Can hypnosis help women during menopause?

Did anyone ever tell you as a woman, (or a husband or partner), what life could possibly be like when a woman hits her late 40s and early 50s? Menopause was ignored for many years, never spoken about, even a ‘taboo’ subject. It almost defined women as ‘old’ with few treatment options available to them. One option was hormone replacement therapy (HRT), but that allegedly had high risks of breast cancer, or just perhaps accept menopause as an inevitable stage of life.

But a recently aired documentary – Davina McCall’s programme around menopause – shared options available to women in the UK. The programme highlighted some terrible side-effects, some I knew nothing about. In fact, I would hazard a guess that not many of us realised what our poor mums, grandmothers, aunties, sisters, wives and partners have had to endure and more alarmingly how help has been scarce, to say the least.

I am based in the Midlands and am already aware of the marvellous menopause specialist Dr Louise Newson. During many a coffee morning, her name has been bandied around amongst my friends who are approaching the menopause era or who have sailed (I use this word very loosely) through thanks to Dr Newson’s help.

Some of my friends who haven’t had the advantage of seeing Dr Newson would describe their experience as one of the worst times of their lives. One told me she felt like a bright red beetroot, sweating uncontrollably, feeling like everyone was looking at her pointing and thinking ‘you are going through the change’, which in turn made her feel old, useless, unable to sleep properly for what felt like an eternity and eroded her self-confidence.

During the documentary, I was alarmed to hear about the number of ladies who are on a waiting list to start their HRT treatment with this specialist. This made me want to reach out and help those ladies who are suffering in silence. One of the main symptoms of menopause which I am sure we are all pretty much aware of is the ‘hot flushes’. These can be extremely uncomfortable, but one of the cruellest things about them is they feed into themselves. What I mean by this is the more stressed and embarrassed you get, the more intense it becomes, which heightens that sensation of heat.  

If that’s not lousy enough, when it’s over, it then causes anxiety due to the anticipation of not knowing when the next one will happen. This can constantly leave you on edge, which then causes a knock-on effect because it happens more and more frequently. 

Research has proven the link between stress and the experience of hot flushes.

A 2005 study showed that among menopausal women, those with moderate anxiety were three times more likely to experience hot flushes, and those with severe anxiety were five times more likely.

This proves that there is a strong link between the hot flushes and your state of mind. Women feel anxious and stressed for no probable reason. They suddenly have a burst of feeling angry.  

How hypnotherapy helps hot flushes

Two years ago, the British Medical Journal published a review of alternative treatments for hot flushes.

• cognitive behavioural therapy
• hypnotherapy

These were the only two alternative treatments that they recommended as being effective to reduce hot flushes (vasomotor symptoms). Yet the benefits of hypnotherapy for menopause are rarely talked about and very few doctors or women know of its positive outcomes. Hypnotherapy can be a highly effective treatment to teach women to regain control over their body, reduce the hot flushes, help with sleep problems, relax, reduce stress and anxiety.

Hypnotherapy can help regain control and empower their bodies to reduce the hot flushes, help insomnia and teach them to relax and reduce the stress and anxiety this condition can cause. In 2013 a randomised control trial was conducted (Elkins, Fisher, Johnson, Carpenter and Keith, Clinical Hypnosis in the Treatment of Post-Menopausal Hot Flashes: A Randomised Trial. NCBI 2013) and it was proved that clinical hypnosis was able to reduce hot flushes in postmenopausal women by over 74%.

At last, women have more natural and medical options available to help combat this period of life. So if you need support with menopause, message me for a free initial chat.