Menopause Can Get Spicy: How to Breathe through Your Hot Flushes

One of the most common and frustrating menopause symptoms ailing women is hot flushes. It can affect the body anytime, anywhere and seriously impede a women’s quality of life. If you’ve ever had to step out from a restaurant or cocktail party because a sudden surge of heat has walloped your body from the inside, as if you just opened the oven door while baking, then you know the discomfort. You understand.

A common misconception among women is that the antidote to hot flushes is to douse themselves with something cold: ice cream, cool flannels and anything in a frappe. However, from an Ayurvedic perspective, this will only exacerbate the root cause and is actually not the appropriate hot flushes treatment.

What causes hot flushes? In Ayurveda, generally we find the pulse is actually cold for women who experience hot flushes – this indicates the body’s core temperature is really less than optimum. A hot flush is one of the common symptoms of menopause and occurs when the body suddenly perceives there is not enough energy for metabolic processes to occur – and like an emergency red alert, the adrenal glands send out a surge of adrenaline, to provide more energy to the body for metabolic functions. Your body is actually trying to protect itself!

The results are typical hot flush symptoms – rapid heartbeat, heat and flushing around the chest, neck and face, perspiration and sometimes dizziness and nausea.

Hot flushes at night often occur and are more severe (leading to night sweats, which I will blog about later).   They can last from 30 seconds to several minutes, and if left untreated, women can continue to experience them for 5 to 10 years or more.

This complex interaction between the body’s core temperature regulation, brain chemicals and hormone levels is not completely understood, however there is an easy but effective Yogic breathing technique you can use to dampen the hot flush heat when you feel it coming on…

Practice Sheetali

This requires you to shape your tongue like a banana and protude it slightly through the lips.  Then breathe in making sure the air is cooled by coming over the tongue.  This breathing technique will help calm the mind and relax the body in situations where you’re out, and crawling back into bed isn’t an option.

In this exercise, breathing in should result in a noisy sucking sound and will be followed by swallowing the breath into the gut, holding for four seconds, then exhaling through the nostrils.  So next time you feel a hot flush coming on at a dinner party, step into the bathroom and do this Pranayama technique for five minutes, until calm.

Other Helpful Tips

If at home, a longer-term solution calls for the use of Shatavari or Lakshadi oil.  Rubbing these oils into the body releases particular herbal qualities into the skin, which calm the body’s pitta or fire.   The Yatan Centre has a range of traditional Ayurvedic massage oils available on our online store.