Think you must have drugs or herbs to treat your menopause symptoms? Think again.
Women spend one-third of their lives in menopause—an awfully long time to struggle with its exasperating effects. The hot flashes alone are enough to drive women to extreme lengths, including shelling out hard- earned money on the latest herbal promise, or even taking medicines with unbelievable risks.
In fact the most popular hot flash medication (estrogen) can increase the risk of heart disease, stroke, blood clots, and EVEN CANCER! And other options—including antidepressants and, believe it or not, anti-seizure medications—may not be much better for you.
The cure within
But here’s the surprising news: Hot flashes can be slashed by more than two-thirds without spending a dime or taking a single pill.
A just-published study in the journal Menopause found that postmenopausal women who learned a technique called applied relaxation were able to prevent an average of five hot flashes a day!1 What’s more, the results remained the same three months later.
Applied relaxation is just one way of learning how to release tension and relax muscles. And it makes sense that it would be effective in controlling hot flashes, which happen when blood suddenly flushes a particular region of the body due to rapid shifts in blood vessel tone.
The mind influences blood flow by communicating with the small muscles in arteries and adjusting the blood vessels’ tone, size, dimensions, and flow.
So learning a mind-body technique to relax the blood vessels is a perfect no-stress way to get a handle on hot flashes without the dangerous drugs.
Your custom-tailored relaxation technique
Applied relaxation is a great technique for some people, but not every relaxation technique works for every individual. The good news is there’s something that’s right for each individual. Find the right fit for you in my book with Michael Jawer, Your Emotional Type.
Hot and Cold
Hot flashes are one end of the spectrum, but how about cold flashes? Or a cold shoulder anyway…
Research shows that when a woman gives you the “cold shoulder,” it’s more than a figure of speech—it’s a physiologic reaction.
The chill of isolation and rejection actually causes the skin to become colder, according to researchers at the University of Tilberg in the Netherlands.
Working with graduate students as subjects, researchers found that when certain students were consistently left out of social interactions, they had lower temperatures in their fingers.
Why the physical reaction to an emotional experience? Because when someone is isolated and alone, the mind through the autonomic nervous system shifts blood flow back to the central core of the body as a self-protective measure, since the safety and protection of participating in a group (safety in numbers) is being denied.
Sources:
1. Lindh-Åstrand L, Nedstrand E. Effects of applied relaxation on vasomotor symptoms in postmenopausal women: a randomized controlled trial. Menopause. 2012 Nov 12. [Epub ahead of print]