Understanding hot flushes

Are you experiencing hot flushes?

This post is about what causes hot flushes and what you can do to relieve them naturally. Have you started having hot flushes or have you been having them for years? They seem to come at the most inconvenient times usually when you are in public or trying to sleep. You know that feeling when it starts, it’s hard to put into words but you feel this heat radiate throughout your body like a wave. If your body can’t cool down you will start sweating, beads of sweat can happen anywhere on your body.

Not so great if you are at work or a social function and you just feel like you need to run away to deal with it. It can be embarrassing when you turn bright red and you start dripping with sweat.

If it isn’t challenging enough during the day, night time can be a different story! Interrupted sleep, you may even need to change pyjamas, plus you are left feeling exhausted the next day because you haven’t slept well. The next day the brain fog creeps in, not to mention the cravings of foods you know aren’t best for you but you just need to get through the day.

Does this sound familiar? Did you know that 75% of women have hot flushes, they can last for a couple of years or for a decade or longer.

So what causes hot flushes in the first place? Did you know that some women don’t have them or menopause symptoms at all. Doesn’t sound fair does it?

What cause hot flushes?

You may have heard that as you start going through peri-menopause your estrogen levels start to fluctuate and usually wildly like a rollercoaster. Estrogen is required for many functions in the body not just reproduction. When hormones become imbalanced it can affect the hypothalamus gland in the brain, it controls your body temperature, sex hormones, sleep and appetite. It becomes very sensitive during this time and can get confused with the drop in hormones and in response it can trigger a hot flush. It does this to try and cool the body down. If this doesn’t work it will increase causing sweating by the blood coming to the surface of the skin. It’s still not completely understood and there are other reasons that can cause them.

So what can you do to help relieve them naturally?

• avoid spicy foods
• reduce caffeine intake
• reduce alcohol intake
• reduce stress
• reduce anxiety
• exercise (that’s not an excuse to not exercise, cardio workouts can be a trigger)
• quit smoking or vaping (it constricts your blood vessels plus other not great health benefits)
• dress in layers
• maintain a healthy weight (being overweight can increase symptoms)
• Increase cruciferous veggies (think broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage etc)

I hope you’ve learnt what can cause hot flushes and ways to help relieve them naturally. If you try these suggestions and it’s not helping, book a discovery call with me to see if we can work together to find a solution.

Tracey x