Can outlook and exercise cool hot flashes? The answer, according to a new study, appears to be yes.
Penn State researchers have found attitude may play an important role in how exercise affects menopausal women. Investigators, writing in the journal Maturitas, said they tracked two types of women for clues to how outlook affects hot flashes – those who experience more symptoms after physical activity and those who experience fewer.
What they found: Women who believed they could control hot flashes didn’t experience as many, while those who felt they had no power over them had far more symptoms.
Those with fewer hot flashes the day after vigorous exercising were also less likely to experience anxiety and depression.
The study involved 24 menopausal women for 30 days. Each woman used a personal digital assistant to record hot flashes and tracked their workouts.
"The most consistent factor that seemed to differentiate the two groups was perceived control over hot flashes," said lead researcher Steriani Elavsky. "These women have ways of dealing with (hot flashes) and they believe they can control or cope with them in an effective way on a daily basis."
Elavsky suggested that programs that teach women that they have more control over their bodies and reactions to hot flashes may be effective.
"The bottom line for research is that people need to look at individual differences," said Elavsky. "It's not enough anymore to do a study and look at overall impact of an exercise program on symptoms. It's very clear that we need to look at the different responses that women might have, and try to understand these individual differences more."