Mindfulness Classes Help Women With Hot Flashes

Women with severe hot flashes said their quality of life improved after taking mindfulness classes that included meditation and stretching exercises, according to a new study. The findings also suggest that such classes could help improve sleep quality, stress, and anxiety during menopause. "There's a broad range of attitudes about hot flashes and how they should be treated," Dr. Ellen Freeman, a menopause expert at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia, told Reuters Health. "There are certainly many, many women who don't want to take hormones ... and don't want to take other drugs either," said Dr. Freeman, who was not involved in the current study.

Mindfulness, on the other hand, "may be something that they find very acceptable." Women with frequent and severe hot flashes and night sweats often also complain about anxiety and stress related to their symptoms, as well as trouble sleeping. Researchers based at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester wanted to see if a teaching such women mindfulness, which has been shown to relieve stress, might help.

They enrolled 110 women, nearly all of them white, with at least five bothersome hot flashes each day. The women were randomly assigned to two groups. In one, participants went to weekly 2.5-hour mindfulness classes focusing on body awareness, meditation, and stretching. They also received CDs to guide them through mindfulness activities on their own on the days when they didn't have classes. Women in the second group were put on a waiting list and had no mindfulness classes during the study, which lasted eight weeks.

At first, women in the study had a mean of about eight hot flashes a day and three night sweats each night. They were somewhere between "moderately" and "extremely" bothered by their symptoms, according to questionnaire responses. They also reported trouble sleeping and had anxiety and stress scores considered above the normal range for healthy people.

By the time they finished the mindfulness program, the women were less stressed and anxious and were no longer considered out of the normal range for those symptoms. They also slept better, rated their quality of life higher, and were less bothered by their hot flashes -- an improvement that was still clear three months after the classes ended. At that point, the women were "slightly" to "moderately" bothered by their hot flashes.

The women on the waitlist also got a little better, but they didn't see as much improvement as those taking mindfulness classes. Women in both groups had similar improvements in the intensity and frequency of their hot flashes, according to a report published online February 26th in Menopause. That suggests that these classes may be most useful for helping women cope with their hot flashes, rather than curing them, the authors said. Learn more about Cool-jams products to help hot flashes and night sweats.