Keeping Dry: Beating the Nightly Menopause Sweats

A maddening menopausal symptoms for women (and their partner sharing the bed!) is the dreaded night sweat.   They’re similar to hot flushes but usually tend to be more extreme and prominent, leaving their victim drenched.

Night sweats are basically a hot flush that’s gone into overdrive and can be one of the worst menopause symptoms.  As seen in the previous blog, hot flushes are the result of an adrenal imbalance where the body’s temperature has dropped dramatically, causing a sudden flush of heat to stop the metabolic system being paralysed.  At night, this situation worsens because the body isn’t moving and hence is not producing enough energy.  Therefore the flush is switched to extreme mode.

The actual process of sweating then occurs as the body’s thermostatic mechanism attempts to release this excess, erratic heat through perspiration and sweat.  The sweats can come in waves, and generally occur at a similar time each night but it could also depend on individual circumstances.

With my patients going through the menopause or perimenopause symptoms stage  I have found a simple and effective way to weaken the sweats: I adjust the time they take their Ayurvedic preparations for menopause.   I had one patient who took her medicine at 8pm every night and had sweats coming on at 12am, preventing her from sleep.  When I advised her to take the medicine at 5pm her body sent signals to the brain which realigned her biological clock and the sweats stopped .  Other remedies involve Pranayama breathing exercises and rubbing  Lakshadi or Shatavari oil into the body, which have been described in the previous blog post ‘Hot Flushes’.

Night sweats are not the only thing stopping menopausal symptoms women from getting their shut-eye, stay tuned for my next blog on ‘Sleep Disturbances’.

Photo courtesy of wsilver via Flickr