MyMT™ Blog

I ‘get it’ when women think that insomnia, night sweats and sore joints is ‘our lot’ in menopause. Because that’s been the dominant message for years – and yes, I used to think that too. I relied on my Doctor to help me and her only solution was HRT. I went on that too. But as the days and nights wore on, I still wasn’t sleeping, had persistent night sweats, exhaustion, sore joints and the constant feeling that my body wasn’t coping with all that I had to get done in a day. The HRT wasn’t working and now, I understand why.

I realise that for my body-type it didn’t suit me to put synthetic oestrogen into my body. It was also causing more fatigue, bloating and weight gain which was putting up my blood pressure and throwing out my thyroid regulation. It’s our thyroid that controls heart rate, body temperature, blood pressure and our metabolism too. When the thyroid isn’t functioning well, we don’t sleep, we feel hot and we have more night sweats too. Oh, and we don’t tolerate lots of exercise either. In fact, this is a stage of life, when many women drop-out of activity. 

When I began to understand this, I knew there had to be a better way to sort out the symptom chaos that was getting me down. That’s when I looked into the science and physiology of our mid-life menopause transition as part of my women’s healthy ageing studies. And I began to understand that changing our lifestyle to accommodate our changing hormonal environment is what’s needed – and the first thing we need to regulate our body temperature and remove night sweats, is to sleep all night. When we sleep, we restore harmony in our hormones and for those who need to lose weight, it helps with that too.

Turning around our sleep in menopause is important.

We need to sleep to heal our immune system and to restore the energy that we are burning through in a day. If we are having night sweats, then it’s important to prevent these and you do this through changing the type and timing of food in the evening and restoring your body’s natural circadian rhythm. Achieving this requires a new morning routine and for most women, sorting out both liver and gut health too. I have plans for how to achieve this on the My Menopause Transformation programmes as well.

Leanne is just one of the women who has already joined me on our mid year July SALE of the MyMT Circuit Breaker programme. [Use promo code RESTART 2019]. I loved this post she put up in the coaching community.

Many women post me messages on my private coaching community and I’m so excited for them. Before coming on the MyMT 12 week Circuit Breaker programme, many feel tired, run-down and frustrated by hot flushes, night sweats, sore joints, anxiety and low motivation. I’m so pleased that they trust me with the science that I’ve pulled together from women’s healthy ageing studies to turn around symptoms in menopause.

Why do we sweat at night? 

Night sweats are often the hallmark of menopause symptoms along with hot flushes. In our menopause transition they are caused by lowering oestrogen having an effect on other areas in the body which regulate temperature.

This temperature increase is exacerbated because we also lose the role of oestrogen in our skin, blood vessels and muscles. Blood vessels become more constricted and because we lose muscle fibres as we move through menopause, this means we don’t use up our glucose-regulating hormone, called insulin, the way we used to.

For many women living in hotter climates, their body is also trying to adjust to environmental changes as well, many are caught up in diets that don’t match our body’s changing hormones as we biologically age. Hence, the sweating can seem excessive at night when your body is trying to restore harmony again – you wake up sweating which is a sign that your body is actually trying to cool down. Many women also experience restless legs too, especially those doing lots of higher intensity exercise and not replacing specific nutrients such as magnesium and calcium, which aid muscle recovery. The lack of sleep causes less exercise recovery and the vicious cycle of fatigue and inflammation hangs around. It’s frustrating and many find that even despite the exercise, they stay overweight in menopause and beyond.

When I was really trying to understand why I was experiencing night sweats and lots of hot flushes, I was guided by the great work of Deecher and Dories (2007)*. Their studies explain that when we have night sweats, there is a problem with the neural (nerve) and hormonal ‘communication’ between three areas. These are:

1. The pituitary gland in the brain.
2. Our thyroid gland(which requires iodine and selenium to regulate it).
3. Our skin – which we often forget is the largest organ in the body containing millions of tiny blood vessels that go to our sweat glands. The function of sweat glands are affected by low oestrogen in menopause too. They don’t dilate as much. 

This means that to sort out your night sweats, you need to focus on these three key areas, not just  the changing levels of oestrogen and progesterone, which has been the hallmark of menopause treatment for decades. When we focus on these three areas, then we can usually un-pack why we are getting night sweats, when we never used to in the past. 

One of the first things that I help women to understand when they come onto the MyMT programmes, is that our core body temperature is regulated by our brain (pituitary gland) and it works to our 24 hour circadian rhythm.

This is why if you are frustrated and weary from your night sweats and lack of sleep, then the management of this begins by turning around your circadian rhythm (I have the step-by-step plan for this in the SLEEP MODULE in both of the MyMT programmes, which is the first 40 minute webinar that you listen to). It’s simply called ‘Sleep All Night’ and contains all my menopause-specific lifestyle strategies that you need to put into action. 

MyMT™ Circuit Breaker SALE Ends Soon:

This revolutionary 12 week programme takes you on your menopause transformation journey. Through listening to 7 x 45 minutes modules over the course of 12 weeks, you learn exactly what to do to ‘break the circuit’ of your symptoms and restore your sleep, sanity and health again.

I’ve done all the research for you, all you have to do is to put my powerful strategies into action.

The end of my mid-year RESTART 2019 intake is close and I am so excited because we have hit a record –  over 2,000 women in 15 countries have completed either of the  MyMT™ programmes and most are enjoying more physical activity in their lives again.  

If you want to learn more about the Circuit Breaker programme, which is for thinner/ leaner women, then please watch the video below – I have a special offer for MyMT™ subscribers but it is closing soon so if you are troubled by symptoms in menopause, then please don’t wait any longer….

Please join me and I will help you to feel like your old self again. Here I am explaining how this powerful programme can help you in this video below and how it works.

I hope you will join me on this fabulous programme. It worked for me and hundreds of women just like you. I want you to know what it feels like to master your menopause symptoms and feel in control of your health so you can enjoy this stage of life. My powerful lifestyle strategies which you implement over the 12 weeks will get you sorted.

Get access today before the price returns to normal. Only NZ$83 per month for three months (usually NZ$100) for the programme and my coaching.

Click on the START NOW button and use the promo code RESTART 2019 to claim your discount.

In three months time you’ll be glad you did.

Wendy Sweet, [PhD/ MyMT Founder & Women’s Healthy Ageing Coach]

Reference:

* [Deecher, D. & Dorries, K. (2007). Understanding the pathophysiology of vasomotor symptoms (hot flushes and night sweats) that occur in peri-menopause, menopause and post-menopause life stages. Archives of Women’s Mental Health, 10: 247-257]