If you feel that you have tried everything else, then this simple tip might just help. This is actually something I have been doing in various different circumstances for most of my life but I hadn’t thought of it in relation to helping with hot flashes until I saw some recent research published in the International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis.

How your brain can cool you down

The research was carried out at Baylor University in Texas and builds on an earlier Baylor study which found that using hypnotic relaxation therapy reduced hot flashes by 68 percent. Now that is impressive enough, but you can make it even better by giving yourself a mental image of something really cool such as a snowy landscape or an ice cold mountain stream.

The women in the study were a group of breast cancer survivors who found themselves subject to persistent hot flashes, but when they imagined a cool low-temperature scenario it reduced the intensity of their symptoms.

The leader of the study, Gary Elkins, Ph.D. a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor, concluded that

“The finding may indicate that areas of the brain activated by imagery may be identical to those activated by actual perceived events.”

In other words, you can trick your mind when you are hot into believing that you are actually somewhere very cold and it will respond accordingly and you will feel cooler. As I said, I have certainly used it previously but the other way around, in that if I have been out somewhere and the temperature has dropped dramatically, or I haven’t put on enough warm clothing.

In that case, I imagine myself in front of a roaring fire or sitting on a tropical beach and I do indeed feel warmer. Now it is time to switch as my core body temperature has shifted so I will be thinking of Alaska, Antartica and snow covered mountains!

I do like remedies that are simple, inexpensive, and certainly free from side effects!