Night Sweats Archives - Acupuncture in the Park

Natural Help for Night Sweats

Night sweats can be very frustrating because they’re uncomfortable, can interrupt your sleep, and may occur several times during the course of a night. They’re described as profuse sweating while you’re sleeping or hot flashes that occur at night and that happen repeatedly. Night sweats can leave you, your nightclothes, and sheets soaking wet, and can be a major contributor to loss of sleep. A single occurrence doesn’t qualify as night sweats, nor does a room that’s too hot or sleeping with too many blankets that cause you to wake up hot.

If you’re experiencing night sweats, there are a number of reasons why this may be happening. One of the most common causes is hormonal changes that occur with the onset of menopause. However there are other conditions that can cause night sweats, and they can occur in men as well. Night sweats can also be caused by infection, illness, and the side effects of some medications. If you’re experiencing night sweats accompanied by other symptoms, such as fevers, weight loss, heart palpitations, or overwhelming fatigue, it’s time to get checked out by your doctor.

Chinese Medicine on Night Sweats

In Chinese medicine, there are also a number of reasons behind night sweats, but the most common is an imbalance between your body’s Yin and Yang. Like the Chinese character for the sunny side of the hill, Yang is warm, bright, energizing, and transformative. In your body it acts a little like a pilot light that keeps you warm and fuels metabolism, digestion, and other transformative processes. In contrast, Yin is represented by the character of the shady side of the hill. Yin is cooling, calming, moistening, and nourishing. While Yang is warming and transforming, the actual substance of all your organs, tissues, and fluids are considered to be Yin. Yin acts like a nutritious coolant in your body that balances warm and active Yang.

When Yin becomes depleted, it’s like being low on the coolant that keeps Yang’s warmth in check. As a result, Yang burns freely and can cause symptoms of heat—most notably in the form of night sweats. In addition, the heat from depleted Yin/excess of Yang occurs during the backdrop of night, which is the most cool, restorative, Yin time of day. Depleted Yin is also associated with a certain amount of dryness, and may also cause you to wake up with a dry and sore throat, have dry skin or hair, or feel thirsty.

While depleted Yin is the most frequent cause of night sweats in Chinese medicine, there are other patterns that may also cause them to occur. Blood depletion, which is a little like anemia in which the nourishing quality of your blood is low can also cause night sweats. Also, excess heat triggered by blockages can also be an underlying reason for sweating at night.

Many women experience night sweats and the resulting loss of sleep during menopause. That’s because many of the hormones that are decreasing during menopause are Yin in nature—they’re nourishing and moistening. The drop in these hormones are considered to be a drop in Yin substances, which causes the imbalance between Yin and Yang. Other factors that can cause depleted Yin include your diet, body constitution, stress, working too hard, or becoming run down.

For many people, Chinese medicine can be an effective way to treat night sweats. If you should choose to go that route, your practitioner will likely use acupuncture, but may also supplement your treatment with Chinese herbs. There are a number of formulas that contain specific herbs to nourish Yin, cool heat, and calm your spirit to ensure a better night’s sleep. Food therapy may also be a helpful strategy if you’re experiencing night sweats due to depleted Yin. Your practitioner can help you choose foods that are nourishing, moistening, and cooling in order to supplement Yin. The bottom line is that while night sweats can be uncomfortable and mess with your sleep, they can occur for a variety of reasons, and Chinese medicine can be an effective and natural way to get them under control.

My Favorite Herbal Formulas for Hot Flashes and Night Sweats

It seems that when the weather warms up, some women do too. More specifically, I tend to see more women seeking acupuncture treatment for menopausal symptoms during the warmer months. Don’t get me wrong–we see women struggling with hot flashes, night sweats, and menopause-related insomnia all year long; it just seems that we see more of them when the temperature rises in the spring.

For some women, a few sessions on the acupuncture table is enough to cool them off. For others, we need to enlist the help of a Chinese herbal formula.

In most cases, menopausal symptoms are related to a substance in your body called Yin, which acts a little like a moistening coolant. Heat symptoms associated with menopause tend to be caused by a reduction of Yin. This is relevant because the nature of estrogen and the other sex hormones are considered to be very Yin and cooling. When that Yin becomes depleted, it’s a little like being down a quart of coolant in your car–your engine boils over, causing your body to overheat in the form of hot flashes and night sweats.

As I mentioned earlier, in some cases acupuncture isn’t enough to cool the heat from Yin deficiency. In Chinese medicine, it may be necessary to supplement Yin with moistening, cooling herbal formulas. Here are a few of my favorites:

Six Flavors with Rehmania (Liu Wei Di Huang Wan) This formula is all about nourishing Yin and not so much about cooling you off. The idea with this gentle formula is that if you supplement with some Yin-nourishing herbs, the resulting symptoms will take care of themselves. This formula is especially good for night sweats accompanied by a sore low back, light-headedness, dizziness, and dryness symptoms, like a dry sore throat, dry skin, and night time thirst.

Zhi Bai Di Huang Wan This is the above formula with two additional herbs added that are very cooling. Like the Six Flavors formula, this one also nourishes Yin, but the added herbs also ramp things up a notch in clearing heat.

Great Tonify Yin Pill (Da Bu Yin Wan) This is a cold formula primarily aimed at clearing heat, especially in the form of night sweats. It supplements Yin somewhat, but I often prescribe it if one of the above formulas hasn’t worked well enough in cooling a patient off, . Once the heat symptoms have calmed, I may recommend a more Yin nourishing formula later.

Free and Easy Wanderer with Added Ingredients (Jia Wei Xiao Yao Wan) In some cases, a woman’s symptoms are either caused or aggravated by stress. In that case, this is my go to formula for calming frayed emotions as well as calming heat. In fact, this is also a good formula for stressed out people in general who find themselves irritable, warm, thirsty and feeling like they’re at the end of their rope.

Two Immortals (Er Xian Wan) I have used this formula in cases where both Yin and Yang are depleted. If Yin is considered to be your body’s nourishing coolant, then Yang is more like your warming, active pilot light. It’s possible to be depleted in both. I find that those woman who have tended to run cold before menopause, but have heat symptoms during are good candidates for this formula. Beyond feeling cold much of the time, symptoms of Yang deficiency might also include fatigue, depression, and urinary frequency.

In addition to an herbal formula, it’s possible to build up your body’s Yin (and Yang) through diet. There are foods that are considered to be very cooling and nourishing. Your Chinese medical practitioner can be helpful in choosing a plan specific to your needs.

Acupuncture for Hot Flashes and Night Sweats

Not long ago, I sent my sister a care package. It wasn’t packed with brownies and cookies and other goodies to eat. Her care package had only one thing; a Chinese herbal formula to treat the night sweats that are waking her several times every night.

How you experience menopause is different from every other woman. Your family history, physical and psychological makeup and overall health all play a role in whether or not you will have menopause symptoms or sail right through unaffected. Your views of aging and menopause, and those of the people around you, may also shape your experience. Over the past 50 years, with the availability of hormone replacement therapies, women have had the option of treating the discomforts associated with menopause medically. The upshot of this practice is that menopause if viewed by some as a disease or hormone deficiency, with hormone supplementation required to reestablish a healthy balance.

Practitioners of Traditional Chinese Medicine offer another paradigm in which to consider the experience of menopause. They understand that signs and symptoms associated with menopause are indications of some kind of imbalance deep within the body. In general, imbalances are years in the making, and physiological events, such as adolescence, childbirth, or menopause, magnify the imbalance and result in symptoms. With menopause, underlying imbalances can certainly affect your symptoms.

So what’s out of balance if you’re struggling with hot flashes and/or night sweats? Well, it could be a couple of things. First, your Essence could be depleted. Essence is one of the most important substances in your body and provides you with the energy you need to power all the functions of life. As you age, Essence slowly becomes depleted. This depletion causes many of the common signs of aging, such as gray hair, thinning bones, weakness in your back and knees, memory loss, and fatigue.

Depleted Essence can also cause menopause symtoms, too; here’s how: Essence is similar to estrogen, in that Essence is responsible for puberty, fertility, libido, and menopause. During menopause, Essence drops dramatically, and this loss can create an imbalance that is associated with a wide variety of symptoms. A common problem is that when Essence is depleted, it may lose the ability to keep Yang in check. Yang is the active and warming energy in your body, and when it flares unchecked, you may feel that warmth in the form of hot flashes or night sweats.

Another common scenario for women who are struggling with menopausal heat is an imbalance between Yin and Yang. If Yang is hot and active, Yin is the opposite; cooling and rejuvenating. In many ways, Yin is similar to Essence in that it is restorative and nourishing. During menopause, Yin also tends to drop, causing Yang to flare up and make you feel hot. The heat associated with this drop in Yin is frequently felt at night, which is the cool, restorative, and quite time of day–just like Yin. Against the backdrop of night, the active heat of Yang is more pronounced, resulting in night sweats.

It’s important to mention that stress can aggravate your heat symptoms. That’s because strong emotions, especially stress, have the ability to make your energy stagnate. Similar to a car engine seizing up without oil, your stress, anger, or frustration creates heat.

An untreated depletion of Essence or an imbalance between Yin and Yang will ultimately cause symptoms. So what can you do? First, you can protect your Essence through good diet, sleep, and balancing your work with rest. An over-the-top lifestyle, such as working long hours, late nights, and too much sex, drugs, and rock and roll will, in time, deplete your Essence.

You can also address depleted Essence or a Yin/Yang imbalance through acupuncture and Chinese medicine. After a complete evaluation, you acupuncturist will develop a treatment plan to address your specific imbalance(s). She can incorporate the use of acupuncture with herbs, diet, stress relief, and lifestyle changes to balance your body and alleviate your symptoms to help you sail through menopause in a natural and drug-free way.

Chinese Medicine on Night Sweats

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