20: What's Really Behind Your Night Sweats (and How to Stop Them)

If you've ever woken up with a night sweat, you'll know exactly what we're talking about in this episode. You wake up in the middle of the night, soaked through your pjs and possibly the sheets, freezing because you're so wet, and wide awake. 

If you're in your 40's or 50's, you've probably been told that this is just part of menopause. Or, that it's your hormones, and you just have to live with it, or go on HRT. 

And that is only part of the story. Declining sex hormones is only one piece of the whole puzzle that is leading to your nightly wakeups. 

Today, we're uncovering what is really causing the night sweats, the consequences of pushing through them, and how to stop them. As usual, we're taking a body, mind, and spirit approach, revealing some surprising emotional reasons you may be experiencing this sometimes mildly irritating, and other times downright debilitating, symptom. 

You'll walk away with some steps to start sleeping through the night again, a new perspective on your night sweats and other symptoms, and how to rebalance your body. 

Get the breakfast recipes to calm your cortisol and sleep through the night.

Get immediate access to the Balanced Body Blueprint mini-course.

Find us on instagram:

Jen: @jenreimercoaching

Sheri: @sherijohnsoncoaching

Transcript

@14:11 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Three, two, one. Welcome. It's Jen here, and we are going to talk about one of the biggest complaints that we hear from women going through midlife and menopause, and that is night sweats.

This is one of the most frustrating, exhausting, and a lot of women find it embarrassing too, the night sweats.

And we're told it's just hormones, and this is just a myth, because it's so much more complex than just hormones.

Today, we're going to talk about the physical, emotional, and spiritual layers of the night sweats, because... So, as we've talked about before on this podcast, we don't believe that night sweats and any of the menopause symptoms are just a symptom.

They're actually a message from your body telling you that something else is out of balance. So we will dig into all of that today.

We're going to talk about what you might be experiencing, some of the common mistakes that we make to try to fix it, what's really happening, and how to finally find relief.

So, if you're having night sweats, or if you know somebody who is, then tune in. Okay, Sher, hey. Hey.

We haven't been talking very much this week, so actually, we do need to say hey today. Yeah.

@15:52 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

And you got a little bit of a cold.

@15:55 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah, we should acknowledge that. I hope I can keep it to keep my voice.

@16:00 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

It's as normal as possible today. So let's talk about night sweats.

@16:06 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

I've been talking about this a lot on TikTok lately, and it's, there are so many women who are struggling with this.

It's almost ridiculous. Like it's almost the most, I would say almost the most common symptom after hot flashes.

@16:21 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah, it was actually the first symptom that I felt. And I was, I want to say 42, 43, when I had my first night sweats.

@16:34 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

You know what? It might've been mine too. I thought it was hot flashes, but I had the odd night sweat through my 30s.

Like, I don't know. It would, it, I, that would happen to me sometimes. So I think I, when they first started happening, I didn't really associate it with menopause.

I certainly didn't want to either because I was feeling them early in my 40s.

@16:56 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. I was also in denial because I was still trying to have a baby. So I told myself, oh, this is just the hormones that they're pumping into me, or this is just, you know, because I had a miscarriage.

And so I had some night sweats after that. And I know that that's common. So I sort of kept chalking it up.

I was in a little bit of denial. Like, I'm like, no, this is infertility. This isn't, this isn't menopause.

Yeah, yeah.

@17:26 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

I know, Sheri, for me, was, I was living in South Africa. So for most of the year, it was hot.

So and we didn't have air conditioning. So I would chalk it up to just the heat.

@17:35 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. Yeah, it's funny how we, you know, we don't want to acknowledge that we're heading into perimenopause. I think that's probably where a lot of women are at in their early 40s.

They're feeling symptoms, but they're not really, they're either not connecting it to menopause, or they're denying it because like, not denying, like denying it even to themselves.

Because they don't want to even face that fact. For sure.

@18:04 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

I've heard some women that definitely do not want to, they're not ready for it. I certainly wasn't. Okay, so what are they, for someone who doesn't necessarily recognize themselves in this, what does it feel like?

@18:17 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

A night sweat? Yeah, so a night sweat is when you wake up in the middle of the night. Sometimes you might even feel heat moving from the chest up.

And you're immediately in a full pajama soaking sweat. You know what I find so interesting about it, Sheri, is that there's once or twice where I've woken up a few seconds before the night sweat.

Yep.

@18:51 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And it's like I go from being completely dry to completely drenched in a split second. Yep.

@18:57 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

And I don't even understand how our body. Yeah, it's that quickly.

@19:04 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yes.

@19:05 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. It is. That started to happen to me after a while. And I'm wondering whether my body, like I started to wake myself up, like recognizing the signs or something, because sometimes I'd actually be able to preempt it.

If I could get the covers off fast enough, I could avoid the sweat because it's so disruptive to your sleep.

Like you got to get up, you're changing your pajamas. You're probably putting a towel or something down on the sheets because you don't want to get your partner out of bed to change the sheets.

And, and sometimes this would happen. Like I'd go through a couple of pairs of pajamas in a night when it was bad.

I never had more than one a night.

@19:44 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And I never, I, it was rare for me. So it wasn't one of my worst symptoms. Yeah, it was, it only lasted for me, not very long.

@19:53 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

I'd go through spurts and then I found a solution. So then I use that and it would work. And then.

And then I'd sort of, I'd peter off and then they'd come back. So I'd have them for a week or so.

And yeah, it's almost like breaking a fever. Like when you get feverish and you're chilled and then you wake up during the night and suddenly you're like, you've sweated through everything.

@20:23 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

You know what? Physiologically, that almost is what it is. It's your body, like it's your thermostat heating up your entire body so that you sweat something out.

@20:34 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

I mean, there's no bacteria to sweat out in this case, but it's kind of the same function almost. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, it's all related to that part of your brain that controls your temperature. Yeah.

@20:49 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So is there anything else that it feels like that, that we haven't said to recognize symptoms or? Is it feels?

@21:02 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

I don't think so. I mean, the fallout from that is just exhaustion during the day. And it can be really frustrating.

You end up, you know, you're irritable. And so there's some of that, like that sort of the consequences of being, of your sleep being disrupted.

Yeah, and often, well.

@21:24 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Often, Sheri, I found that I couldn't fall back to sleep because then was up. Yeah, yeah.

@21:30 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

And probably cortisol was running and like, I won't get to it later, I guess, cortisol is probably involved.

@21:36 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

It is. Okay, then what are most people doing to try to fix this?

@21:45 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Well, I think a lot of the time they're chalking it up to hormones and not actually doing anything to fix it.

So just let me get through this.

@21:55 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Maybe they're going on HRT.

@21:56 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Like maybe they've brought it to the doctor and... Bye. They're going on HRT or they're doing something external. So, you know, turning on the fan, getting cooling sheets and cooling pillowcases, you know, putting the pajamas right next to the bed so they don't have to get up.

And, you know, just some of those external things to manage them, which don't actually really work that well. If you're listening to this and you've experienced a night sweat, those things don't actually seem to do much at all.

@22:32 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Well, they don't stop it from happening. Usually. Like, it doesn't matter what kind of blankets you've got on. At least it didn't matter for me.

@22:43 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

No. No, because it's your body. It's not actually external heat that's causing the problem. It's within your body. Yeah.

@22:57 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So. So. So. Then what's really happening? If it's not external, what's the internal problem? Yeah.

@23:11 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

So I'm going to try to sum this up because it can get fairly scientific. And there's actually a lot of explanations.

There's, I mean, estrogen fluctuations, which actually let me preface this by saying, I think the mistake that we make is assuming that it's just low estrogen, that it's just this one hormone that is the problem in perimenopause and menopause.

And what I don't think that doctors make clear is that your hormones are all linked. So your estrogen is linked to progesterone and your progesterone is linked to.

Cortisol and your cortisol is linked to like, there's a whole ecosystem of hormones that are all interacting with each other.

And there's, you know, the hypothalamus, which is actually located up in the brain, that helps to control your temperature that interacts with estrogen.

Um, there's also like, there's, there's chemicals and hormones that are all interplaying with each other. It's no one thing.

@24:35 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

You know what I hear from a lot of women actually share these days is that many women are now understanding the three hormones and that you need all three and, and they're up on that.

But what they're less aware of is that interaction with cortisol and insulin and the other neurotransmitters that are. That are in our bodies, serotonin, dopamine, the effects of those.

So they're kind of thinking of it as, okay, I'm not just going to take it. Like they know that they don't just need estrogen.

They know they need progesterone and sometimes testosterone too.

@25:14 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

They're not thinking about all the other things that are interacting.

@25:17 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

I think that's the difference.

@25:19 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yes. And you and I have talked about this on the podcast before. Estrogen impacts your insulin. So then insulin interacts with your blood glucose and cortisol.

Cortisol and insulin are what manage your blood sugar, your blood glucose. So if estrogen is low or high, it's going to affect your insulin, which is then going to affect your blood glucose and your cortisol.

So you can't have something go wrong with one that's not going have some sort of impact on another. And you also, which also leads me to say, like, you can't just take hormone replacement therapy and take estrogen because that doesn't, because that estrogen is, is not necessarily, it may help with the low estrogen if you're chopping up your estrogen, but there's all these other hormones that are out of balance.

If you're not doing something about them, then you're just going to experience other problems. That is one of the biggest misconceptions out there, is that in midlife, our problem is just hormones.

Yeah.

@26:36 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

When actually the bigger problem is the cortisol that has been running in our systems that we think is normal, and it's just the way that we live now.

So everybody thinks like, oh, I'm not that stressed. Yeah. If they're not like under a huge amount of pressure at work, then they're sort of going, oh, I'm not stressed.

Right.

@26:56 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

I, yeah, and it's not just, you know, it's not just work. There's all kinds of other stressors in our lives, like just light stimulation, noise stimulation, like all of those things, our bodies are just not used to that.

So those are going to increase your cortisol without, you're not even thinking about those stressors.

@27:18 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

No, I certainly wasn't way back, like 10 years ago, I wasn't, I didn't, I didn't know.

@27:24 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah, we sort of just think, oh, well, isn't this just what we all go through? Like we all have a little bit of stress, and it's no big deal.

And it is. It's actually cortisol. So again, there's a few different explanations for night sweats. And certainly your internal temperature in the hypothalamus is, is affected.

Thyroid also comes into play. That also plays a role in managing your, your temperature. But what I have found.

And the best is when you get your cortisol under control and your blood glucose.

@28:06 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

That's what works for me.

@28:08 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. And there's a couple of things that can happen that are related to your adrenal glands. One of them is that, first of all, you can actually get adrenaline spikes during the night, which causes like they're like micro, just little spikes of adrenaline, which comes from the adrenal glands.

And that causes vasodilation and then sweating.

@28:33 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

I didn't know.

@28:34 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

But also, and then also if your cortisol rhythm is off. So if you're, well, and if your blood glucose is off, then your cortisol is going to spike if you get hungry during the night.

And which a lot of women do if your blood glucose is high or low. Sorry, if your blood glucose is low, then cortisol is going to kick in to bring that up if you don't eat.

Please. back. And that cortisol can sometimes cause stress activation. And then there's, and then there's a reaction.

@29:11 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. So the times when I do get them, I can't even remember the last time I had a night sweat.

But when I did get them, it was usually when I ate, I snacked badly before I ate carbs for dinner.

Yep.

@29:31 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

And then my blood glucose was all off. Yeah. Yeah. We've been, Mike, my husband bought me a birthday cake.

And so we've been eating birthday cake all week after dinner. And I'm starting to feel like I had to change my pajamas last night.

And I thought to myself, oh, okay, I've got to get this back. My blood glucose is likely dipping in the night.

Right. And. you

@30:00 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Isn't that amazing that like that, like just eating birthday cake before bed a couple of days in a row is what's doing it?

@30:06 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, admittedly, it's been four days.

@30:12 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

It's birthday cake. It's birthday week.

@30:14 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

I know.

@30:15 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And there's only two of us.

@30:16 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

So we had a lot of cake to eat.

@30:21 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Maybe next year a cupcake. And it was a really darn good cake.

@30:25 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

So anyways, it is now gone. And I'm back on the not eating cake after dinner. What a lot of women notice.

First of all, there's a couple of things I want to say about that. First of all, a lot of women notice that night sweats will, they'll often come in the beginning of the evening.

The beginning of the night, you mean?

@30:45 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

beginning of the night, like the first couple of sleep cycles. Oh, okay. So like, what is that? The first couple hours?

@30:51 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Well, it depends on what time you go to bed. But yeah, like I would get them, like if I went to bed at 9 30 ish, I'd wake up at about midnight.

Right. So like, say, two and a half hours in.

@31:02 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

a hours in. And then if I had two, then the next one would come at 2 a.m., and then I'd be up for two hours.

which is your next sleep. If a sleep cycle is two and a half hours, it's the next cycle.

@31:14 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Usually about an hour. Well, sleep cycles aren't necessarily all the same length, but they tend to be about 90 minutes.

@31:22 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Oh, I thought they were longer. Okay. Okay. Um, they can be longer, but they can also be shorter, depending on the time of night.

@31:31 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

The other thing that I found really interesting, though, when I first started getting night sweats, was I learned that men can have them also.

And it's not because they're in menopause, it's because of their cortisol. It's their, it's, they're stressed.

@31:48 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. Well, it makes sense, right? Like, you wake up. I don't know. I'm just thinking about it. If it's pure, like, if it's mostly a cortisol problem, then.

It's not -related.

Okay. Well, and that just goes further to support the case that cortisol is the problem. It's not hormones that are the problem.

@32:36 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

No. And they can be because they're, as I said, they're all interreligious. They're all linked. They're all interacting with each other.

But yes.

@32:46 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And we know that estrogen and progesterone sort of act as a buffer for cortisol. So they keep your cortisol a little more balanced.

When, before midlife. Right.

@32:58 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. you. Something we didn't talk about, though, Jen, those are all the physical, the physical, the sort of physiological reasons for night sweats.

Yeah. there's also, you know, you and I talk about the emotional connection and the spiritual connection. And I find, I don't know, I'm going to challenge our listeners to really pay attention to when night sweats are the worst, like when they're getting multiple ones per night, or, you know, maybe they go a few days without them.

Start paying attention to what they're eating, first of all.

@33:39 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. And then what their stress levels are like.

@33:42 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

So if they've had a particularly tough day, is that a night then when they get a night sweat? The other time that night sweats can come on is when there's emotional stressors.

So. So. So anxiety and overwhelm, of course, is like there's your stress. Yeah.

@34:04 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

There's also suppressed anger and resentment.

@34:10 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Because anger is a hot emotion. Yeah. And so is resentment. Yeah. So there, you know, when you think about, it's interesting.

When you start to think about what, like, what do we associate the emotions with? And anger definitely is a hot, like we talk about having a hot temper.

It's a hot emotion. A fiery temper. Yeah. And then there's other emotions that we might think of as cool emotions or neutral or warm.

Like maybe there's warm emotions as well. So it's, yeah, it's, we can learn a lot just by listening to our language.

@35:00 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. And you know, if I think back to when I had my worst hot flashes, it was at the same, or not hot flashes, night sweats.

When I had them the most often, which was still not that often, but it was when I had a six month UTI, which was also the same time that I was very pissed off at my PhD professor.

@35:26 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Uh, yeah, there's anger.

@35:31 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And I was blaming him for a lot of stuff. And so that I, so I was holding that anger, all the, obviously in multiple places in my body, like in my bladder, in, which is literally being pissed off.

We talk, we've talked about that. And, and also like that the night sweats were probably my body trying to release it.

@35:53 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Exactly. Yeah. Your body's trying to release something with a, so getting into the spiritual and energetic. So first of all, the night sweats, they're linked with the solar plexus, so your power center in the center of your body, which is also where your liver and your gallbladder, that's the seed of anger.

@36:20 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So, and we tend to feel anger when we lose power.

@36:25 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

So when someone oversteps a boundary, when there's some sort of injustice, when we feel a loss of power, we get angry.

When we feel like our power has been taken away. Mm-hmm. And especially if we suppress it, that anger needs to get out.

So it wants, night sweats are about release. You're releasing heat.

@36:52 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Wow. I know, isn't that fascinating? That is, I never thought of it, and I wouldn't have thought that they would be solar plexus related.

Because that's in your solar plexus is your belly area. And I, like night Your upper belly, right?

@37:10 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Like your.

@37:11 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. Yeah. And actually night sweats for me always, I always felt it around my chest. Like that was where I'd be the most sweaty.

Yep. So yeah, I suppose it does make more sense now that I'm thinking about it.

@37:26 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. Okay.

@37:28 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So what else is a spiritual or energetic aspect of it?

@37:33 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

So, well, there's just coming back to the resentment piece. We often in midlife get resentful. And it rises because those nurturing hormones begin to, there's always a, there's a physiological and an emotional and an, an, spiritual or energetic connection.

other Again, As the estrogen and the progesterone and the oxytocin, those hormones that are nurturing or sort of cause us to be nurturing, take care of our children, they start to subside, they decrease.

And in their place, the resentment and anger tends to rise because we don't have those hormones to buffer that anger or the resentment.

And for so many years, women spend, you know, 20 years taking care of everybody else. And they usually get to a point in their 40s or 50s where they think, I am done with this.

I'm done. Like I'm, you know, women tend to be the project managers in their homes. So even if they get help from a partner.

No, and quite often our partners are not projects. They might be project managers somewhere in like in work or whatever, but they don't tend to be the project managers at home.

@39:07 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah.

@39:08 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

So the women are taking, and that is not to say everybody that I know, I know people who have a different, a very different relationship.

Yeah. But for the women who do take on that role, there's a lot of responsibility that, and, and time that comes with that.

And you get to a point where you just get tired of it.

@39:34 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So- know what I found, Cher, even more so is that, here's what, here's my theory, is that, yes, we might get resentful because we've been taking care of people all our lives.

What I think is even more important is that we get to a point where our hormones are not telling us to today?

To continued... continued... continued... To Take care of everybody else anymore.

@40:02 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

But society still expects us to. Yes. Or we've been conditioned that we still have to.

@40:09 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So we're actually fighting against that. Like I could see myself looking back and going, I don't mind taking care of everybody else.

Like I don't mind taking care of my child.

@40:20 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

I don't see it as a sacrifice. I don't feel any of that.

@40:24 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

But at the point where that's not my responsibility anymore. And as my hormones are going down, it's like, okay, I'm tired of taking care of everybody else.

@40:37 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. Like the expectations are all on me. Yeah. And, but I've been conditioned to please everybody. So that's what's causing the resentment now.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's also another big thing that you talk about, Jen, is boundaries. We become very aware. Of our boundaries in midlife and who's overstepping them when we're not like we get mad at ourselves for not like for not exercising a boundary, not maintaining one.

And then we feel resentful towards the person who's taking up our time or who has asked for something and we give it.

And then we feel resentful because we didn't really want to.

@41:29 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So Yep. And those come up, those come up in midlife more than any other time. So then we get even more angry and resentful and then we get night sweats.

Yeah.

@41:41 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

then your body wants to release that resentment, that anger. There's also the other piece going along with the spiritual and energetic is going along with the power center.

There tends to be power shifts at this time. So, yeah.

@42:03 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

identity shifts.

@42:05 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

So, and well, power shifts often come with identity shifts. So you're, you're, so if you have kids, quite often they're hitting, you know, to become teenagers or even leaving home and you no longer have authority over them.

And that's really hard. cause some resentment.

@42:25 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

I can't control you anymore.

@42:28 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. Not that you couldn't.

@42:30 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

In your teenage year, in their teenage years. But yeah, that feeling of having that next step of having to let go and, well, and your identity is changing anyway.

Like you're a caregiver anymore. You're mom, maybe mom, but.

@42:43 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

You're there more as a guide and a support versus a, a caregiver, mother. Yeah.

@42:51 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah.

@42:52 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

So, and even for non-mothers, this will happen as well, where, especially. For women who wanted to be mothers and never got to be, their power shifts because they're getting to midlife and realizing, oh, this is never going to happen.

So now they have to let go of this identity that, oh, I always thought I'd be a mom, and now I'm not going to be a mom anymore.

@43:17 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So do you think that just the shift, like it doesn't matter what the identity is, the shift can be related to the symptoms or the night sweats specifically?

Just because, like, sweating is a release of emotion?

@43:33 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. It's like crying?

@43:36 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah.

@43:37 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. It's a shedding. It's a release of energy. It's an energy release. Yeah. That makes sense.

@43:50 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah.

@43:51 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

So spiritual, emotional, and physical symptoms, I suppose. And, and, and. And root causes to night sweats.

@44:05 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. Okay, let's talk about what our listeners can do to get some relief from this, to really finally get some real relief.

@44:16 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah, so we can talk about all the, like, those three facets also. Yeah.

@44:22 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

in a physical standpoint. Yeah, let's start with the physical, because that's what they're going to want to hear first.

@44:27 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yes. So stabilizing blood sugar. And we've talked about this before, even on our last, maybe it's two episodes ago, where stabilizing your blood glucose starts first thing in the morning with a protein and fat-rich breakfast.

And we'll link up the link to our breakfast guide to midlife in the show notes here.

@44:58 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah, starting the day. With carbs, raises your blood sugar and sets you on a whole cycle of high insulin crash, high insulin crash.

@45:09 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah, it's a roller coaster throughout the day.

@45:12 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah, and that's going to, as soon as it carries on into snacking at night, then you've got the night sweats.

@45:18 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so we'll link up. Let's link up our... Yeah, we'll link up the breakfast guide in the show notes.

That's just at midlifewomenrising.com slash breakfast.

@45:32 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Gives you some good recipes for getting fat and protein at breakfast that are our favorites. Yep, and very stabilizing for the blood sugar.

So what else can they do?

@45:45 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah, in the evening, it's helpful to stop eating early. So if you can, stop eating at dinnertime because it's the nighttime snacking that causes your blood glucose.

you. We'll be And that's what's going to get your insulin and cortisol going again. So any processed snacks at night, that tends to be what we reach for in the evenings after dinner, right?

@46:14 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. And I want to share, want to just dig into that a little bit because what I've heard from some women lately is like they used to want chips.

And now, so now they've switched to popcorn.

@46:29 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Hmm.

@46:30 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

And I said, well, that's not really going to help.

@46:36 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

No, it feels like a healthier choice, but it's actually popcorn is a very quickly digestible carb. Yeah.

@46:46 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So it turns into sugar really fast and it's going to raise your blood sugar.

@46:50 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. Yeah. And cause the night sweats.

@46:52 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah.

@46:53 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

So if you, if you're really hungry in the evening, try some, some nuts. Nuts and seeds, maybe half an avocado, maybe a little bit of Greek yogurt, something that has some fat and some protein.

I always recommend the full-fat versions, coconut yogurt.

@47:14 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

In fact, for Greek yogurt, it has to be full-fat because Greek yogurt will raise your blood sugar if it's not full-fat.

Yep. And even if it's plain, like eat the plain non-sugar, like the kind without the fruit. Definitely plain.

@47:30 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

And full-fat Greek yogurt, so you're getting a bit of protein and fat. Of course, there's a few of those other external things like cooling, bedding, and some of those other things we talked about earlier that from an external perspective.

Oh, and magnesium. Magnesium is probably one of the most innocuous supplements, so I feel fairly safe. very What you think you

Most women need magnesium and taking magnesium before bed, magnesium bisglycinate in particular.

@48:10 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah, don't get the one that, ask your pharmacist because you might get the one that also acts as a laxative.

Yeah, you want to make sure.

@48:19 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

happened to me at one point.

@48:20 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

I was like, what is going on here?

@48:24 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah, so magnesium, we tend to think of it as calming, but it's also blood sugar stabilizing.

@48:33 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Oh, I did not know that.

@48:36 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah, and it's also something that the adrenal glands will sort of use up, for lack of a better term, layman's terms.

And so a lot of women are deficient in magnesium.

@48:53 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah, because we're all so stressed.

@48:56 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. Yeah.

@48:57 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah. The more stressed I get, the more... ... Yeah. My legs ache, and that's my sign. I need magnesium.

@49:04 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. Happens every time.

@49:06 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah.

@49:07 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Okay.

@49:08 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Anything else?

@49:10 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

From a physical standpoint, I mean, we have a whole process for this. Those are, I don't want to overwhelm people in a, you know, a 45-minute podcast.

Those are some easy steps that you can take. You know, switch your snacks to something that's high in protein and high in fat.

And see if you don't, if you can avoid the nighttime snacking period. And then take magnesium. Those are a couple of easy steps.

@49:36 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Okay. And so that's the physical. Yeah.

@49:43 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

So emotional or, you know, calming the nervous system is really important to keep your cortisol down. Your cortisol should naturally decrease at bedtime.

But what happens with so many women there? Yeah. Getting back on their phones or checking email before bed and it just ramps back up again.

And so especially if it's work emails, definitely. And even just getting onto social media these days, you can get pretty fired up right before bed.

Watching like certain TV shows that can get like, oh, it's the worst for me. Yeah, me too. start to like think about them when I'm sleeping.

So really, you know, bringing down the volume, bringing down the lights, just like downshifting before bed, breath work, you know, taking some deep breaths, maybe doing some gentle stretching, like all of those things.

Turning your phone off, turning down the lights, telling your body that it's time to rest. And really allowing your body to feel safe to go to bed.

@51:09 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

There's a thought.

@51:11 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. Yeah. Most of us don't feel safe going to bed because we think we've, like, we haven't finished our to-do list.

It doesn't feel safe.

@51:22 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Oh, that is so true. No wonder we can't sleep at night.

@51:27 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. Because it doesn't feel safe to actually turn off. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So you might try.

@51:34 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

you're on your phone, the more you can't turn off because you're worried that you shouldn't be turning off. I always, you know, everybody talks about, like, the blue light from phones and screens and all that.

I hadn't thought about it that way, that it's actually just, like, that checking emails and phones and social media is actually just telling our body that, that it's not safe to turn off.

@51:58 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Yeah. So don't. Don't go to sleep.

@52:01 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yep.

@52:02 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Or wake up to check in the middle of the night that everything's okay. Yeah. Yeah. goodness. When we didn't have phones, like we just, I remember those days.

They weren't that long ago. When I didn't have a laptop and I would just read a book before bed.

@52:18 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Yeah.

@52:19 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

I would just like, maybe I'd watch a show, but I, like when I left work, I left work. Like, now it's just, you're, you're constantly, it's available to you at all times.

@52:32 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

So, yeah.

@52:35 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

You want to talk about spiritual?

@52:38 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Well, there's a couple of things.

@52:40 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Touch on one or two of those and then I'm going to wrap it up. Okay. So, let me see my list here.

Um, I would say the two things here are just breathing. So, breathing into your bed. And then, you know, maybe it's something as simple as, saying like a little mantra, I release what is no longer serving me.

I release what I need to, what I no longer need. And just say that little prayer or mantra before you go to bed.

So you're releasing that energy. I often just blow out the day.

@53:53 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

Like I take a big belly breath in. And as I'm releasing that breath, I just think. I am putting my whole day and everybody in it into, like, a circle of light in front of me.

And it's a really easy way to just let go of all of that.

@54:10 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Hmm. I like that. I'm going to try that. Okay.

@54:15 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

It's like blowing it out because I blow out through my mouth as I've been breathing. I breathe in, then I breathe out through my mouth as if I'm blowing out candles.

And, um, yeah. And just like, I imagine people coming out with my breath, people I want to release, TV shows, work, things to do, all of it.

I bet you that's actually pretty powerful. It works for me. Yeah.

@54:40 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Okay. I'm going to try that. Okay, Jen, we can wrap it up.

@54:45 - Jennifer Reimer (virtuousradicals.com)

All right. So I guess to sum it up, what we've kind of said here is night sweats are not a simple issue.

So do check with your doctor. Do. Check with a naturopath who knows about, who is an expert in menopause, because it's so multifaceted, but it's not random.

It is directly linked to exactly what's going on in your emotional, physical, and mental world. Um, relief is possible, especially with some small, consistent practices.

So if you take anything away from today, it's what little habit could you change that is going to affect the internal aspects of your night sweats?

And I want you to know that this is just a phase. It is not your body misbehaving. It is your body transforming for the next phase of your life.

And And if you want help with that, we are here. We've just launched a new program. It's called the Body Balance Blueprint.

We will link that up in the show notes. And I would love for you to share your experiences, your questions, or your stories about night sweats.

You can find us on Instagram. We'll link our Instagram accounts in the show notes. And recently on TikTok, having so much fun over there.

So I will link up that account too. And yeah, last thing I want to say is thank you for being here.

We're so grateful for you and for being on this journey with us. And we will see you next time or hear you next time.

@56:45 - Sheri Johnson (Sheri Johnson)

Bye for now. Bye.