Pre-Menopausal Symptoms

Hot flashes is a common complaint among women in perimenopause. While it isn’t life threatening or scary, it can be embarrassing when it occurs during the daytime and annoying when it occurs during the night time (also known as night sweats). Typically, a hot flash attack can last up to 30 minutes and it has been known to happen as often as several times a day.

Perimenopause hot flashes take place because of the fluctuating levels of hormones in our bodies. What’s affected here are not just our sex hormones, but other hormones as well, including those that help regulate mood, body temperature, digestion, etc.

If you are suffering from perimenopause hot flashes, you’d be glad to know that there are natural home remedies that you can use to alleviate this symptom. Here’s a run down of the more common remedies for hot flashes. Before you try out any of these, it’s best to clear it with your doctor or healthcare provider.

Phytoestrogens

Phytoestrogens are chemical compounds food in plants and in some food that are similar to the estrogen that’s found in our bodies. Hot flashes are symptoms caused by a lack of estrogen in the body. So if we eat food that are rich in phytoestrogens, we help the body replenish its store of estrogen and relieve the symptoms caused by a lack of it. Food that can contain phytoestrogens include soy and lentils.

Vitamin E

Vitamin E mimics the action of estrogen in the body. This is what makes it a potent remedy to reduce and alleviate perimenopause symptoms like hot flashes.

Vitamin E an be found in various food like seeds, nuts, whole grain cereals, mangoes, dried beans, liver, and some varieties of fish like herring and mackerel. It’s also found in unprocessed vegetable oils like safflower, sesame oil and peanut oil.

Wild yam

Wild yam is a known antioxidant and is also effective in battling hot flashes. It helps to reduce the occurrence and the severity of hot flash episods.

Chasteberry

Chasteberry relieves hot flashes by helping the body increase its production of progesterone. This is specially beneficial for women who experience estrogen dominant perimenopause (body is producing more estrogen that progesterone).

Black Cohosh

Endearingly termed “the woman’s herb” because of its usefulness is helping women achieve wellness, black cohosh is known to have isoflavone, a compound that mimics hormone activity in the body. It’s credited to alleviate a lot of perimenopause symptoms, including hot flashes.

Primrose Oil

Primrose oil is a good source of essential fatty acids and is known to relieve perimenopause symptoms like hot flashes.

Lignan Flax

A type of herb, the oil of the lignan flax is well known for its ability to lessen hot flashes. Aside from this, it’s also used as a topical medicine for certain skin conditions like eczema and acne. It works by removing excess estrogen in the body.

Are you looking for the home remedies you can use for your other perimenopause symptoms? Get a comprehensive list, including instructions on how to prepare and how much to use from Perimenopause: Have It, Live It, Love It! For more details, visit the official website at  http://www.survivingperimenopause.com

Premenopausal symptoms consist of many different factors and will always be a challenge. However, there are several foods that will help if included in your diet during the course of the menopause.

The right foods will help balance and support your hormones. Essential fatty acids are one of the most powerful groups to include, in particular, Omega-3′s. There are at least five foods in this group that will help make your life better.

The Omega-3 foods you should try and include in your daily diet are wild salmon (not farm raised salmon if possible), kidney beans, walnuts, ground flax seeds and also cauliflower. If you can’t eat these, make sure you get a good Omega-3 supplement.

Try mixing the kidney beans with sweet peppers, arugala, balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil to give yourself a top EFA power meal.

In addition, make sure you eat plenty of protein to help keep your blood sugar and energy levels stable. Eating plenty of protein will help to slow down your digestion and thereby suppress the appetite. Drink plenty of water to help stay hydrated and to keep your bowels and digestion in good working order. You should also make sure to include plenty of low glycemic high fiber carbohydrates to help control food cravings and energy swings. To also help keep those food cravings in check and to keep the metabolism up, try and eat little and often. By this I just mean three main meals and a couple of power snacks between the meals.

Things you should cut back on include caffiene, especially after 6pm as this may stop you sleeping. Sugar will not do you much good and should really be cut back on. Also steer clear of white bread and rice and other white carbohydrates.

Finally, get off your butt and get moving if you don’t exercise already. Try some form of resistance training to improve your muscle tone and boost metabolism. An easy way to get your muscles in shape and to help avoid weight gain is to use vibro plates.  These are now cheap enough to have in your own home, but you will be able to find them in your local fitness or beauty salon. These machines are designed to give you the optimum workout for the minimum effort. In fact, it is said that 10 minutes of vibro plate exercises is worth an hour of conventional resistance exercise. For more on this type of fitness machine go to www.vibroplateexercises.com for more information.

Hopefully, the above tips will help you get through your premenopausal symptoms and right through to post menopause with the minimum of problems. Find out more about the Ultimate Guide To Menopause Symptoms by CLICKING HERE or on the picture above.

Contrary to popular belief that menopause symptoms include memory loss and a decline in cognitive function, there is some evidence this may not be the case – at least for some. Hot flashes and mood swings are all part of premenopausal symptoms, but memory loss may be a myth.

While women may feel their memory is not as sharp, other research has shown that the use of HRT (hormone replacement therapy), may protect against dementia has strengthened the belief. However, a further and larger study found that in older women, HRT did not protect women from dementia but may actually increase the risk of it.

Studies have been carried out on a group of 700 premenopausal women between 40 and 54 on a group of Taiwanese islands with fairly restricted access. It was believed this was the most homogeneous population available to allow for the influence of other variables on the results.

These women were given five cognitive function and memory tests at the beginning of the study and again after 18 months. None of them had had a hysterectomy, and none took hormone replacement therapy during the study. During the time of the study at least 23% began to have menopausal symptoms and their results were compared to the women who had not shown menopausal symptoms. In four of the five tests, no significant differences in the two groups were observed. One verbal memory test did show a slight difference.

It was suggested that any observed memory loss and other cognitive problems during menopause is more likely to be a temporary outcome due to other factors such as hot flashes and sleep problems.

However, attention was drawn to the fact that the outcome of this study may not be applicable to other more industrial cultures. And for example, educational background and hypertension may also play a big part in memory loss.

In summary, there is some evidence that cognitive function is not a menopausal symptom in itself. However, it may be a by-product of other symptoms and also of the individual’s background and medical history.