Today, I’m sharing my best natural remedies for hot flashes. But what really causes hot flashes? Ask any doctor and they’ll tell you that hot flashes and night sweats are caused by falling estrogen levels as women age. That’s it.

Anyway, that’s the answer most of my ladies in my community get when they ask.

Just a bit on me I’m Stephanie Dodier Clinical Nutritionist and Intuitive Eating expert and I lead a community of women over 40 so we are very familiar with the topic of hot flashes! I developed the Going Beyond The Food Method™️ a proprietary methodology that helps women make peace with food and their body. Chronic dieter and body shy women become intuitive eater & body confident women that live a full life unconditionally. If a life without dieting is something that sounds interesting I’d love to meet you.

Back to the topic of hot flashes.

So when you go to see your doctor say that you want to stop hot flashes and night sweats, what you’re most likely to get is a prescription for hormone replacement therapy (HRT) and an extended talk about the issues that are associated with HRT.

Take a moment to stop and think about it though – how can all of this just be from falling estrogen levels? It just doesn’t make any sense, since every woman on the face of the Earth sees a drop in her estrogen during menopause, why don’t all of us get hot flashes? And the women who do get hot flashes get them at different times – some when they’re upset, others when they eat sugary or starchy foods.

Now think about what happens when you flash. You get hot, you get sweaty, your heart rate goes up, and you might well feel anxious. Doesn’t that feel more like someone came up and surprised you – something like a panic attack? A Fight or Flight reaction?

How can this be? Let’s break it down.

Adrenal Glands & Hot Flashes

The part of your brain that regulates temperature responds to both estrogens AND to adrenaline hormones. Adrenaline is a stress hormone in the same family of stress hormones as cortisol and norepinephrine. All 3 of these hormones are produced by our adrenal glands located on top of our kidney.

Your adrenaline level is usually low if you are in a state of relaxation and feel calm. We know that your if your adrenaline level is low that your estrogen level is high or low that you won’t a hot flash. However, if your adrenaline level is chronically high, i.e. you’re more stressed out than you should be, and you have a drop in estrogen you will trigger a series of reaction in your body that will produce a hot flash.

Yes hot flashes are in part due to estrogen level being low BUT it’s triggered by our stress level via adrenaline. Addressing your stress level is as important as considering how we can stabilize our estrogen level.

Natural Remedies For Hot Flashes: Stress Reduction Techniques

If you’re stressed, then your body is responding to stressors in your environment. We’re talking about physical and emotional things that are affecting your body to bring it out of balance. These are things that we know may cause hot flashes.

Environmental stressors can come from a myriad of places, and here are some examples. Check out which ones you think you might be struggling against.

• Nutrition
• Illness
• Relationships
• Finances
• Lack of movement
• Negative thoughts

Reducing sources of stress in your life will help you to stop hot flashes. Let’s see how.

Nutrition

Diet-induced stress is a great place to start. We know that when we eat sugary & highly processed food our blood sugar levels go up. This makes our insulin kick in to reduce them. When insulin rises, cortisol goes up with it. ! Making dietary changes is one of the best natural remedies for hot flashes. Read more about how to modify your diet here.

Movement

Incorporating movement in your life can be incredibly critical when it comes to managing your hot flashes. Lack of movement is not only a cause of stress for pre and postmenopausal women but for everyone. For women in menopause, it can escalate to more symptoms than in many other people, so adopting a practice of mind/body light movement techniques like walking in nature, yoga or even swimming will have an amazingly calming effect on your nervous system, reducing the impact on your adrenal glands.

Supplementation

B-vitamins offer a great place to start supplementing to stop hot flashes since B’s are in high demand in the metabolism of stress in our body. They’re also a powerful methylator in the metabolism of hormones such as estrogen and progesterone. Find a complete B-complex formula and take it 3 times a day with food.

Herbal supplements have been studied and demonstrated to help manage your cortisol level and thereby your stress level, thus reducing the load on your adrenals. Licorice Root is well known for helping to support adrenal balance as well as energy levels and endurance. Rhodiola is an adaptogenic herb that protects against stress-related fatigue and ultimate “burnout”, increasing mental clarity, supporting the immune system and assisting in balancing blood sugar regulation – an all around great supplement!

Vitamin C is another powerful nutrient that can be added to your daily regimen and will help support your adrenals. It’s also, of course, one of the most powerful antioxidants and an immune booster. Use 1000mg x3 day with food if you’re unsure where to start.

You can access my favourite brands and recommendation in my store right here

Your mind and thoughts: the most powerful tips for stopping hot flashes

One of the key natural remedies for hot flashes is focusing more on loving thoughts. Thoughts that bring you pleasure (like thinking about people you love or favourite pets) short-circuit the harm done by the body’s physiological reaction to stress.

This learning to “think with your heart” may be challenging at first, but it’s definitely worth it. If you faithfully work at this technique and regularly pay attention to the areas of your life that bring you joy and fulfillment, you will evoke biochemical changes in your body over time that will recharge your adrenal batteries. You can read more about my personal journey with connecting mind and body here.

Learning to quiet your mind and focus on positive thoughts can be easy with the practice of deep breathing or meditation. Start with a quick and easy 5 minutes a day as you wake up. Then as you get more comfortable, increase your quiet time (aka meditation) to 15-20 minutes a day. I teach techniques to overcome food cravings that can get you started on this journey to quieting your mind. In my free guide Crave Cure Guide I take you through my 4 steps to cure you cravings.

The good news is that there are many natural remedies for hot flashes and other unpleasant and unwelcome symptoms of peri–menopause and menopause. Reducing your level of stress in many aspects of your life can not only leave you feeling more relax and healthier but also cooler! You can stop hot flashes.

Next steps would be for you read the first article in this series Nutrition for Menopause and last one Sleep and menopause.

NSAIDs (Nonsteroidal Anti-inflammatory Drugs) are over-the-counter medication sold under names such as Aspirin, Ibuprofen, Celebrex, Naprosyn, Toradol, etc. They’re commonly used to reduce pain caused by headaches, arthritis, coughs, colds, and sports injuries. However, very few people know about the truth about NSAID side effects.

How NSAIDs work

NSAIDs work by reducing or blocking the production of a compound named “Prostaglandin”. You can think of prostaglandin as something similar to a hormone (i.e. estrogen or cortisol).

Prostaglandin has certain negative effects such as increasing inflammation, pain and fever, but on the positive side it protects our stomach lining from the damaging effects from HCL (the acid we have in our stomach that helps digest our food) and it also protects the small intestine lining from the damaging effects of the digestion process.

Therefore, prostaglandin serves both a good and bad purpose in our body. Remember that NSAIDs reduce prostaglandin, and therefore, they influence both its positive and negative effects. This means, that yes, your pain is reduced, but your stomach and small intestine are exposed to the damaging effects of the digestive process that occurs in our gastrointestinal tract every minute of the day!

The Truth About NSAID Side Effects: The Ugly Side of NSAIDs

NSAIDs have positive side effects of reducing pain but also can lead to the following body messages or symptoms:

• Stomach ulcer (a hole in the stomach lining) leading to poor production of HCL (hydrochloric acid), which in turn leads to poor digestion and malabsorption.
• Small intestine lining perforation causing leaky gut (hole in the small intestine) leading to food allergies and intolerances, and in the long term to auto immune disease.
• Depression (in most cases due to the above leaky gut syndrome)
• Delayed digestion
• Kidney damage
• Liver damage
• Dizziness
• Tinnitus
• Increase blood pressure

The Root Cause of Our Pain

Taking NSAIDs is a way of affecting and treating symptoms, and doing so is only hiding the root cause of the issue. When we experience symptoms such as headaches, this sends us a message that something is wrong inside of us. We must listen to these messages to find the root cause and treat it, or otherwise the pain or inflammation will continue indefinitely.

In the case of chronic diseases such as arthritis, which require long term usage of NSAIDs, always take the time and care to consider natural options. As an example, fish oil (specifically the EPA component of fish oil), is a powerful agent that reverses the effects of prostaglandin (inflammation & pain) without the side effects. So, choosing an alternative could potentially be as easy as taking a regular dose of fish oil….

Body Messages

To recap the two critical points – when our body manifests symptom such as headaches or pain, this a way for it to give us a signal that something abnormal is happening.

We must listen, or otherwise chronic diseases will be waiting just around the corner. Lastly, it is important to keep in mind that although available over the counter, NSAIDs are very powerful drugs that have many side effects and we should avoid taking them on regular basis.

Alternative Solution to NSAIDs

Now that you know the truth about NSAID side effects, you’d want to look for effective pain relief without any of the dreadful side effects I mentioned. You have a few alternative as outlined by Dr. David Williams here.

If you pain is due to inflammation, which is most likely the case for symptoms such as arthritis, joint pains in general and most injury you can follow my anti-inflammatory protocol here.

Share your thoughts: Do you currently use NSAID? Do you use an alternative? What is your go to for pain relief?

Late to a meeting? Rushing out the door to pick up the kids? Eating lunch while trying to finish a project? Sounds like you need to have some stress management strategies in place, yes?

In our modern world, we seem to find stress to be a normal part of accomplishing our daily tasks. Like the ladies in my free and private community we are busy people. On any given day, I personally have a list with a half dozen some-odd things I’m supposed to try and get done. On top of that, I need to make time to prepare a few good meals for myself, get some exercise in, maybe see some friends, and oh yeah… sleep!

It’s a great thing to have the ability to accomplish so much in our lives, but large amounts of stress can be really detrimental to our health and happiness- increasing our risk for infections, heart disease, cancer, obesity, depression… the list goes on and on. While it may not be possible to stop our lives and head to Maui at the first symptoms of stress, it is possible to take some basic steps to reduce stress and increase our daily sense of wellness through stress management.

What is Stress?

Stress is your body’s response- its natural reaction- to challenges. It’s a healthy response! Our body is ready to deal with whatever comes at us by increasing blood flow, oxygen intake, and hormone production.

Stress can be a bit complicated to understand if you try to look for common symptoms. Physicians list stress symptoms to include anything from body pains and sweating to acne and insomnia to decreased sex drive and nausea. Psychologically we may feel ungrounded, chaotic, anxious, and depressed. I even sometimes get angry when I’m stressed out. Luckily, we don’t have to always stay in this state, but we first must learn how to identify and slow down when we are stressed out.

Mind Your Stress- Listen to Your Body Messages!

One clear point from these lists of potential symptoms is that stress is specific for each individual. We all experience stress but many of us tune out and don’t listen to our body messages to the ways our beautiful, caring selves tell us what is going on.

The first and most important thing we must learn to do when learning how to deal with stress is to SLOW DOWN and notice what we are feeling. Pay attention to what your body is telling you by feeling and identifying the sensations you are experiencing. This is a practice of mindfulness.

However, slowing down and getting in our bodies to identify our internal language can be hard when we are in a rush. But, never fear my friends, I am here to bring you 5 excellent hacks to help you slow down, pay attention to yourself, and feel more Zen in no time.

The Five First Aid Fixes for Stress Management

1. Sip on Some Water

When you really get worked up, try sipping on a glass of water. Don’t chug the water- that’s beside the point. Slowly sip and sip and sip your stress away. Not only are you calming yourself down, but you are also hydrating and flushing your body out. This is really a helpful tip if you struggle with emotional eating.

2. Smile and Laugh

I literally mean just this. You don’t need a funny movie or even a joke Take a moment in private and quietly laugh or smile to yourself for at least five minutes. Studies have shown that the act of smiling, even for nothing, actually tricks your brain into releasing happy hormones.

3. Go for a Walk

Recognize that you aren’t being productive? See that you are stressed out? Go for a walk to cool off and get out of your head space. Feel your feet on the ground, listen to the sounds around you, and enjoy the fresh air on your face. When you get back to your activities, I guarantee good things.

4. The Deep Breath

Have to stay put but way too stressed out? Take 10 deep, long full breaths- count them. Taking these mindful breaths will immediately slow you down and help get you in touch with your body. This is an excellent first aid tip for a meeting situation since you can do it without anyone noticing.

5. Talk to a friend

If it is really a hard time, there is nothing wrong with responsibly seeking social support. It has been shown that regular individual levels of stress and healthy social support are inversely correlated. That means that those dear people in our lives actually help reduce our level of stress on average.

I hope you try out these quick tips for stress management. Let me know how stress is showing you in your life for you by writing on the community page or in the comment box below. Further, if you like these tips and are looking for more ways to bring mindfulness into your life, check out this seminar “Just listen your body is speaking to you”.