A number of external stimuli can trigger a hot flash and most health ‘experts’ recommend avoiding them to decrease amount and severity of your hot flashes. Caffeine, chocolate, and alcoholic beverages are three of the main culprits associated with hot flashes. You may choose to decrease your consumption of these substances or avoid them altogether. The Venuses as a group felt that giving up these three pleasures was tantamount to living a life without sunshine. After all, we had already relinquished so many of the pleasures we once took for granted: sleeping through the night, having a sex drive, and a firm, youthful body. A couple of our goddesses already avoid caffeine or alcohol, but most of us think we’d rather give up our health care consultants than our wine, chocolate, or coffee.

Other hot flash inducers include but are not limited to: warm weather, tight clothing, synthetic clothing, hot beverages, anything touching your skin, movement, sitting still, hot food, down pillows or comforters, and breathing. Some of these you can avoid, others you just have to live with Unfortunately. If your discomfort is still an 11 on a scale of 1 to 10, you might want to avail yourself of a remedy. Among us, we’ve tried them all! We’ll share our best info, advice, and cautions in succeeding blog entries.

PS to all you goddesses out there. What topics are most pressing to you right now? Perimenopause? Heavy bleeding? Hot Flashes? Decreased libido? HRT vs herbal vs bioidenticals? Emotional changes? Mental changes? Midlife – where do we go from here? Let us know either in the comments section or by clicking on contact us at the top of the Home page so that we can make this conversation most relevant to you.