The average adult sweat rate is around 1.2l per hour and this can climb as high as 3.5l per hour during heatwaves. Not rehydrating properly with the right electrolytes can cause fatigue, dizziness and dry skin.
What Happens to Your Body When You Sweat
The dermis, the thicker layer of skin, contains glands that produce sweat. Although sweat glands are found throughout the body, they are most numerous on the forehead, armpits, palms, and soles of the feet. While salts do appear in sweat, water makes up the majority of it. Its primary job is to regulate body temperature.
Exercise, a fever, and anxiety can all cause sweating—your body cools itself through sweating. Your sweat glands produce water to the skin's surface when your body temperature rises. Your skin and the blood beneath it are cooled by the sweat as it evaporates.
Drinking Water Is Only Half the Picture
Staying hydrated is all about drinking water to prevent dehydration, right? Drinking water is only half the hydration picture, you need electrolytes to regulate the following:
- Energy levels: Electrolytes are essential for cellular respiration. In other words, they turn food into usable energy.
- Mood: Low sodium is well-documented to cause mood swings and depression. Magnesium has shown to help with anxiety.
- Heart Health: Deficiencies in sodium, potassium, and magnesium have each been linked to poor heart health outcomes.
- Immunity: Both sodium and potassium help maintain the transmission of signals that direct your immune system.
- Brain cognition: Sodium is critical for brain health. If sodium levels drop too low, the brain swells with water and a range of neurological symptoms ensue.
- Hormonal health: Low sodium status increases stress hormones like cortisol, epinephrine, and norepinephrine.
Every function you care about—thinking, exercising, breathing, keeping your heart healthy, staying emotionally stable, and much more depends on electrolytes.
How Do Electrolytes Work?
To survive, we all require electrolytes. Electrolytes supply the small electric current that the body needs to carry out many regular activities. Electrolytes interact with cells in tissues, nerves, and muscles as well as with one another. The body needs a balance of several electrolytes in order to function.
When dissolved in water, electrolytes are substances that have a natural positive or negative electrical charge. They support a variety of bodily functions, including maintaining the balance between fluids both inside and outside your cells and regulating chemical reactions.
A way to avoid fatigue and dizziness during the day is to make sure you stay hydrated and on top of your body electrolytes needs. Choose a product with salt and perhaps potassium or magnesium for the best electrolyte benefits.
LMNT gives you more electrolytes in the ideal ratio. Formulated with ingredients that work for you, not against you.
More Salt, Zero Sugar
LMNT is a sodium-rich electrolyte supplement that improves performance. The product can boost your workout and push you to new limits. It has nine different flavours and is available in travel-friendly pouches.
- All Natural Ingredients
- Gluten-Free
- Science-Backed
- Paleo-Keto Friendly
- Sugar-free
A study published in Preventive Medicine found that not only was sodium restriction ineffective in hypertensive patients but those who consumed lower than 2.5g per day of sodium had consistently HIGHER blood pressure than those who consumed larger amounts. What we DON’T consume is just as important as what we DO consume.
Takeaways
Electrolytes play a crucial role in a person's chemical composition. A variety of symptoms might result from an imbalance that can impact how the body functions. An electrolyte imbalance, for instance, could be the cause of fainting after exercise.
Electrolyte intake during or after intense exercise and other times of excessive sweating can help maintain the balance. Always remember to stay hydrated.
