This Menopause Symptom May Nearly Double Your Risk Of Sleep Trouble
You know that feeling when you wake up at 2 a.m. and immediately realize you're drenched in sweat? Your pajamas are damp, your pillow is wet, and now you're wide awake instead of comfortably asleep.
For some women, this can become a regular part of menopause. But are night sweats actually more disruptive to sleep than hot flashes, or do the two symptoms have a similar effect?
That's the question new research set out to answer.
Hot flashes and night sweats are often grouped together because both can happen during the hormonal changes of perimenopause and menopause. But when it comes to sleep, the two may not be equally disruptive.
About the study
Researchers wanted to find out whether hot flashes and night sweats were associated with different levels of sleep trouble and low energy.
They looked at 841 women between ages 40 and 60 and divided them into four groups based on their symptoms: neither hot flashes nor night sweats, hot flashes only, night sweats only, or both.
The women reported whether they were having trouble sleeping or feeling low on energy. They also completed questionnaires that measured their sleep habits and daytime sleepiness.
Researchers accounted for other factors that could influence sleep, including age, menopausal status, mood, and joint discomfort.
This allowed them to get a better sense of whether the symptoms themselves were linked with differences in sleep and energy.
Night sweats were the bigger sleep disruptor
The clearest difference showed up in women who had night sweats without hot flashes.
They were nearly twice as likely to report trouble sleeping as women who experienced neither symptom. They were also more than twice as likely to report low energy.
Hot flashes alone didn't show the same connection. Women who experienced only hot flashes were no more likely to report sleep trouble or low energy than women who had neither symptom.
Women who experienced both symptoms did report poorer sleep habits than women without either one. However, daytime sleepiness was fairly similar across all four groups.
One important caveat is that this was an observational study based on self-reported symptoms.
So while the researchers found a relationship between night sweats, sleep trouble, and low energy, the findings can't prove that night sweats directly caused those problems.
Why night sweats can be especially disruptive
There's a practical difference between briefly feeling hot and waking up soaked.
A hot flash may pass without completely waking you.
A night sweat can be harder to ignore because you're suddenly uncomfortable in wet pajamas or damp bedding. Once you're fully awake, it can take time to cool down, get comfortable, and fall asleep again.
Those interruptions can add up. Even if you're spending enough hours in bed, repeatedly waking up can chip away at your sleep quality and leave you dragging the next day.
That may help explain why night sweats were linked with low energy in this research. Still, more research is needed to understand exactly how these symptoms affect sleep over time.
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What to do if night sweats keep waking you up
If you're regularly waking up sweaty, a few changes to your sleep environment may make those episodes easier to manage:
- Keep your bedroom cool: A fan or cooling mattress pad can help if you tend to overheat at night.
- Rethink your bedding: Swap heavy blankets and flannel sheets for breathable bedding.
- Upgrade your pajamas: Lightweight, moisture-wicking sleepwear can keep damp fabric from waking you.
If night sweats are happening often enough to interfere with sleep or leave you exhausted during the day, talk with a healthcare provider.
Treatments such as hormone therapy and non-hormonal medications can help manage bothersome menopause symptoms, depending on your health history and needs.
The takeaway
Night sweats may deserve more attention than simply treating them as another version of a hot flash. In this research, they were linked with considerably more sleep trouble and lower energy, while hot flashes alone weren't.
