Peri-Menopause: Herbs to Combat Fatigue and Night Sweats
A typical patient for me is a woman in her late forties or fifties who is now waking up in the night multiple times, often sweaty and very hot, and with racing thoughts, and some feelings of anxiety.
To top it off, they now find In the day-light hours they often feel fatigued, a bit irritable, and can experience bouts of low mood.
Perimenopause has begun - and symptoms like these can be very frustrating. For a healthy, intelligent woman, it can feel like your own body is suddenly malfunctioning a little - and you wonder if you are simply stuck with the annoying random symptoms for a few years until it's all over.
Luckily, this doesn’t have to be the case. Herbal medicine is actually very good at balancing hormones naturally - and has being doing so for thousands of years.
Herbs can support you to get relief from peri-menopause symptoms.
Menopause Herbs: My Top 3
Black Cohosh is probably my most used menopause-balancing herb in the clinic. It’s just so good at calming the nerves and helping a woman to feel balanced again. Research has shown Black Cohosh doesn't contain oestrogen - but it does work on the oestrogen receptors in the brain - which may explain its effectiveness.
In a 1999 double-blind placebo-controlled study of 179 woman, the study found a mix of Black Cohosh and St Johns Wort extremely effective at reducing menopause symptoms with no side effects.
Sage (yes the kitchen herb) would go into a formula with anyone who is having problems with hot flushes. It’s great for reducing sweating.
Dong Quai: Known as the “female ginseng” it nourishes the adrenals and helps the exhausted woman. It makes you feel nourished, rested and whole.
Night Waking and Fatigue? It’s Probably Your Adrenals
As ovulation begins to slow and eventually stop, some of the hormones that were being produced by the ovaries are now being switched over to be produced by your adrenal glands.
The adrenal glands sit on top of your kidneys and already produce a number of hormones including adrenaline and cortisol.
If you’ve had periods of deep stress, chronic overwork, and exhaustion already - the adrenal glands can be already under load or somewhat “burnt out” and when the body tries to dump this new job of producing more hormones - it starts to buckle under the load.
(One of the physical signs of adrenal exhaustion is lower back pain on both sides of the spine - right near the kidneys.)
This can lead to disrupted sleep rhythms where you are awake at night and feel like sleeping all day. Plus, feelings of extra anxiety and exhaustion.
Nourishing the adrenals with herbs like: Ashwaganda or Panax Ginseng can really help to give a woman back her feeling of being grounded, safe, and energised during peri-menopause.
If feelings of panic and heart palpitations are occurring with the night waking: Motherwort calms hormones and nervous tension in the heart and I would add this to the formula.
Hot flushes? Sweaty? Time to treat the liver
Secondly, we need to talk about the liver. The liver is involved in women’s daily hormone balance.
If your liver has been under pressure for many years from too much alcohol, sugar, carbs and caffeine then your hormonal balance can be disrupted. This is especially true during this time of peri-menopause.
If you are waking up hot and sweaty in the night around 3am - this is “liver hour” and a sign your liver is overworking.
If we use herbs to cleanse and nourish the liver we usually find the night sweats (and other menopause symptoms) reduce.
Some herbs I use to help the liver in peri-menopause: Schisandra, Dandelion, and Milk Thistle.
Dandelion Chai - 10-Day Liver Cleanse
You can make a simple Dandelion Chai and drink each day for 10 days to give your liver a good cleanse. Simply take 2 teaspoons of good quality dried dandelion root and roast in the oven for 10 minutes and then pour over hot water and milk. Add cinnamon and nutmeg and coconut sugar and strain. Dandelion root like this tastes a little bit like mild coffee but it’s wonderfully cleansing for the liver.
The liver is a lot like a sponge - and can get clogged up with toxins over the years so regular liver cleansing is great for hormone health.
Common Name: Dandelion, Lion’s Tooth
Herbal Name: Taraxacum officinale
There are lots of effective science-backed herbs in the peri-menopause army that can help with a variety of symptoms and get you feeling better again.
I’ll be bringing you some herbal recipes and posts on feature herbs in the next issues.
Wishing you good health,
Jess.
P.S. Peri-menopause getting you down? Get your own personal peri-menopause formula to feel yourself again. Clinic bookings here.