Hot Flashes and Insomnia – Are They Related

Hot flashes may seem relatively harmless, but when you consider that they can actually cause insomnia for a lot of women, you start to realise just how debilitating they can be if left unchecked. Their relationship with insomnia is when a woman experiences a hot flash during the night, which naturally wakes her up rather suddenly.

One of the more debilitating symptoms of hot flashes is their impact on our ability to get a good nights sleep. A deep and uninterrupted night’s sleep is too long overdue for many postmenopausal women. Many women say they just lie awake, unable to go to sleep or stay asleep, and worrying about being alert for the day ahead.

“Having eyes like saucers” is what my grandmother used call it. Insomnia plagues more than 56 percent of postmenopausal women, and it’s not a new problem.

A girl friend of mine once suggested to me that the reason women wake during the night is so they can “keep the fire going”, referring to a state of affairs during our ancestors time thousands of years ago. Personally I’m not so sure, but even Shakespeare wrote about it in Macbeth where he enlists the services of a physician to treat his wife’s insomnia: “Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Race out the written troubles of the brain; And with-some sweet oblivious antidote cleanse the stuft bosom of that perilous stuff which weighs upon the heart.”

Impact of Hormone Replacement Therapy

So we know insomnia and hot flashes have been with is for centuries, but it seems to have escalated dramatically just recently during the last few years. Many people believe it to be related to the HRT scare that was publicized a few years back – where the clinical trials suggested that the risks of using hormone replacement therapy greatly outnumbered the benefits.

Many women are now being plagued again with menopause symptoms and problems they thought they had left behind. But there are still a lot of options that can provide effective solutions to these issues.

Even though insomnia is a fairly common experience for post menopausal women, there isn’t a “one size fits all” solution. As with every other symptom of menopause, you need to determine how it’s affecting you, and what the best cause of action will be. Don’t simply start popping sleeping pills to get through – they only offer short term solutions at best.

The first approach should be to consult with your health care practitioner or doctor and review your medical history. This can help narrow down your options and make your decision easier. For some women, some form of hormone replacement therapy may still be the best short term answer.

Insomnia – Is It Age Related

It’s well known that as we get older, our sleeping patterns and habits go through changes. We tend to spend more time in the first two stages of sleep. Stage one is called transitional sleep, and stage two is light sleep. Both are non rapid eye movement (NREM) stages of sleep.

The deep sleep comes in stages three and four, which are also known as Delta sleep patterns. These stages are where we get the most benefit. They are deep states of sleep were we are totally unconscious and fully “under”. Stage five is also called REM or Rapid Eye Movement sleep, which is where we dream.

As we get older, typically into our fifties, we tend to spend more of our sleep time in stages one and two, with the obvious consequences – sleeping lighter and more prone to be woken up. So we get tired earlier in the day, and tend to wake earlier in the morning. But there are always options open to us to enhance our sleep time, not matter how bad it has got.

First task on the list to figure out where we are having problems and what is causing the disruption to our sleep process. Do you have difficulty falling asleep, or do you drift off easily only to wake up soon afterwards. Are you continually wakening during the night, or just wake to early in the morning? Are the hot flashes causing you to wake suddenly, or do you experience one almost immediately you awaken?

Can Natural Herbal Remedies Help

Some herbal products might be beneficial. Some specific herbal menopause remedies could be the answer, or over-the-counter sleep aids might help for awhile, but don’t rely on the sleep aids too much – it’s never that simple. It’s better to create a new sleep pattern, a new routine that signals the body that it’s time to sleep.

How To Stop Hot Flashes From Disrupting Your Sleep

If your hot flashes are causing your insomnia, you need to find out what is triggering them. For some women it’s having a dream in the middle of the night that brings it on, for others it could be something as simple as a “spooky” noise like the heating system switching on. Rather than treating the symptoms with sleeping pills, look for the triggers and manage those.

It’s not a matter of your body working against you, it’s that you’re finally working with your body.

In many cases, the solution can be as simple as changing your diet or your routine. Allocating 30 to 60 minutes last thing at night to winding down and relaxing can be time well spent. Relaxing in a darkened room is a great way to unwind and help your body produce its sleep hormones like melatonin. Don’t do anything stimulating before bed – like exercise, or hot showers.

Diet also plays a part. Some hot teas – cinnamon tea, for example – might induce hot flashes and should be avoided. Carbohydrates actually increase sleep hormones, so that low-carb diet might be a culprit. Mom was right. Warm milk does induce sleep. But skip the cookies. Wheat toast should be just the ticket to help usher you into dreamland.

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By Mike Spencer Published: 10/25/2007

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