For many menopausal women, hot flashes are the bane of their existence.
While there’s more to the experience of menopause than hot flashes, they’ve become the most recognizable sound-bite to sum up what most women find so unpleasant.
There are a number of pharmaceutical options out there for addressing hot flashes, but little by little scientific research is coming out with some mind-body medicine alternatives to ease this menopausal journey.
The International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis recently published a study by Gary Elkins, PhD et al. from Baylor University.
Their focus: whether the use of “cool” imagery during hypnosis can calm women’s hot flashes.
They had published a previous study in 2008 showing how breast cancer survivors experienced up to 68% reductions in hot flashes when utilizing hypnotic relaxation therapy.
The most recent study focuses on the type of imagery utilized by these study participants.
The results: all participants chose images associated with coolness, with the most common themes being cool mountains, water, air or wind, snow, tress, leaves and forests.
The study boils down to this: each woman needs to have her hypnosis imagery tailored to match those that they would themselves generate.
All of us in the mind-body medicine field would agree that the particular audience is the most important factor when trying to create appropriate treatments, yet why hasn’t this translated into women’s health?
For too long, women have been treated based on experimental results obtained from men.
On paper, we would all agree that this is ridiculous. So why haven’t we changed our treatment methods?
What innovative methods have you utilized to treat your female patients’ hot flashes?
Please leave a comment below.
I think if your fat hot flashes are worse
Not true. My friend is a size 1 and her hot flashes and night sweats are really bad. She sleeps with her window open when it 20 degrees outside to keep cool, and still has some. Not as much as the rest of the year. But some
Hypnotherapy but also NLP. One simple technique –
Where does the feeling start?
What colour is it?
Which direction does it go – up or down?
Where does it end up?
And most important – which way is spinning – use a figure in the air to figure this out
Then change the colour into something cool and soothing
Send it in the opposite direction – eg down and out through your feet
And change the direction of the spin. This last bit is the icing on the cake.
Then practice it, so you can use it whenever you need it.
If you need any help contact me
sue@suegray.co.uk
Sue Gray
Help Me Sleep
Informative one, thanks.
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Like a lot of methods, its works for some, but not for all!
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Effectively thought out article
I love the idea of ‘cool imagery’ to cool a ‘hot flash’ but after a few years of fighting ‘hot flashes’ I learned the benefit of them… wow! now that’s a healing benefit; read my story: Hot Flashes 101 – Anatomy of Joz’s Hot Flash !
I’m sharing this with ya all…. as we all have or had questions about horrible ‘night sweats’ or ‘hot flashes’ ! and we all get so mad at them and can’t stand them ! and actually I know several that ‘curse’ at them !
I have not had a ‘hot flash’ for ??? who knows ! but last night … boy oh boy did I get one ! then I remembered reading somewhere by Andreas Moritz that hot flashes actually are good for us to help with ‘cancers’
Well in the middle of the night and deep sleep I got so hot… the window was open ! so no heat etc… and the first reaction when I sort of woke up was to throw off my covers…. then I really sort of woke up and then I remembered that hot flashes/sweating are for health ! So ! I got the covers back on me. and then I pulled a ‘quilt’ on and then really got hot ! and hotter ! and then I just stayed there ! The room was dark, windows are covered with ‘black’ covers for the night ! and could not see the time… no electricity and no lights are on in the bedroom…. So I waited and finally felt ” wet ”” all over ! Eeeeek ! but then started to think….what next!
So toxins are released in the sweat…. Great ! So I got toxic ** haha ! I know exactly why and what I did ! and then I got this horrible taste in my mouth…. and then boy oh boy did I het ”’ flatuates ”’ eeeeek again….. and then I decided I had long enough…. so I got up … no lights …. got in a shower and quickly rinsed off ! and then felt pains in my liver ! and my kidneys ! whoah was my body not happy with me or what !
So I dried out and my wet nighty got dumped on the hemper could not see in the dark… so found it on the floor this a.m. ! lol Don’t care … I got my
DETOX HOT FLASH STYLE a First time in my life where I actually decided to help my body ”hot flash’ itself out instead of cussing at menopause symptoms and then uncover and chill and stop the process…***Each time a Hot Flash comes our way we try to cool/chill and stop the process…so the body tries again…and again we stop it…. If we allow the body to fully experience that Hot Flas Detoxing moment.. HELP THE BODY CLEANSE/DETOX ! …. then we won’t have to suffer so many attempts for body to detox itself! Yeah!
I went back to bed, covered lightly, and had a great sleep till 9 a.m. that’s when my cat woke me up ! needed the sleep to complete the cycle or what… I know we should not sleep in ! but I was so soundly sleeping ! SO ?
”’fearfully”’ (means equisitely ) and ”’wonderfully”’ made ! Yeah!
Decided to consciously pay attention to a ‘Hot Flash” and actually think about it and allowed it to happen…. Today I feel so ‘light’ ! So ‘cleaner’! I hope that I do not get too many of those, but and if I do I will ”help” my body do it’s job in detoxing etc….
There are times when you can’t give in to or take time to deal with Hot Flash… I’ll try the ”Cool Imagery”’ Dzienkuje Dr. Ruth
My husband raised this topic recently…that surely the hot flushing – intense as it may be – is the body doing some healing of some sorts. Reading your thoughts on this makes total sense to me. My flushes have become incredibly unbearable right now, but I’m going to try to embrace this, listen to my body and allow the necessary healing to occur. Thank you.
great content very helpful
Kjell is leaving a valuable tip regarding EFT.
ANN is on target to locate the Source of the “flashes” in our new world of nutritional lacking food and overdosed, environmental bombarded world, hormones stand almost no chance to Balance!
I would add women respond to molecular signaling molecules as in a certain (only one of its kind)product). beyond advertising for them, the results are very Sports and Health testimonial sound. visit amazing molecules.com for info.
It’s great to read of another example of the effective therapeutic use of metaphor. As a counselor who works with and trains other mental health professionals in the use of metaphors with a technique called Symbolic Modeling, I’ve seen firsthand the effectiveness of working with clients’ metaphors. I heartily agree with the statement that it is best to use the client’s own metaphors, for this is the way they have encoded their experiences and responses, beliefs, etc. into their neural networks. Change the metaphor, and you affect all it’s connected to.
In a similar vein,
Reuters health recently published an article entitled “Mindfulness classes help women with hot flashes”.
Women with severe hot flashes said their quality of life improved after taking mindfulness classes that included meditation and stretching exercises, according to a new study. The findings also suggest that such classes could help improve sleep quality, stress, and anxiety in women during menopause.
I am now going through hot flashes myself, and as a matter of fact they had tapered off to nothing, until I started the stressful process of moving. Hypnosis sounds perfect, as I believe stress is a huge factor, or maybe THE factor for me which brings on flashes.
I had an incredible opportunity to hear Dr. Northrup speak in Scottsdale, AZ a few years ago to a crowd of women….all of us in menopause or just entering. Wow–a room filled with power surges for sure! What I learned changed the whole experience for me as I understood and embraced growing into my ‘wise woman’ future. I had already benefitted from her book, “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom”. Needless to say hot flashes when you live in the desert are a pain in the….especially if you are a transplanted mountain woman. The cool imageries made all the difference! She also suggested progesterone cream which I found helpful along with an essential oil my aromatherapist recommended. So looking foward to hearing her again this week. Thanks so much!
I would suggest EFT as well. EFT can be self-applied at the time the hot flashes are there and in between as well.
Yes, hypnotherapy really does work to cool down hot flashes. Thank you for sharing the research.