The Heat Within — Hot Flashes, Mood Swings & the Nervous System

This month, I’m straying from my normal Morning Glory header for Blooming Into Awareness. As we step into May, I wanted to honor my mom — who loved peonies. So this month, we bloom with peonies. For her. 🌸

Last week we talked about The Shift — what's actually happening inside your body as hormones begin to change. This week, we're going deeper. Because if Week 1 was the what, Week 2 is the why does it feel like this. The heat that rises out of nowhere. The mood that swings from steady to shattered in the time it takes to pour your coffee. The anxiety that shows up uninvited — not because something is wrong in your life, but because something is changing in your body. Let's talk about it. All of it.

The Hot Flash — What's Actually Happening

Let's clear something up right away: a hot flash isn't your body overheating. It's your body thinking it's overheating — and hitting the panic button.

Here's the science. Deep inside your brain sits the hypothalamus — your body's internal thermostat. Its job is to maintain what's called a thermoneutral zone: a range of core body temperature that your brain considers safe and normal. When your temperature stays inside that zone, everything is fine. No alarms. No response needed.

When estrogen is present and stable, that thermoneutral zone is wide and forgiving. Your body temperature can fluctuate a little — after exercise, during sleep, in a warm room — and your brain barely notices. No big deal.

But when estrogen drops — or swings erratically, as it does during perimenopause — that thermoneutral zone narrows dramatically. Suddenly, a temperature shift that your brain would have completely ignored before now registers as danger. Your hypothalamus sounds the alarm: Too hot! Cool down NOW!

And then the cascade begins: blood vessels dilate (hello, flushing and redness), sweat glands activate (hello, drenched sheets at 3 AM), and your heart rate spikes. That's a hot flash. It's not a malfunction. It's a miscommunication — your brain's thermostat recalibrating in real time.

Researchers have also identified a group of neurons called KNDy neurons (pronounced "candy") that play a central role in this process. These neurons live in the hypothalamus and help regulate temperature and reproductive hormones. During perimenopause, KNDy neurons become hyperactive — essentially stuck in overdrive, constantly triggering the cooling response even when your body doesn't actually need it.

Up to 80% of women experience hot flashes during the menopausal transition. They can last seconds or minutes. They can happen once a day or dozens of times. They can wake you out of a dead sleep or hit you in the middle of a presentation. And they can persist for years.

You are not dramatic. You are not weak. Your brain's thermostat is recalibrating — and it hasn't found its new setting yet.

The Mood Swings — It's Not Just Hormones. It's Brain Chemistry.

If you've ever felt like your emotions became a stranger to you during perimenopause — if you've gone from calm to crying to furious in the span of an afternoon for no apparent reason — I need you to understand something: this is not a character flaw. This is neurochemistry.

Estrogen directly supports the production and regulation of three critical neurotransmitters:

• Serotonin — your mood stabilizer. It's the chemical that helps you feel content, balanced, and emotionally even.

• Dopamine — your motivation and reward chemical. It drives your sense of purpose, pleasure, and drive to get things done.

• GABA — your brain's natural calm-down signal. It's the neurotransmitter that tells your nervous system to relax, to stand down, to stop sounding the alarm.

Progesterone also plays a crucial role here. It acts like a natural sedative in your brain, directly supporting GABA activity. Progesterone is the reason you might have felt calmer, sleepier, or more grounded during certain phases of your menstrual cycle. It's your body's built-in chill pill.

Now imagine both of these hormones — estrogen and progesterone — fluctuating wildly. Surging one week, crashing the next. Your brain is literally losing access to the chemicals that kept you emotionally steady. The serotonin dips. The dopamine stutters. The GABA quiets down when you need it most.

This is why anxiety can show up for the first time at 42. Or 47. Women who have never struggled with mental health suddenly find themselves in the grip of panic attacks, irrational worry, or a low-grade dread they can't explain. It's not because life got harder. It's because the chemical support system that helped them manage life's hardness is in flux.

It's not a personality flaw. It's not weakness. It's a neurochemical shift.

The Nervous System — Your Accelerator Is Stuck

Now let's zoom out even further — because hot flashes and mood swings aren't isolated events. They're both symptoms of a deeper issue: your nervous system is dysregulated.

Your autonomic nervous system has two primary operating modes:

• Sympathetic nervous system — the accelerator. This is your fight-or-flight response. It speeds things up: heart rate, breathing, alertness, cortisol production. It's designed to keep you alive in moments of danger.

• Parasympathetic nervous system — the brake. This is your rest-and-restore mode, governed largely by the vagus nerve, which runs from your brainstem all the way down through your chest and abdomen. It slows things down: heart rate, breathing, inflammation. It's designed to help you recover, digest, sleep, and heal.

In a well-regulated nervous system, these two modes work together like a car with a responsive accelerator and a good brake. You speed up when you need to. You slow down when you can.

But during perimenopause, estrogen was helping regulate your stress response — and now that support is fading. Without it, the amygdala (your brain's threat-detection center) becomes more reactive. It starts flagging things as dangerous that aren't. A stressful email. A loud room. A minor disagreement. Your amygdala hits the accelerator — and nobody's stepping on the brake.

This state is called sympathetic dominance, and it explains so much of what women experience during perimenopause:

• Hot flashes

• Heart palpitations

• Waves of anxiety

• Irritability and anger

• Insomnia

• A dramatically reduced tolerance for stress

You're not losing your mind. Your nervous system is stuck in go-mode — and it needs help finding the brake.

Finding the Brake — What You Can Actually Do

Here's the empowering part. You are not powerless in this. Your nervous system can be trained, soothed, and regulated — and you can start today.

1. Breathe With Intention.

 This isn't fluff. The 4-4-6 breathing pattern — inhale for 4 counts, hold for 4 counts, exhale for 6 counts — directly stimulates the vagus nerve. That long exhale is the key. It tells your parasympathetic nervous system to engage. It steps on the brake. Do this for 2 minutes when you feel a hot flash coming, when anxiety spikes, or before bed. It works because it's biological, not psychological. You're not "thinking calm thoughts." You're activating a physical nerve that tells your body to stand down.

2. Move Your Body — Especially Strength Training.

 Exercise is one of the most powerful nervous system regulators we have. It burns off excess cortisol and adrenaline (the fuel of sympathetic dominance), increases GABA and serotonin production, and helps your body practice moving between activation and recovery. And strength training specifically has shown promising results for reducing hot flash frequency and severity. When you lift, your body has to recruit muscles, regulate temperature, manage heart rate, and then recover — it's essentially a rehearsal for the nervous system balance your body is trying to find.

3. Cold Exposure.

 You don't need an ice bath. A splash of cold water on your wrists or the back of your neck can stimulate the vagus nerve and trigger a parasympathetic response. Keep a cold washcloth by your bed. Run cold water over your inner wrists when a hot flash starts. It's simple. It's fast. And it works.

4. Cut the Cortisol Cycle.

 Certain substances and habits amplify sympathetic dominance — they pour gasoline on a fire that's already burning. The big ones: caffeine, alcohol, sugar, and chronic sleep deprivation. I'm not saying you have to eliminate them all overnight. But I am saying that if your nervous system is stuck in overdrive, these are the things keeping it there. Start noticing. Start adjusting. Even small changes create space for your nervous system to breathe.

5. Name It.

This might be the most underrated tool of all. When you feel the heat rise, when the anxiety floods in, when the irritability snaps — pause and say, out loud or in your mind: "This is my nervous system. This is not me." That act of naming — of separating yourself from the sensation — engages your prefrontal cortex (rational brain) and begins to quiet the amygdala (reactive brain). You are not your symptoms. Your nervous system is responding to a hormonal shift. You can observe it without becoming it.

A Word for the Spirit

I believe God designed our bodies with extraordinary intelligence. The hot flash isn't a malfunction — it's a signal. The mood swing isn't a defect — it's your brain adapting to a new chemical landscape. The anxiety isn't evidence that you're falling apart — it's your nervous system asking for help finding a new equilibrium.

And I believe He is with us in this transition. Not watching from a distance. Right here. In the sweat-soaked sheets at 2 AM. In the tears that come for no reason on a Tuesday afternoon. In the quiet strength it takes to show up at the gym when your body feels like a stranger.

"She is clothed with strength and dignity; she can laugh at the days to come."

— Proverbs 31:25

You are clothed with strength — even when you can't feel it. You are wrapped in dignity — even when your body feels out of control. And the days to come? They are not something to fear. They are something to prepare for — with knowledge, with movement, with community, and with faith.

"You are not falling apart. You are being restructured."

Next Week: Week 3 — Sleep, Fatigue & the Recovery Your Body Is Begging For. We'll talk about why you can't sleep anymore, why you're exhausted even when you do, and what your body actually needs to recover in this season. Don't miss it.

With love and strength, Annalee

Here’s to strength that lasts.

 Here’s to movement with meaning.

 Here’s to mornings that set the tone for decades. 🌿