Night Sweats and Heart Palpitations

The symptoms of menopause can range anywhere from the plain annoying, such as night sweats, to the seemingly onerous, as seen in heart palpitations. Although appearing poles apart in terms of severity, both can be the consequence of hormonal changes as experienced during menopause.

In order to overcome or better understand menopause and the reasons for night sweats and heart palpitations, read over the following information presented below.

What exactly are night sweats and heart palpitations?

Night sweats, pretty basically, refers to sweating or perspiration that occurs at night. For this reason night sweats aren´t classified as a sleep disorder – but they do affect people (usually menopausal women) with differing levels of severity. On top of heavy sweating, night sweats can be identified by some of the following symptoms:

• A sudden and intense feeling of heat across the body
• Nausea
• Chills
• Headaches
• Irregular heart beat or heart palpitations

Heart palpitations are characterized by an irregular heartbeat or cardiac arrhythmia – often along with the fact that you are consciously aware of the heart beating. Heart palpitations come with the sensation of the heart skipping a beat or beating faster or too many times to be normal.

How are night sweats and heart palpitations related to menopause?

It may be disturbing to discover that along with night sweats one of the most common symptoms of menopause can be heart palpitations, with the two often coinciding. They both are generally the consequence of hormonal swings (particularly estrogen and progesterone swings) that occur during menopause. Usually the heart palpitations will stop after a few months and do not necessarily indicate a health problem. However, this does not diminish the panic one may experience the first time experiencing a heart palpitation. Because of the other conditions that can accompany heart palpitations it is also vital that any form of irregular heartbeat is checked out by a doctor so that he/she can eliminate other possible causes.

What can I do about night sweats and heart palpitations during menopause?

If you continue to suffer from night sweats and heart palpitations during menopause there are more than a few things that you can do to a) get back to normal sleeping patterns and b) restore your heart rhythms to normal. For example – you need to avoid certain drugs or foods that are known to exacerbate these menopause symptoms. For example, try to:

• Abstain from smoking
• Give up drinking caffeinated beverages (soda)
• Avoid alcohol
• Stop taking dieting pills

In addition, it is difficult to overstate the importance of maintaining a healthy lifestyle during menopause. Regular exercise and a healthy diet significantly stabilize hormone levels and if not completely stopping night sweats and palpitations at least reduce their frequency. Exercises like yoga or meditation also help. Furthermore, there are alternative medicines that help to regulate the body´s hormones and have proved tremendously effective in reducing menopause symptoms. Combined with healthy living, these tips should be sufficient to help you see off the worst effects of menopause.

For more specific information about reducing night sweats and heart palpitations click here.

Read more about Night Sweats  

SOURCES:
• Symptoms of menopause and Night Sweats. Reviewed by 34-menopause-symptoms.com