As of 2020, over 46 million women in the U.S. had reached menopause. This means over 46 million women are struggling with hot flashes, which disrupt sleep and lead to fatigue and irritability throughout the day. Hot flashes are tied to thermoregulatory, cardiovascular, and endocrine changes, leading many women to seek natural remedies.
But what really works?
I’m reviewing:
- Natural remedies for tracking triggers
- Natural remedies for regulating temperature
- Natural remedies for reducing the severity and frequency
Scientific studies have examined several factors, all of which highlight the need to improve the body’s thermoregulation, particularly by keeping the sleeping environment more supportive. To do this, your best option is to regulate your temperature while you sleep, such as using cooling blankets or a cooling mattress, and practicing mindfulness meditation before sleep.
Table of Contents
Diaries
The first natural remedy for hot flashes is keeping a diary. Each woman has different patterns relating to their hot flashes. Carefully tracking them can help identify patterns and make it easier to know which other natural remedies might work best, such as changing foods or lifestyle habits.
Physical Environment
Studies have shown that the physical environment in which women sleep directly affects hot flashes, particularly temperature. Lab studies found that ambient temperatures of about 66 degrees will reduce the frequency and intensity of hot flashes compared to an excessively warm room around 87 degrees.
The same study found that women who maintained cooler bedroom temperatures were better able to stay asleep throughout the night, reducing nighttime awakenings.
Temperature isn’t the only aspect to your physical environment which can contribute to fewer nighttime wakeups and hot flashes. Ambient noise in your environment matters too, particularly from a snoring partner. With technology like the Eight Sleep base and mattress cover, when ambient noise levels rise (like from a snoring partner), the unit automatically adjusts the elevation around the head. This helps to minimize ambient noise and prevent it from leading to increased wakeups.
Cooling Blankets and Mattress Covers
Given the importance of keeping a physical environment at an ideal temperature (around 66 degrees), one of the best natural remedies for hot flashes is to use cooling blankets and/or mattress covers to keep your space cool.
Changing the thermostat can be highly effective at keeping the physical environment cooler, but so can the bedding you choose. Cooling sheets and mattress covers can help dissipate heat from the body and maintain a comfortable temperature. This means that as your body temperature changes while you sleep, or the ambient temperature in the room changes, the right bedding can bring your body temperature back to a baseline.
Sleep Number beds and similar Helix cooling mattresses help remove heat from your body while you sleep, keeping you more comfortable while you slumber. These are centered on technology like copper infused coils which effectively wick hot air away from the top of the mattress. Similar cooling sheets/blankets are designed with materials like cotton or bamboo to help increase air flow, which also moves hot air around instead of allowing it to build up.
The Eight Sleep Pod keeps your entire mattress and blanket cooler by adjusting the temperature for each continuously throughout the night. You can set a baseline for the temperature you want and it will make continual adjustments throughout the night to maintain that baseline.
The Eight Sleep cooling blanket and pod unit, according to the company, has been shown to take 44% less time to fall asleep with 23% fewer nights with wake-ups, via the thermoregulation on each side between 55 and 110 degrees.
Weight Loss
Studies recommend lifestyle changes as first-line therapy for relief of mild hot flashes, given the link between obesity/sedentary lifestyles and hot flashes.
Incorporating exercise and healthy eating can help improve weight and encourage movement.
Brown University’s Health Department published a study on the link between weight and sleep. When women don’t get enough sleep, they have a harder time getting rid of excess weight. A hormone imbalance of leptin and ghrelin means women’s appetites aren’t regulated, and that promotes overeating and weight gain.
Insufficient sleep is what leads to this hormone imbalance. Moreover, it is likely to contribute to daytime fatigue, meaning women aren’t motivated to exercise either.
Building a schedule for easy exercise into pockets of free time you already have is the best way to tackle daytime fatigue and still work on weight gain. This means adding squats in the middle of the kitchen while waiting for your morning coffee to brew, or walking around when taking phone calls instead of sitting. Once you are able, consider adding things like yoga or health and wellness classes (more on that below).
Yoga
Yoga is one of the most common forms of natural remedies for hot flashes. For some women, easy yoga (which is often combined with mindfulness meditation) or health and wellness classes are best.
Exercise in general can have a positive impact on hot flashes, with women who belonged to a gym reporting less severe hot flashes compared to those who did not.
One study offered weekly 90-minute yoga classes for 10 weeks, during which time women maintained hot flash diaries and ranked the frequency and severity. Results indicated that hot flash frequency declined significantly for all participants, with the strongest decline happening during the first week.
By week 10, women participating in the weekly yoga class reported a 66% decrease in hot flash frequency, and women in a general health and wellness class reported a 63% decrease. These results indicate that one of the better natural remedies for hot flashes is yoga, as a behavioral alternative to reduce hot flash severity and frequency, though it is often best when paired with other interventions and not used exclusively.
Mindfulness-Based Therapy: Reducing Stress
Mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy has evidence of effectiveness, indicating that it may be a useful choice for some women whose stress is interfering with thermoregulatory, cardiovascular, and endocrine changes.
For some women, this might include changing their daily routine to incorporate guided mindful meditations. But an easier way is to build it into the sleep hygiene process is adding mindful meditation before bed.
The Eight Sleep Pod offers a smaller version of mindfulness-based stress reduction therapy, drowning out background noise and adding the music linked through the Pod’s base unit to play soft music and help users actively meditate before bed.
Primrose Oil
Several studies have concluded that primrose oil capsules can help balance hormones thanks to the GLA content. The GLA content gets converted by the body into prostaglandins, which can help reduce the severity and frequency of hot flashes.
According to one study, primrose oil taken twice daily resulted in decreased frequency and severity of nightsweats for women, though statistically small. Even small changes, however, can combine to make big changes, especially if primrose oil capsules are taken as part of a sleep routine which includes mindfulness meditation, cooling blankets, and regular exercise.
Vitamin E
Surveys of over 500 women found that 57% had taken vitamin E to treat their hot flashes, and of them, 27% reported that it was helpful. Vitamin E can cause a difference by fighting free radicals and reducing inflammation, both of which are exacerbated during menopause. Vitamin E supplements might reduce the frequency and severity of hot flashes by reducing inflammation and improving sleep quality.
Chinese Herbal Medicine
Ingredients in Chinese herbal medicine also come with conclusive evidence to support their efficacy. Research indicates that Chinese herbal medicine is able to help create a balance in the body’s thermoregulation, and this can lead to reduced night sweats.
Ginseng, for example, has been shown to help with sleep disturbances and mood swings, with Korean red ginseng in particular reducing the severity of hot flashes.
This natural remedy for hot flashes can be consumed in the form of tea or capsules, helping to lower the intensity of hot flashes, though not the frequency.
Chinese herbal medicine and ingredients like Ginseng can be used in conjunction with acupuncture and mindfulness for the best results.
Acupuncture
Acupuncture can be used as a natural remedy for hot flashes too, with several studies pointing toward reduced stress, positive impacts on weight management, and better thermoregulation. Acupuncture can help reduce the severity and frequency of hot flashes, with reduced night sweats, mood swings, and nighttime wakings. For some women, the positive effects of acupuncture on reduced night sweats continued for months after acupuncture sessions were concluded.
Summing Up
There are many natural remedies for managing hot flashes, both reducing their frequency and severity. Not all methods work for every woman. If you are struggling with hot flashes, though, perhaps the most important thing studies indicate is controlling your sleeping environment by better temperature regulation.
Many of the top ideas (yoga, exercise, vitamin E, primrose, mindfulness, diet) all aim to help the body better regulate itself, and this extends to temperature regulation. Outside of these, the best things you can do include cooling your sleeping environment.
While cooling blankets and cooling mattresses can work, ideally, you want a full system that does everything. This is where the Eight Sleep pod comes into play. This Pod offers comprehensive cooling from a full system, from your mattress to your blanket, making continual adjustments as you sleep.