Menopausal Symptoms May Not Be Helped by Support, Support Groups Everyday Health MenuNewslettersSearch Menopause News Social Support May Help Menopausal Symptoms But Just Having a Close Pal Isn t EnoughNew study also suggests that resilience to stressful events helps women manage hot flashes. By Meryl Davids LandauJanuary 27, 2021Everyday Health ArchiveFact-CheckedA good friend may not be enough to get you through bad menopausal symptoms.iStockHot flashes are the bane of many women who are going through the menopause transition, so researchers have put a lot of effort into trying to understand what might quell them. Hot flashes, along with night sweats and cold sweats, make up what researchers term vasomotor symptoms (VMS). The biological cause is hormone fluctuations, including dropping estrogen levels and increased amounts of follicular stimulating hormone (FSH) during this time. Hormone therapy is the primary treatment for VMS. One area of intrigue is the role of stress. A new study, published in the journal PLoS One on January 27, 2021, aims to examine whether certain types of social support might alleviate that stress and therefore help the flashes and sweats. RELATED: 10 Ways to Beat Menopausal Belly Fat Menopause-Related Hot Flashes Seem to Get Worse With Stress Some 70 percent of women experience vasomotor symptoms during the years leading up to and after menopause. How severe hot flashes and night sweats are, how frequently they occur, and how many years the VMS last vary greatly, but many women say it negatively impacts their quality of life. Stress wreaks havoc on the body in so many ways, from increasing heart disease risk and digestive issues, to making you more susceptible to viruses, and more. So it’s not surprising that it seems to play a role in VMS as well. The exact mechanism for this association is not clear. “It might be that the symptoms that result from being stressed, like when your cheeks flush, are similar to menopause symptoms; or it might be that stress hormones worsen menopause symptoms themselves. This is an avenue for future research,” says Megan Arnot, a PhD student in evolutionary anthropology at University College London in England, and a coauthor of the PLos One study. RELATED: Coping With Hot Flashes and Other Menopausal Symptoms: What 9 Celebrities Said Stress Around Menopause Is Inevitable The years when the average woman is in perimenopause (the 5 or 10 years before menopause) are often a time filled with particularly stressful events. Parents are aging and possibly becoming ill or dying, children are growing and leaving home, and divorce rates increase. The notion of fertility ending can even be its own stressor, the researchers note. If stress is inevitable, can mechanisms that lessen it reduce hot flashes too? That’s the question these researchers sought to answer. RELATED: Hot Flash Treatment News: Four Takeaways From NAMS 2020 Some Stress Reducers Help Manage Menopause Symptoms Several preliminary studies have also examined this issue. One, published in Menopause in March 2019, followed 700 menopausal women in China and found greater family support was associated with fewer overall menopausal symptoms. Another, published in the Iranian Journal of Public Health, looked at 110 perimenopausal women. Those placed in a support group experienced improved VMS, sexual symptoms, and overall quality of life, while those receiving no support did not. Researchers Looked to a Famous Menopause Study for Answers The PLoS One study attempted to add to what is known about whether support can act as a buffer against stress-induced hot flashes. In this case, the support came from having a close friend or relative that the menopausal woman could lean on. The study examined records from the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation (SWAN), an ongoing, multiyear study of women in many locations in the United States. The SWAN project began in 1996 when enrollees were between ages 42 and 52. In the current study, nine years of annual data on some 2700 female SWAN participants were analyzed. The researchers inferred how much stress the women were under based on what was happening in their life each year, such as the death of a close relative, a change in employment, and the like. Each woman also reported how upsetting the event was to her at the time and whether it still bothered her. Hot flashes and other vasomotor symptoms were separately measured on a scale that tracked the frequency of any or all of the three symptoms. RELATED: What Experts Want BIPOC Women to Know About Menopause Can Having a Close Confidant Improve Vasomotor Symptoms The researchers determined how much support the woman was receiving from a close friend or relative based on several questions asked annually of SWAN participants. These included whether she has someone she can confide in, who listens to her when she needs, and who helps her out when she is sick. Notably, the query did not limit this support person to another woman in the menopause years; it could have been a male spouse or friend or someone much older or younger. After analyzing all of this information, the researchers did not find that this kind of social support has a meaningful impact on VMS. Other Social Support Might Be More Important Arnot says that in retrospect, just having the support of a close friend or relative — all that was available from the SWAN data — might have been too narrow to show effect. She doesn’t discount that other types of emotional or even practical backing could be different. “It might be that if the support was from menopausal women that can relate to the woman experiencing symptoms that the support might be more valuable,” she says. Alternatively, it might be that talking about menopause isn’t actually helpful. As the researchers write in their study, “There is evidence that anticipation of menopause symptoms, which might occur through frequent discussion, can in fact worsen the woman’s experience of such symptoms.” Some Women Say Sharing Does Help Them Deal With Menopausal Symptoms For Jo Mitchell, a 51-year-old in Atlanta, talking about her hot flashes and other symptoms with her same-age girlfriends friends has not made them worse. It’s actually been a godsend. “Being able to talk about how these hot flashes are real and laugh about what a pain they are makes me feel connected,” she says, although she notes this hasn’t diminished them. She also finds comfort, along with stress relief, in an online perimenopause forum she periodically dips into. “It helps to know that some of my other symptoms, including fatigue, migraines, and anxiety, are things other women have as well. It’s affirming to be validated in what you’re experiencing,” she says. RELATED: 11 Women Over 60 Who Inspire Wellness and Living Your Best Life Stress Resilience Is Also Important for Hot Flash Relief In their data, the researchers did find something that lessens the link between stress and VMS: the degree to which the woman was psychologically impacted by the stressful event. After all, two women can face the same life challenge, such as the loss of a job, and react differently. One may be said to have greater stress resilience than the other. The women in the study who reported that they were still upset by a stressful event that happened the prior year had a 21 percent increase in VMS frequency that year, while women who had been very upset but were no longer experienced only a 7 percent increase in VMS frequency. Those who didn’t have anything to stress about didn’t show any statistically significant increase. RELATED: Special Report: Why Developing Resilience May Be the Most Important Thing You Can Do for Your Well-Being Right Now “This suggests that experiencing a stressful event in and of itself does not worsen menopause symptoms; rather it is the woman’s psychological reaction to the stressful event that has the largest effect on VMS frequency,” the study authors conclude. Of course, the ideal would be to avoid all stress during the menopausal transition, Arnot says, but obviously this is not practical. “Our results suggest that finding ways to manage life stressors is helpful” for alleviating hot flashes, she says, noting that future research is needed into the types of things that might be most effective. NEWSLETTERS Sign up for our Women' s Health Newsletter SubscribeBy subscribing you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. 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