3 Ways to Tame a Hot Flash — Fast

From wearables to ice packs to hypnosis, there’s a lot you can do to cool a hot flash

Rachel Somerstein,

AARP

Comments

Published April 22, 2026

Hot flashes affect roughly 80 percent of women during menopause, bringing sudden and intense waves of heat that can disrupt sleep and derail focus at work. It’s no wonder, then, that they are the number one menopausal symptom that drives women to seek treatment.

Termed “vasomotor symptoms” in the medical literature, hot flashes can start before menopause or right around the time that menopause begins, which is defined as a year after a woman’s last period, says Dr. JoAnn Pinkerton, division director for Midlife Health at the University of Virginia and past president of the Menopause Society. On average, women experience them for about seven years.

Both hormonal and nonhormonal prescription treatments can reduce the frequency and severity of hot flashes. But there are still some things you can do in the moment to reduce their intensity. Here’s a look at three things experts say can help you manage a hot flash.

1. Keep it cool

Controlling a room’s temperature is an ideal way to cope with a hot flash. That’s why Pinkerton recommends keeping the bedroom cool at night.

“I’m always saying, ‘Please let the menopausal woman win the temperature battles in the bedroom.’ Because you can do a cooling blanket and a heating blanket. You can have a bed topper where one side is cooling and one side isn’t,” she says.

However, at work, it’s not always easy to control the thermostat, Pinkerton says. In that case, you can keep a small fan on your desk or even put one around your neck. “The more expensive ones have a cooler in them,” she says, likening them to “an air conditioner around your neck.”

Cooling wristbands are another option. One such device, the Embr Wave, is a bracelet that delivers both heating and cooling with the touch of a button (it can also be controlled by an app). Speaking on a panel at the 2025 Menopause Society Conference, Janet Carpenter, interim dean and distinguished professor at the Indiana University School of Nursing and a leading expert on hot flashes and their treatment, said that small studies have shown the Embr to be effective.

For instance, a 2021 randomized study of 39 women ages 45 to 58 who experienced hot flashes at night found that when they wore the device for two weeks, they reported both better sleep and more “perceived control” over their sleep disruptions than when they didn’t wear the bracelet. The women also reported better functioning during the day. (The study, which appeared in the journal Behavioral Sleep Medicine, was funded by Johnson & Johnson. Other studies of the device without industry funding have also shown it to be effective.)

That sense of control matters because previous research has shown that perceived control over hot flashes makes them less distressing and increases women’s well-being.

Most Popular

There are lower-tech solutions as well. Katie Lavery, a certified nurse-midwife and certified menopause practitioner at Henry Ford Health in Michigan, recommends this surgical nurse’s trick when you feel a hot flash coming on: Put wrapped ice packs on your wrists, armpits and neck, where blood flow is closest to the surface. (An iced washcloth also works.) You’ll still experience the hot flash, she says, but the ice packs will reduce the intensity.

Lavery recommends keeping a small cooler beside the bed stocked with ice packs to make it even easier to manage hot flashes at night — and help a person get back to sleep faster.

2. Cognitive behavioral therapy

There are two more evidence-based techniques that take longer to take effect but have been shown to work well in multiple randomized clinical trials, and one is cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT).

CBT, Pinkerton explains, is about focusing your mind. When you sense a hot flash coming on, she says, think about “being cool, calm, being at a beach or going to cold water.” The process also includes learning how emotions and beliefs affect the experience of hot flashes.

In one landmark randomized clinical trial, 140 women who experienced bothersome hot flashes and learned CBT, both on their own and in a group, reduced night sweats — a close cousin of the hot flash — by 39 percent. They also reduced the extent to which hot flashes interfered with their lives.

The trial included women with breast cancer, who may experience menopause differently from women without it.

3. Hypnosis

Similarly, in hypnosis, a person learns how to hypnotize themselves and then engages that practice when they experience a hot flash.

A 2025 study published in JAMA Network Open found that participants who underwent six weeks of self-guided hypnosis reported a roughly 53 percent reduction in both the frequency and intensity of hot flashes. And a 2025 review of 17 studies of both CBT and self-hypnosis showed that self-hypnosis reduces both the frequency and severity of hot flashes.

A person can learn CBT and hypnosis from a clinician, in-person or remotely, or on their own. There are also apps for CBT under development, so stay tuned.

One downside to such mindfulness practices is that they require you to stop what you’re doing to use them, Lavery says. That can be challenging, particularly depending on a person’s occupation, she notes — a school bus driver can’t pull over, and a high school teacher can’t stop teaching and say, “Don’t talk to me for a few minutes.”

Learning the techniques also takes time — at least four to five weeks, respectively.

Medications for hot flashes

While strategies such as temperature control, CBT and hypnosis can interrupt and reduce hot flashes’ frequency and intensity, the most effective and best-tested way to treat hot flashes is with hormone therapy (HT), Pinkerton says.

In a few days to a few weeks, women who take hormones can expect to see a difference in their symptoms, including less severe and less frequent hot flashes, explains Lavery, though lower-dose hormone therapy takes longer to take effect.

For women who can’t or don’t want to take hormone therapy, other evidence-based treatments include some SSRIs; gabapentin, traditionally prescribed for seizures and nerve pain; and oxybutynin, which also treats overactive bladder, another menopause symptom. In clinical trials, herbs, including black cohosh, though popular, have not been shown to be superior to a placebo. “If they work for you, and they don’t have risk, they may be something you can try,” says Pinkerton.

There are also two new nonhormonal medications that have recently been added to the menu of menopause treatments.

Lastly, an injection into the lower cervical spine, called a stellate ganglion block, has been shown to effectively block hot flashes for several months. It comes with risks, and it’s expensive, but it can be useful for women with severe hot flashes who can’t take hormone therapy, according to an article in the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine.

“Women having bothersome hot flashes should check in with their provider,” Pinkerton says. “You should not suffer in silence. There is help.”

%{postComment}%

Rachel Somerstein is the author of Invisible Labor: The Untold Story of the Cesarean Section. Her reporting has appeared in The Guardian, The Washington Post and Women’s Health, among other publications.

Unlock Access to AARP Members Edition

Join AARP to Continue

Already a Member? Login

Recommended for You

Benefits Recommended For You

See All