Easy, Natural Remedies for Menopause Symptoms

Hot flashes, night sweats, anxiety, forgetfulness, hair loss, irritability just to name a few of the typical menopause symptoms that you may be experiencing. As your body decreases its production of estrogen, your body reacts with symptoms. If your body slowly decreases estrogen levels, you may find your symptoms to be mild. However, a sudden drop in estrogen may leave you with a wild roller-coaster ride of hot flashes, irritability, anxiety and more.

Natural remedies for relieving menopause hot flashes and other symptoms are many. Personally, I’ve found an array of natural menopause treatments to be more effective than just sticking to one type. Following is my routine for relieving the hot flashes, anxiety and irritability.

Exercise helps with menopause symptoms.

Exercise – This is my number one remedy for my menopause symptoms. I’ve been working out four days a week, for 45 min each session since Oct 2010. This is a boot-camp style work-out that focuses on cardio, resistance training, and stretching. I break a sweat, I elevate my heart rate, and I’ve increased my metabolism which is staving off the menopausal weight gain. Exercise is also effective for relieving:

• Depression
• Body tension and stress
• Irritability
• Anxiety

Burdock Tea for blood cleaning.

Herbs – There are several herbs on the market that help with hot flashes, night sweats and other menopause symptoms. Here is a list of what I have used with good results:

• Pycnogenol®  - a pine bark extract that is an excellent anti-oxidant and promotes circulation. I found that my hot flashes ceased all together after a few days of taking this herb. However, I also found that if I take Pycnogenol® continuously, my hot flashes return. I take this herb every other day for a month, then go off of it for four weeks.
• Roasted Dandelion Root tea – This tea works by purifying the blood and increasing bile from the liver. I drink this tea about once every few days.
• Burdock tea – Effective in cleansing the liver and helping with inflammatory conditions. Balancing the liver helps with hormonal imbalances. Burdock is a blood cleanser also.
•  Red Raspberry Leaf tea – This tea is typically considered a woman’s tea, especially for women of child bearing age. However, for the menopausal woman, this tea is good for toning and strengthening the uterus and pelvic region, and most of us can use that!
• L-Theanine – This is actually an amino acid derived from green tea that works very well in relieving irritability and anxiety. This amino acid takes the edge off without leaving you feeling drowsy, and is non-addictive. In order to get the same level of L-Theanine as in a capsule, you would need to drink 20 cups of green tea all at once! I recommend the capsules.

Friends of mine have had great success with Evening Primrose Oil, and Black Cohash. I’ve not tried these menopause remedies so I cannot offer an opinion, but these have worked wonders for many.

Decrease menopause anxiety with massage.

Massage – Regular massage can be effective for decreasing feelings of depression and/or anxiety. Massage increased body awareness, improves muscle tone and promotes better sleep which is beneficial for managing menopausal symptoms.

• A study from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles showed that the body can have a significant response after just one massage. A group of 53 adults were split into two groups. One group had a light Swedish style massage and the other group received a deep tissue massage. The results showed that the light massage group had increased levels of the contentment hormone oxytocin, while the deep tissue group had lowered levels of the stress hormone cortisol and increased lymphocytes which support the body’s immune system.

Nutrition – Dump the sugar. Seriously, it’s bad stuff. While you’re at it, skip the white flours, white rice, crackers, cookies, and anything else we already know is bad for our bodies. If you’re craving something sweet, then eat a piece of fruit, not fruit juice, but the whole food fruit. Fiber is critical to our bodies. It absolutely assists our digestive system, which is an integral part of our body function. It’s where we absorb our nutrients and make the energy our bodies use. If you gum it up with foods with no fiber, you aren’t eliminating properly, and that leads to constipation, bloating, and a thicker waistline.

My biggest suggestion here is, before you start an exercise regime, find a whole food nutritionist (I say whole-food because they will recommend foods to eat over supplements to get the proper food-fiber-protein balance you need,) to work with. It will really make a difference in the long run on managing your menopausal symptoms and have a greater impact on menopause weight gain and decreased metabolism.

What I’ve found is that by cleaning up my body, I cleaned up the majority of my menopausal symptoms. I feel great. My body is stronger, I feel leaner, I rarely get hot flashes, and sleep comes more easily too.

Menopause is a time of change. If you’ve been less than vigilant about taking good care of your body in years past, then this is the perfect opportunity to clean house and create a new and better you. You can naturally minimize the effects of menopause; you just have to commit to it. Be well.

Photo credits: duane_j; Michael Wilson; ABMP; familymwr; Cjcj