Sweating is a process that regulates a person’s body temperature and the balance of urea, amino acids, and other substances that accumulate inside the body. The problem appears when you start to sweat too much or you have sweaty nights. A person sweats normally while doing exercises, playing sports, or doing tough tasks that require some effort. 

In addition, sweating may increase on hot days. But such a natural reaction of the human body can become pathological. Due to this, the quality of night’s sleep gets disturbed. While night sweats don’t grab our attention at first, they can become a serious problem over time. Sweating problem that does not go away require immediate medical attention. After all, it can be a symptom of a number of diseases.

Since many of us know little about the causes of this problem, in our article we would like to talk about seven factors that can lead to night sweats.

Causes of Night Sweats

If night sweats bother you even on cool days when there is no heat, you need to see a doctor for an examination. He/she will prescribe the necessary tests for you in order to exclude possible diseases. However, there can be the following causes of night sweats too:

Menopause And Night Sweats

As for women, most of the cases of increased night sweats link with menopause. During this period, the woman’s body faces rare changes in hormonal levels. This is especially true for reducing estrogen production. This hormone is especially responsible for excessive sweating at night. Such women experience suffocation along with increased sweating while sleeping. 

Because of this, not only does her sleep gets disturbed, but her heart rate also changes. To put an end to such a condition, you need to take medication to regulate hormonal levels. To improve the quality of sleep, it is beneficial to choose comfortable clothes made from natural fabrics. The same applies to bed linen. At the same time, it is also beneficial to keep the air in the bedroom fresh and cool.

Alcohol Abuse and Night Sweats

Night sweating is common among people suffering from alcohol addiction. It happens because alcohol impacts the nervous system of a person and generates heat in the body. Thus, for those already going through menopause, the symptoms of night sweats can get worse. It happens among women over 40, who frequently use alcohol. 

Helping such a parent can be challenging for children as he or she may hide the problem or deny the consumption of alcohol or drugs. An important question that arises here is how to know if your parent is struggling with addiction or not. For this, you would need to pay attention to the signs of addiction and also consult an expert for help. Once your parent would overcome this addiction, alcohol-induced night sweating will also be cured.

Taking Certain Medications

Taking a number of medications can also cause such side effects as increased sweating. According to research, some treatments for depression and nervous tension can be accompanied by night sweats. It is also necessary to note such drugs as:

• Hormonal drugs
• Drugs that lower blood sugar levels
• Cortisone is a steroid hormone used to treat inflammation and pain 

Tuberculosis And Night Sweats

Frequent night sweats do not lead to health problems that are not treatable.  However, in some cases, it may indicate a more serious health problem, such as tuberculosis. This disease greatly undermines the health of your lungs and is almost always accompanied by chronic night sweats. In this case, increased sweating gets accompanied by:

• Fever and high temperature
• Chest pain
• Sputum mixed with blood
• Labored breathing

Disorders In The Work Of The Nervous System

 The temperature of the body increases due to tension and stress. In order to restore normal temperature, our body begins to actively sweat. This reaction is quite normal. In this case, a person sweats not only at night but also during the day. If sweating increases only at night and becomes chronic and too intense, it may indicate serious problems associated with the nervous system. 

It can be Parkinson’s disease or neuropathy. Such diseases lead to dysfunctions of the nervous system. After all, they disrupt the production of signals entering the sweat glands. Due to this, a person may start to sweat a lot.  

Chronic Hyperhidrosis

Hyperhidrosis is the medical term for excessive sweating. This chronic disorder is quite common. Its appearance is related to genetic inheritance. Patients with hyperhidrosis may sweat profusely at night. Sometimes the sweating becomes so intense that they feel like choking.

Such people should sleep in cool rooms. After all, a temperature that seems normal to a healthy person may be too high for a patient with chronic hyperhidrosis. This disorder does not pose a serious danger to the health of the patient. But its symptoms can greatly complicate his/her life, causing a lot of inconveniences.

Hyperthyroidism

Hyperthyroidism is a dysfunction of the thyroid gland. In this state, the gland begins to produce too many hormones. All this affects the metabolism of a person and causes a number of negative changes in his/her body. Thus, patients with hyperthyroidism may experience extreme fatigue during the day and increased sweating at night. 

It becomes difficult for such people to endure the heat. For good sleep, the air in their bedroom should be cool. In addition to these symptoms, people with hyperthyroidism may experience weight fluctuations, hand tremors, and hair loss.

Take Away

Are night sweats keeping you awake? Be careful, ignoring this problem can lead to insomnia. We mentioned some most common causes of night sweats in this article. This problem does not always indicate serious health problems. But when it appears, it will be better to seek help from a doctor. This is especially true in cases where sweating becomes chronic or too intense.