Sweat & Smell

Sweat, and the associated smell, doesn’t just appear after exercising. When we’re cold, for example, our body starts to generate more heat which causes sweating. If you’ve been sitting on the toilet a long time, that smell will be part of you. Some people have sweaty hands all day, for no apparent reason.

This is a normal process. You can’t stop sweating or control it! Instead, the consequences are simply masked or solved.

• Washing and showering regularly will wash sweat away
• You can spray scents on yourself (deoderants)
• And you can put nice scents in your environment (such as the toilet or the room where you work)

As I stated earlier, however, most of these bad smells come from things humans invented. In nature, there isn’t such a thing as a common toilet, and you surely won’t sit on it for longer times. That bad “poop smell” isn’t something that must be there.

And so you can prevent many of these issues by simply living a natural, active lifestyle. Move around a lot. Keep your clothes light and freeflowing. Open your windows and let fresh air in. You’ll notice how many hygiene problems simply evaporate.

Deodorants vs Anti-Perspirants

They do something completely different, although often used for the same reason.

Deodorants are chemical solutions that smell really nice. Spraying some under your armpits doesn’t stop any sweat or smell, but masks or hides it by creating a nicer smell.

Anti-Perspirants try to obstruct the sweating. Where used, they dry up any sweat against your skin so the smell is not released and it can’t be seen through your clothes.

Spraying a bit of deodorant is usually more than enough. If you suffer from excessive sweating, anti-perspirants will help you out, but I wouldn’t advise you use them otherwise. Your body transpires for a good reason: to release heat. You shouldn’t try to make it stop doing that. Better solutions are:

• Exercising in different clothes
• Showering or washing after any activity that may make you sweat

How often should I use deodorant?

The same rule applies as in the washing chapter: “whenever you change environments”

People spray it on before they leave for work or school. They might come home to eat dinner, but plan to go out later that night. They will spray some new deoderant before going out again.

On very hot or active days, keep some with you, because you’ll need it more.

However, do not overuse deodorant. (Or cologne, for that matter). Use it to mask bad body smell, and perhaps give yourself a very subtle nice smell. It is still unnatural to use and it merely masks issues. Even nice smells become “bad” if they are overwhelming.

Sweaty hands

A very annoying problem. Some people just have this, others don’t. Washing your hands with cool water regularly helps. Otherwise, keep a towel or something with you, so you can always quickly dry them.

Some people also suffer from the opposite: cold hands. The remedy for this is the opposite: wash your hands with warmer water. Try to use them a lot and rub them against each other to keep them warmer.

The poop smell

First of all, just don’t sit on a toilet longer than necessary. It annoys the crap out of anybody else living with you. It’s not necessary. It permeates you with toilet smells, which you never want.

A toilet visit should be quick and easy. If not, change your diet or lifestyle.

And, as always, we can learn from nature. Humans aren’t supposed to go to the toilet while sitting on something. We are supposed to do so while squatting.

• Find something with a low height. Like a stack of books, a low bench, even a roll of toilet paper might be enough.
• Place your feet on that.
• Now your knees are raised, your bottom low, and you sit in more of a squat position.
• Believe me, this makes going to the toilet 100x easier.