Hypnosis and Hot Flashes among postmenopausal Women

Clinical hypnosis can effectively reduce hot flashes and associated symptoms among postmenopausal women, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Baylor University's Mind-Body Medicine Research Laboratory.

Hypnotic relaxation therapy reduced hot flashes by as much as 80 percent, and the findings also showed participants experienced improved quality of life and a lessening of anxiety and depression.

The mind-body therapy study of 187 women over a five-week period measured both physical symptoms of hot flashes and women's self-reporting of flashes. The women received weekly sessions of hypnosis by clinically trained therapists, and they also practiced self-hypnosis using audio recordings and such visualizations as a snowy path or a cool mountain creek, according to the study, published online in Menopause: The Journal of The North American Menopause Society and funded by the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine of the National Institutes of Health.

"This is the first study in which we compared both self-reporting and physiological monitoring -- not just a change in tolerance or ability to cope, but the hot flashes themselves decreased," said Gary Elkins, Ph.D., professor of psychology and neuroscience in Baylor's College of Arts & Sciences and director of the Mind-Body Medicine Research Laboratory.

By the fourth session, hot flashes had decreased about 70 percent, and at a three-month follow-up, the decrease averaged 80 percent, he said. "Some women reported having nearly complete elimination of hot flashes."

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