How to manage your sweat during yoga practice.
Splat! Splat! Splat!
Alice was enjoying her yoga practice until it started to rain sweat on her mat. The sweat was coming from the guy practicing next to her. Not only was it raining sweat, but it was also pretty smelly as well. There were puddles on his mat and on the floor around him.
Alice was hoping that teacher would talk to him after class about how to manage his sweat for his own safety and the comfort of the people around him.
What is the problem with sweat
There are three main areas of concern with lots of sweat during a yoga practice.
- Safety
- Sanitary
- Smelly
Each of these areas of concern affect not only yourself but your neighbours and your teacher.
Let’s look first at the Safety concerns of lots of sweat.
1 – Safety
Puddles of sweat on your mat and on the floor around you can be a major safety hazard. The puddles of sweat can make the mat or the floor quite slippery. Putting your hand or foot in one of the puddles could result in a slip and fall and potentially an injury. This is a risk not only to yourself but to your neighbours and your teacher.
To reduce this possibility use a mat towel to soak up the sweat on your mat and use a towel to mop up the sweat that falls on the floor.
Letting sweat fall into your eyes can be very uncomfortable and risky as well. Use a towel to dry you face and brow if you sweating enough to have the sweat fall into your eyes.
Now that we have taken care of the safety aspects of your sweat we should look at the sanitary aspects of pools of sweat on the floor.
2 – Sanitary
No one likes to walk in another person’s sweat. Do your best to manage the sweat that is falling around you on to the floor. Use a towel to wipe up your puddles.
If you have long hair and it has sweat dripping from it you should consider tying your hair back into a pony tail. This will prevent the sweat from spraying all over the floor when you move your head from side to side or when you do a Vinyasa.
Now that you are doing what you can to keep your sweat off of the floor and off of your mat, there is one more factor to consider. How does your sweat smell. It may smell fine to you but your neighbours may not find the aroma to be that appealing.
3 – Smelly
If you are new to yoga and you are sweating a lot during pactice you may discover that your sweat smells. In some cases it may smell a lot. This can be quite disturbing to your neighbours and your teacher.
This is not unusual for a person new to yoga to have smelly sweat. The smell is usually from the toxins that have accumulated in your body that the yoga practice is breaking up and flushing out of the body through the sweat glands. This smell usually diminishes over time as you continue your yoga practice.
In the meantime while you have smelly sweat, you can combat the smell by having a hot shower before your yoga class.
Your diet can also influence the amount of aroma in your sweat. Consider avoiding meat and spicy foods just before yoga class.
When is sweating an issue
You will only be sweating a lot in particular styles of yoga. The gentle styles of yoga like Hatha, Kripalu, and Yin do not generate a lot of sweat. You are more likely to get a glow on rather than creating puddles on the floor.
Vigorous yoga styles like Ashtanga, Power, Bikram and Moksha yoga are likely to have you sweating quite a bit. Some of them because of the heat in the room and others because of the heat that they generate within the body.
This can also be a problem in a group class regardless of the style of yoga that is being practiced. A large number of people practicing yoga in a small room can generate a lot of heat and humidity and this will start the body’s natural cooling system. You body will start to sweat in order to cool down.
Who has a problem with sweating
Men are more prone to sweating lots and generating puddles around them. However that does not mean that women are immune from sweating and make puddles on their mat.
Anyone that gets a really good vigorous practice going in a room with lots of people in it will start to generate a large amount of sweat.
Given that even you could be responsible for generating lots of sweat we should look at what can be done to control this river.
How to manage your sweat pool
There are three ways that you can help to manage your sweat.
1 – Bring a hand towel
Use this towel to keep the sweat out of your eyes. Use it as well to dry your hands and feet to keep them from sliding on the mat. Finally you can use your hand towel to mop up the puddles on your mat and on the floor around you.
2 – Get a mat towel
A yoga mat towel covers the full length of your mat and will soak up the sweat as it falls to surface of your mat. This means that you will be able to spend more time on your practice and less on worrying about your safety.
3 – Shower before you practice
This last piece of advice will benefit your neighbour and your teacher. If your sweat tends to be smelly, have a hot shower before the start of class. This will clean out your sweat glands. Removing the stale sweat from your body will help your sweat during class to be sweet smelling.
Are sweat bands a good idea.
Some people have tried sweat bands for the head and the wrists to try and control the flow of sweat. There are two problems with wearing sweat bands.
1 – They get in the way
The sweat bands can get in the way and cause problems in particular poses. For example a pose that requires you to slide your arms through your legs can result in the wrist bands preventing your arms from passing through or the arm bands could end up above your elbows. Similarly there are other poses where the head band will a problem as well.
2 – They get full of sweat
Once the bands get full of sweat you will have a constant drip or a sudden flow if you are doing a pose that results in the sweat bands getting compressed.
It is best to leave the sweat bands at home and use a small hand towel.
I’m a guy, Can I strip off m y top
While taking off your top may help you to cool down due to the evaporation of your sweat there are couple of problems with this.
A lot of people, both men and women may not be pleased to have your sweaty torso to look at. Not everyone is going to think that your body is a thing of beauty.
Your teacher is going to find it difficult to safely adjust you in a yoga pose. All there is to grab onto is sweaty skin.
Instead of stripping off your shirt consider using a light weight shirt that has material designed to wick moisture away from your skin.
Summary
If you sweat a lot during yoga class consider the safety of yourself and others, the sanitary impact and the smell. You can take several actions to manage your sweat.
- get a hand towel
- get a mat towel
- take a shower
- wear light weight clothes that wick the sweat away.
If you take all of these actions Alice will be quite happy to have you as a neighbour confident that your sweat is going to stay with you and not come over to her mat for a visit.
Next Steps
Do you have a friend that sweats a lot during a yoga class? Share this article with them so they will know what to do to make everyone happy.
