About 25% of women will not get hot flushes at all during menopause. However, the situations that can trigger hot flushes may also trigger other symptoms of menopause too.
What Is a Hot Flush?
Sometimes understanding what is happening can give us greater control over how we deal with a situation. in normal circumstances, if your body gets a little too hot, the blood vessels in the surface of the skin will start to open up. Blood will come through and the heat from the blood will be dissipated into the air. This is the way you will lose the extra heat. If you are extra hot, then sweating can also be triggered and the evaporation from the skin cools you down.
In Menopause, this can go a little wrong. In the brain we have a gland called the hypothalamus, which is like a master gland. It ensures everything within it's control is working properly. It controls our hormones. When our sex hormones - oestrogen, progesterone and testosterone start to fluctuate during menopause and the areas where these hormones are involved often come under a great deal of pressure.
So, your poor hypothalamus is trying to juggle everything, to keep everything in balance. The problem here is that the hypothalamus also regulates your body temperature.
So, when everything is going wrong, your hypothalamus is looking everywhere to try and maintain good balance - it can sometimes think your body is too hot, even when it is not. When this happens, it goes into panic mode. Your hypothalamus declares an EMERGENCY.
The cooling process, which normally takes a little while to kick in, leaps into action. Your blood vessels open up very quickly, you will quickly get a rush of blood and that is your HOT FLUSH. If the hypothalamus is extra stressed, it will also trigger sweating. You end up having a hot flush with sweating or you may have a night sweat in the middle of the night.
So, one route which can trigger hot flushes is due to the hormonal imbalance but we can also have hot flushes triggered by the nervous system. If you think about it, if we are a little nervous or scared of something, we often start to sweat. This is how the nervous system can interfere with temperature. In menopause, we know that the nervous system is involved in everything because of all the other changes that are going on in the body.
Certain things which can overstimulate the nervous system and this will trigger your hot flushes. The 5 main stimulants are:
1. Anxiety
Anxiety comes into the top 10 menopause symptoms and you can end up being in an anxious state for most of the day. You can wake up in an anxious state, which means your nervous system is under constant pressure. An anxiety attack will often accompany or precede a hot flush.
2. Stimulants
Such as caffeine, alcohol, fizzy drinks and high salt and sugar foods. We know these give the nervous system a quick hit and speed up your nervous system.
You may notice that around 10 minutes after your cup of coffee you get a hot flush or if you have a sugary bun or piece of cake may also trigger a hot flush.
3. Low Blood Sugar
Low blood sugar levels can also stress the nervous system and result in a hot flush.
4. Dehydration
This can be a vicious circle. Hot flushes and night sweats will dehydrate you and dehydration puts the nervous system into panic mode, which will lead to more hot flushes and night sweats.
5. Lack of Magnesium
Falling oestrogen can interfere with the absorption and availability of magnesium. Your nervous system practically runs on magnesium.
So, if you are low in magnesium, your nervous system will be extra stressed and this will trigger your hot flushes and night sweats.
If any of these situations apply to you, the first thing to do is address them.
How Can You Help Yourself?
To help reduce your anxiety, maybe look at a really good vitamin B complex.
You could look at cutting out or cutting down your tea and coffee consumption as well as your high salt and sugar foods.
You can look at drinking more water. Get PLENTY of water (between 3-4 litres per day!)
You also need to eat little and often or if you can't eat little and often, make sure you are getting a good , healthy snack that will keep your blood sugar stable and your nervous system will thank you for that.
Also, look at taking a good quality magnesium supplement and take a bath with magnesium flakes/epsom salts before retiring to bed. Alternatively, if you don't have a bath, soak your feet in a bowl with some magnesium flakes/epsom salts.
What Else Can Help?
It's a really good idea to keep a hot flush diary. Maybe for a week or two, every time you have a hot flush note down the time and what is happening. What are you doing at the time of the hot flush and what were you doing about an hour ago or what you ate/drank 10-15 minutes earlier.
If you are having night sweats, try to note down the time. After a week or so, you many notice a pattern.
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