Menopause, Hot Flashes and Night Sweats - Things You Don't Know

The majority of women believe that hot flashes and night sweats are just a natural part of menopause. And to some extent, this belief is true. However, if your body's endocrine system is working properly, you won't experience as many menopausal symptoms.

Sound unbelievable? Well, once you understand the true physiology behind hot flashes and night sweats, it should make perfect sense. And to gain this understanding, you need to first understand the organs involved in the endocrine system: the pituitary gland, the hypothalamus, the adrenals, the ovaries and the liver.

The pituitary gland begins the process of hormonal life by sending messages to other endocrine organs. It also receives messages, so it can know what's going on with the hormones being created. However, if something is wrong with one of the endocrine organs, the pituitary gland never receives the information it needs. As a result, it thinks something is wrong with the body's hormone production. So, it works even harder sending more messages. Unfortunately, this makes the problem worse, since it encourages too many hormones to get produced.

In the process the hypothalamus gets over-stimulated. This is the organ that is responsible for regulating sweating. When it goes awry, it may cause a woman to experience hot flashes and night sweats.

But the physiological story of hot flashes and night sweats doesn't end there, as the adrenals, the ovaries and the liver are also involved. How? Well, during menopause, the ovaries don't produce enough estrogen to keep the body's reproductive system in order. This makes menopausal systems even worse... unless the adrenals send 'backup' hormones.

Yet, if the liver is not functioning right, the hormones produced from the adrenals may never get to where they need to go. Why? It's because the liver doesn't recycle them. This is what normally happens with hormones after they get used by the body.

So, as you can see many elements are involved when the body tries to use the endocrine system to naturally limit menopausal symptoms. If something goes wrong with one of them, the endocrine system may not be able to protect women against these symptoms. However, there are ways to get things in order without resorting to drugs... holistic medicine.

A holistic doctor would use herbs to help cleanse the organs... if toxicity is the cause of the problem. They may also open up acupuncture meridians, to make sure that the pathway for communication between the endocrine glands doesn't become blocked. They would use supplements and herbs to tonify the adrenals and other organs. Lastly, they would deal with your lifestyle issues, such as sleep, diet, stress and exercise.

People are different so sometimes these problems go away quickly other times the process is a little trickier, but these methods consist of healthy good things and so good things tend to happen.