Hot Flashes and Night Sweats
Hot flashes and night sweats are among the most common symptoms of women in menopause and perimenopause. In fact, according to the North American Menopause Society (NAMS), more than two-thirds of North American women who are heading into menopause suffer from them. What’s more alarming is that some women begin to experience hot flashes well before their perimenopausal years.
Some women barely notice hot flashes or consider them a minor annoyance. But for others, the intensity may severely affect their quality of life.
What causes hot flashes and night sweats?
Hot flashes and night sweats are a symptom of an imbalance in hormone levels – mainly estrogen, progesterone, cortisol, and insulin – and are triggered when your blood sugar is unstable and crashes.
Stress
As with most hormone imbalances, stress is one of the main culprits. Whether it’s mental, emotional, or physical stress (extreme temperatures, strenuous exercise, environmental toxins, lack of sleep, pain, artificial light, etc.) your body reacts to at all stress the same way.
Under stress, your body produces cortisol, which helps to protect you. When cortisol rises, it causes your blood sugar levels to spike and insulin is then produced to lower your blood sugar levels. When insulin is produced as a response to stress, your blood sugar levels crash. To make matters worse, stress also causes your body to steal progesterone and convert it to cortisol leaving you dominant in estrogen. This excess estrogen in the bloodstream, not balanced by progesterone, will then stimulate the pancreas to produce more insulin. When blood sugar levels drop, symptoms such as hot flashes and night sweats, as well as irritability, mood swings, restless sleep, cravings, and fat storage occur.
Diet
What you eat and when you eat it, play a significant role when it comes to stabilizing your blood sugar levels. Going long periods of time without eating, not eating enough, or consuming simple sugars or refined carbohydrates, as well as alcohol and caffeine can all cause your blood sugar to spike and then drop.
Natural Relief For Hot Flashes And Night Sweats
At BeBalanced, we work with your body to help balance your hormones, and lower stress to help stabilize your blood sugar. As a result, night sweats and hot flashes will dramatically diminish or disappear quickly and naturally.
