How Does Your Body Maintain Homeostasis During Exercise?

During exercise, you might be sweating and breathing heavily. These are two of many signs that your body is maintaining homeostasis, also known as your body’s equilibrium.

Sustaining homeostasis is important for regulating your body’s internal balance so that all of your organs and cells work properly.

Here’s everything you need to know about how your body maintains homeostasis, particularly during exercise.

What Is Homeostasis?

Homeostasis refers to the “steady state” of all your body's systems — including body temperature, fluid balance, resting heart rate, and blood sugar levels — that keep your body balanced and working optimally, says Stacy T. Sims, PhD, an exercise physiologist and nutrition scientist in New Zealand.

“This means our body’s acid and base levels are balanced, and our cells, organs, and systems can function well,” says Heather Milton, CSCS, a clinical exercise physiologist at the NYU Langone Health Sports Performance Center in New York.

How Is Homeostasis Affected by Exercise?

Exercise affects your homeostasis in a variety of ways. For instance, it can raise your body temperature, increase the need for more oxygen, and cause changes in blood sugar and fluid balance.

“When we exercise, we cause a disturbance in this equilibrium by pushing systems out of their normal, resting preset limits,” Dr. Sims says. “For example, one of the first things that people notice is an elevation in heart rate. This occurs because there is an increased demand for blood to the working muscles, and the muscles have a higher metabolic demand, needing oxygen for fuel conversion and to remove metabolites.”

Exercise also stimulates your sympathetic nervous system (the part of your nervous system that controls your “flight-or-fight” response) and will induce an integrated response from the body, she says.

“This response works to maintain an appropriate level of homeostasis for the increased demand in physical, metabolic, respiratory, and cardiovascular efforts.”

How Does the Body Maintain Homeostasis During Exercise?

There are built-in mechanisms that your body uses to buffer the changes in your internal systems so you can maintain homeostasis. “Adaptive homeostasis” is what happens during exercise, because your heart rate, blood pressure, cardiac output, and respiratory rate adjust to the intensity of your workout, Sims says.

And that’s not all. Here are a few ways that your body maintains homeostasis during exercise.

1. Breaking Down Glucose for Fuel

Your muscles use up glucose from the foods you eat for energy. As a result of that, your pancreas reacts by changing insulin levels to maintain blood sugar, Milton says. The more intense your workout is, the more oxygen your body needs to convert food into fuel.

“Energy stored within muscle is also used at higher-intensity [exercise] to a larger extent. These stores are limited, so that’s why extremely high–intensity exercise, like sprinting, can’t be maintained over longer periods of time. Our liver helps produce energy to restore these levels,” Milton says.

2. Increasing Heart Rate and Blood Flow

During exercise, there is also an increased demand for blood to your working muscles. So, your body responds by increasing your heart rate.

Your body increases your heart rate during exercise by stimulating your sympathetic nervous system (the part that triggers your “fight or flight” response) at a greater rate to overcome responses from your parasympathetic nervous system (the part that signals relaxation), Sims says.

Your adrenal glands also excrete chemical messengers called norepinephrine and epinephrine to balance where blood in your body is distributed. They redirect blood flow away from your digestive system and to your cardiovascular, respiratory, and muscular systems, Milton says.

3. Cooling Down Body Temperature

When you’re working out, your body redistributes blood flow to your skin and working muscles. At the same time, you sweat, and when sweat on your skin evaporates, it cools your skin, Milton says.

Sweating is one way your body cools itself, according to Mayo Clinic. Your nervous system triggers sweat glands as your body temperature rises while working out.

How to Maintain Homeostasis During a Workout

The more you exercise consistently, the more your body adapts to achieving exercise homeostasis during physical activity, Milton says.

“Chronic exposure to this adaptive homeostasis is what we think of as improved fitness and health outcomes, because the body adapts and becomes more efficient at performing an exercise,” Sims says.

These adaptations include more endurance, muscle strength, and bone density.

There are also some ways you can help your body maintain homeostasis during exercise:

1. Stay Hydrated

Drinking water during exercise helps with maintaining homeostasis, because it helps replenish fluids that are lost via sweat. Your body needs fluids to carry nutrients to your cells and organs to work properly.

If you’re working out for more than an hour, particularly in a hot and humid environment, you may benefit from having a sports drink to help replenish electrolytes (salt and potassium) that are lost in sweat, Milton says.

2. Breathe

It’s a common habit to hold your breath during hard efforts, like lifting heavy weights or doing a plank. But doing so lessens your body’s ability to maintain homeostasis.

“We have [chemoreceptors] and baroreceptors (sensors that regulate respiration and circulation) in our body that initiate reactions to increase breathing depth and rate during exercise,” Milton says.

3. Fuel Up

Your body needs fuel to perform well during exercise. Make sure to have a pre-workout snack and avoid high doses of caffeine, Sims says.

4. Warm Up and Cool Down

You may benefit from a quick warm-up to wake up your muscles and joints before jumping into a workout, according to the American Heart Association (AHA). After your workout, spend some time doing a cool-down to redistribute blood flow to your organs, and improve muscle flexibility and joint range of motion.

How Long Does It Take for Your Body to Regulate After a Workout?

The short answer is that it depends on the intensity and length of your workout as well as your fitness level.

That said, your heart rate slows down as soon as you stop exercising. Your body temperature may take longer to return to its normal state. That’s because your body circulates blood to your muscles to pick up metabolites and heat, which is transferred to your skin and then the environment, Sims says.

“Blood glucose takes a hit during exercise, and this is regulated by an increase in fatty acid metabolism until the food is consumed. We do see a return to metabolic baseline in women by 90 minutes post-exercise, but in men, this can be up to three or more hours,” Sims says.

It can take up to 72 hours if you have micro-tears in your muscles or have muscle proteins that were used during exercise. But this also depends on your hydration and nutrition status, as well as your age and fitness level, Milton says.