.
Also known as polyhidrosis, hyperhidrosis is a condition that’s characterized by excessive sweating in specific parts of your body like the groin, armpits, hands, and feet.
This condition normally starts during adolescence and it mainly occurs when you have excess sweat glands in the affected areas. The two most common types of hyperhidrosis are focal hyperhidrosis and generalized hyperhidrosis. Focal hyperhidrosis is when excessive sweating only occurs in one part of your body, while generalized hyperhidrosis is when uncontrollable sweating affects your entire body.
2. Hormonal Changes
Many women experience excessive sweating in the bum due to hormonal changes and imbalances. These changes are usually due to the use of birth control, pregnancy, or menopause.
These factors disrupt the normal production of hormones in your body, consequently affecting how other parts of your body function, including your sweat glands. Since women have more sweat glands around the groin, they’re likely to experience excessive sweating in the area.
3. Anxiety and Stress
When you’re anxious or stressed, your body temperature rises, causing your sweat glands to work continuously. This is likely going to cause a sweaty bum, especially if your groin has excess sweat glands. Stress and anxiety can also make your hyperhidrosis condition worse.
4. Low Blood Sugar
Extremely low blood sugar levels like 70 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dl) and below can trigger a fight-or-flight response, causing your body to release excess hormones that intensify sweating. That’s why diabetic patients experience episodes of excessive sweating. Therefore, you should test for diabetes if you’ve suddenly started to sweat excessively for no apparent reason.
5. Obesity
There are several reasons why obese people experience excessive sweating. For instance, they’ve to physically engage their bodies more when performing simple activities. Also, their bodies overheat easily, causing sweating. Since their surface area is low in relation to their weight, their bodies are forced to overwork to remain cool, resulting in excessive sweating.
6. Hyperthyroidism
Hyperthyroidism occurs when your thyroid gland is overactive, leading to the overproduction of thyroid hormones. Hormonal imbalance causes an increase in metabolism and body heat thus causing hyperhidrosis.
7. Certain Medications
Certain medications like hormone treatment, antidepressants, migraine treatment, and diaphoretic drugs can disrupt your body’s mechanism of regulating temperature, causing excessive sweating.
Some of these drugs can increase serotonin levels in your brain thus affecting your hypothalamus, which regulates body temperature. If your hypothalamus gland can’t regulate your body temperature, you’ll experience excessive sweating in your bum.
How to Stop Bum Sweat on Chairs: 10 Tips
Although your problem of a sweaty bum may be related to an underlying health condition, you can find simple ways to stop it or make it less severe. Here are important tips to stop bum sweat on chairs.
1. Don’t Sit for Too Long
When you sit down for a long time, your buttocks become overheated thus triggering sweat glands around your groin to excrete more sweat as a way of cooling the area down. So, you can easily prevent excessive sweating in your bum by standing and walking around regularly. You can stand up to go to the bathroom, walk around the block, stand up to stretch your feet, or grab a cup of coffee.
2. Keep the Area Free of Hair
Hair keeps your body warm, so you continue sweating. Therefore, make sure your groin, pubic area, and bum are free of hair to minimize sweating. You can either shave or wax the area regularly to keep it cool and less sweaty.
3. Eat Less Spicy and Acidic Meals
Spices like pepper increase metabolism, making you sweat more. Some acidic ingredients like apple cider vinegar and lemon can also increase metabolism, leading to excessive sweating. So, if you already have a sweating problem, these food ingredients will only exacerbate it.
4. Get a Cooling Cushion
Since most cases of a sweaty bum are due to excess heat down there, you should use a cooling cushion to keep your buttocks cool. This cushion allows continuous airflow between your buttocks and the chair to keep your sweat glands dormant.
5. Cold Your Body Down with a Drink
When the surrounding temperature rises, your sweat glands will kick in to cool your body down. So, instead of waiting for your body to cool itself down naturally, you should take a cold drink like sage tea to reduce sweat. Women who have reached menopause use sage cold tea to reduce the effects of hot flashes.
6. Use Cotton Underwear
When you have a sweating problem, picking the right fabric for your outfits should be one of your most important tasks. Always choose fabrics that are breathable and natural because they will keep your body cool and absorb sweat. Avoid underwear made from synthetic fabrics because they allow moisture to permeate easily.
Cotton underwear, on the other hand, absorbs and retains moisture to keep your chairs clean and dry. But you’ll need to change your cotton underpants frequently because they get damp very quickly.
7. Use Wipes
If your bum gets sweaty frequently, you need to take regular bathroom breaks so that you can wipe off the sweat with wipes or toilet paper. This is an opportunity for you to freshen up and tap your bum dry.
8. Wear Loose Clothes
Tight outfits will prevent your skin from catching fresh air, leading to overheating and excessive sweating. So, wear loose, breathable outfits that will allow fresh air to reach down there to keep your buttocks cool and less sweaty.
9. Use Panty Liners
As a lady, you can wear panty liners to absorb sweat. Although it’s not advisable to wear them all day, they’ll prevent you from wetting chairs at important meetings and social gatherings, especially when the temperatures rise.
10. Put on Your Menstrual Period Underwear
Since menstrual pants are meant to be leak-proof, they can help you to prevent the excess sweat from flooding the chairs. You can wear them even when you’re not on your monthly periods just to absorb the sweat.
What You Shouldn’t Do
When your sweaty bum becomes an embarrassment, you need to find quick solutions. Sometimes you can easily stop the excessive sweating by simply adopting lifestyle changes. Here are several things you shouldn’t do when you have a sweating problem.
1. Wearing Leather Hot Pants
As mentioned above, your choice of underwear determines how sweaty your bum and groin will be. So, avoid leather hot pants because they are unbreathable and likely to keep your bum overheated. These pants won’t allow sweat to evaporate thus leaving your chairs wet.
2. Applying Deodorants to Your Buttocks
Some people who suffer from sweaty bums are often tempted to apply deodorants between their buttocks to combat bad odor. Unfortunately, some of these deodorants contain chemicals that can irritate the sensitive skin down there, leading to more uneasiness.
3. Wearing Wet Swimsuit Bottoms for Long
If you have a sweaty bum, you shouldn’t hesitate for too long to take off your wet swimsuit after swimming because it can easily cause a fungal infection on your bum when the sweat combines with the damp wet pants.
When to See a Doctor for Your Sweaty Bum
Sweating is normal. It enables your body to stay cool when the temperatures rise. However, excessive swearing could indicate an underlying health problem like hyperhidrosis, diabetes, hyperthyroidism, infections, cancer, or a nervous system disorder. Therefore, if the problem occurs suddenly without any apparent cause, you need to see a doctor for a conclusive medical test.
You should also see a doctor if your sweating problem is accompanied by mysterious weight loss, night sweats, chest pain, high blood pressure, fever, fast heart rate, and shortness of breath. These are symptoms of a more serious medical condition.