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.

The next step in trying to control anxiety sweating is to get your life in general under control. Don’t let your finances get out of whack to the point that you can’t bear to look at the desk with its mound of bills and dun letters and as a result your heart pounds and you chew your fingernails and you sweat. And your work schedule. Balance the hours needed to be spent at work with the hours needed to be spent at home. Life keeps on trucking and you will miss out on a lot as well as ruin a lot of clothes with unnecessary bouts of sweating because you let work control your total life and not just be a part of it. And have a schedule of what needs to be done when you are home. Don’t keep putting off jobs around the house; work at them on a regular basis and you will see how less stressed your life will be in a very short time.

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.

So what actually happens when the sweating bouts start. Why does stress trigger something like that and is there anything we can do to stop it. Well, think about it this way. Back to our little discussion about the cavemen; when humans were first developing and trying to find their way through history, they were equipped with only two ways to react to a stressful situation. They could either stand up and fight and their bodies chemically revved up for that; or they could run like hell for the nearest spot of safety, and likewise their bodies revved up for that too. So, since genetically we are not much farther along the scale than the cavemen, we suffer the same reactions when we are stressed. Our adrenal glands pump out adrenaline to rev us up whether we want to fight or run, and when we overload our bodies with all those chemicals, we sweat. So when stress comes along and we react like the cavemen did because we don’t have control of the situation, then anxiety sweating is the end result.

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.

The answer to all of this lies in the fact that if you want to have a more positive life in general, and enjoy the life you have, then you must have control of what it is that is going on for you on an every day basis. Examine what it is that is stressing you out, and with having a workable schedule , planned downtimes for battery recharging and regular physical exercise, you can face those stressors head on and reduce them markedly. The more you are in control of your mental and physical status, and the more stable your life at work and also at home is; the more you will find that your stress is diminishing and your anxiety level is dropping. There is no magic bullet here, just good planning and a desire to stay on the straight and narrow that will produce the stamina you need to face down the negativities in everyday life that trigger stress, and as a result, when you eliminate them you are also taking away from your life those embarrassing bouts of anxiety sweating that have plagued you for as long as you can remember.