Common Menopause Symptoms - How to recognize them & How to Manage Them!

One of the first symptoms most women see in menopause is irregular or missed periods. When menopause starts to occur, the estrogen and progesterone levels, stimulated by the ovaries, are seriously decreased. This means that the ovaries no longer get the signal to release the egg, which means that a woman will often notice a disruption in her normal monthly cycle.

After puberty, the only disruptions that occur in the monthly cycle occur because of diseases or other problems with the ovaries or pregnancy. However, once menopause begins to occur, it is not uncommon to experience serious disruptions with regard to the monthly cycle.

Another common symptom of menopause is the hot flash.

More than 75% of women who go through the menopause experience hot flashes, to varying degrees of severity. This makes a woman feel flush. For example, she can be standing in a room that is only 70 degrees, but she will overwhelmingly feel as if someone has turned the temperature up to 90 degrees.

In the very next moment, though, she may feel as if the room is only 40 degrees, and she is suddenly shivering. These hot flashes can be accompanied by other symptoms like dizziness, heart palpitations, or faintness. Most hot flashes last up to ten minutes, but not all women experience them to that terrible degree. Some women simply acknowledge them and move on.

Hot flashes are caused when they hypothalamus, a part of the brain, cannot correctly regulate a woman's body temperature because of the extreme hormonal fluctuations. Poor diet and stress levels in the woman's body have been shown to have a negative effect on the entire process. Most women will experience these symptoms for five to six years, though some women have them for the ten to twenty years prior and following menopause.

Hot flashes often lead to another common symptom of menopause, insomnia. Because hot flashes can occur both during the day and throughout the night, many women find that they wake up drenched in sweat. If a woman is a light sleeper anyway, and most are after they have children, it can be impossible for her to fall asleep again.

Interestingly enough, though, night sweats aren't the only thing that cause these sleep disturbances. The hormone levels in the blood also have an effect on the quality of a woman's sleep. Fixing these hormone levels can sometimes eliminate sleep difficulties.

Learning to identify the common symptoms of menopause can help you learn to deal with them on a much healthier level. Be sure to contact your doctor if any of your symptoms are causing serious problems in your life.