Where Sweat Comes From and Why It Chills You
WHERE DOES THE WATER “SWEAT” WE PRODUCE COME FROM?
It comes from our blood.
“The source of this fluid is the spaces between the cells (interstitial spaces), which get the fluid from the blood vessels (capillaries) in the dermis”.
I did not know where the water came from, so I went to the internet. When we are physically active our blood moves faster through our body bringing oxygen to our muscles. I work out each morning on a tread mill. It has a readout when I hold the handles that gives me my heart rate. It starts out in the 60's, and when I am on the tread mill for 15 minutes it gets up as high as 175. My blood is running through my veins more quickly bringing oxygen to my muscles.
The increase in blood pressure is why our body draws the water out of our blood allowing it to move out as sweat so the blood can move faster through the body bringing more oxygen to our muscles.
When sweat evaporates from the surface of your skin, it removes excess heat and cools you. This is actually due to a neat principle in physics, which goes like this. To convert water from a liquid to a vapor, it takes a certain amount of heat called the heat of vaporization.
In order for this vaporization to take place in cold conditions when you have several layers of clothing on, they must be loose fitting which allows for ventilating. Of course, the very first layer as I stated numerous times MUST be fishnet underwear. They will allow for heat vaporization to take place.
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.
Here I am concerned with “radiant heat lose”. As noted, our body radiates heat, but it does not get out of our clothing. Radiant heat is absorbed by the first object it hits. When I had my factory in South Carolina I installed radiant heaters in the quilting section of the factory. When you walked under the radiant heaters you felt the heat. Since the quilting machines were made from steel, they absorbed the heat and once they heated up, they radiated the heat that they were absorbing. Our clothing does absorb the heat we produce but it is nearly as much as the steel is absorbing that it gives off.
Keep in mind when you wear close fitting clothing there is no room for ventilating to take place and the materials absorb the radiant heat constantly and if it is saturated with the water, sweat, from your body that moisture works in concert with the fabric to draw your heat.
The only way to curtail the radiant heat lose is to make sure there are spaces between the layers of clothing that you are wearing. Need I say more?
What I have learned today is where the sweat comes from, our blood.