Opinion editor’s note: Strib Voices publishes a mix of material from eight contributing columnists, along with other commentary online and in print each day. To contribute, click here.

Hot flashes, sleepless nights, mood swings — menopause can hit like a tidal wave for many women in their 40s and 50s.

While I found quite a bit of relief through hormone replacement therapy (HRT), there are many women who can’t or don’t want to take HRT. Many have asked me recently: What alternatives are available, and are they effective?

I recently highlighted cold plunging and contrast therapy as natural ways to quell some of the anxiety and inflammation associated with menopause. But there are several other non-hormonal methods and products I’ve come across that can also help women reclaim comfort during menopause.

While I personally have never tried acupuncture, Paula Evensen is a passionate advocate for it. The St. Louis Park resident reached out to me after my first column ran to share her experience. “I want to shout from the rooftops to just go get acupuncture!” she told me on the phone more recently.

Evensen, 65, entered menopause in the early 2000s, and, like many women, her journey began with hot flashes. “It’s not just that you feel hot,” she said of the sensation. “You get hot from the inside, from behind your spine and the base of your neck and then you just go, ‘WHOA!’”

Thanks to HRT, such episodes are now rare for me. But Evensen “missed that boat,” she said. At the time she was going through menopause, doctors had all but stopped prescribing HRT, thanks to the flawed 2002 study from the Women’s Health Initiative.

Instead, she turned to her niece, a student of acupuncture, who offered to treat her. After two sessions spaced four days apart (and one “tune-up” a few months later), Evensen said her hot flashes stopped.

Christopher Johnson, a licensed acupuncturist and owner of Everybody Healing Center in Golden Valley, says he’s seen an uptick in the number of women seeking treatment at his clinic for their menopause symptoms — and hot flashes are just one of them.

“There is a pretty big spectrum, from sexual dysfunction, vaginal dryness, changes in digestive symptoms, constipation, loose stools. It really depends on the person,” he said.

So, how does such a universal treatment work?

But sending those targeted signals requires a good understanding of where they need to go, he said.

“We ask about everything from your mood to your poop,” he said, referencing his clinic’s 10-question intake. These answers help develop a pattern diagnosis, as traditional Chinese medicine treats the individual’s pattern — not just the disease. For example, he said, one woman’s hot flashes may be accompanied by constipation, while another’s are paired with headaches, leading to personalized treatments.

Dr. Carolyn Torkelson, co-author of “Beyond Menopause: New Pathways to Holistic Health,” says acupuncturists see the body differently from Western medicine practitioners. During the years that she served as a functional medicine doctor, she sent many of her female patients experiencing menopause symptoms to acupuncturists.

Another apparently promising approach is hypnosis. A new clinical trial led by Gary R. Elkins, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Baylor University, found that self-guided hypnosis can significantly reduce menopausal hot flashes. Though I have not tried hypnosis myself — and wonder if I could quiet my busy mind enough to do so — the study’s findings made a strong impression.

In this trial, 250 women experiencing frequent hot flashes participated in a six-week program comparing self-administered hypnosis with a sham control (white noise). After daily sessions with audio recordings, the women in the hypnosis group reported after six weeks a 53.4% reduction in both frequency and intensity of hot flashes. After three months, their symptoms were reduced by almost 61%.

In fact, at the 12-week follow-up, participants using self-guided hypnosis not only reported a reduction in hot flashes but also said they experienced significant improvements in sleep, mood, concentration and overall quality of life.

Another option is herbs. Herbs can support the body’s stress response and sometimes ease hot flashes by helping regulate temperature, Dr. Torkelson notes. Siberian rhubarb — used in Germany for more than 20 years — has shown promise for reducing symptoms. In fact, it’s the active ingredient in Estrovera, a non-hormonal, plant-based dietary supplement designed to reduce hot flashes, night sweats, sleep issues and mood swings during menopause.

There are also non-hormonal prescription drugs for hot flashes and night sweats. Lynkuet, which was approved by the FDA in October 2025, treats hot flashes by muting the signals your estrogen-deprived brain sends to your body to tell it that it’s hot, even when it’s not. Veozah is another non-hormonal prescription drug for hot flashes, but it’s important to note that the FDA has added a warning to Veozah due to the risk of rare but serious liver injury.

And there are also a whole bunch of cooling products marketed for women with menopause. I recently discovered Opal Cool products, manufactured right here in Red Wing, Minn. I won one of their cooling pads at an event and was shocked at how well it worked. I don’t get hot flashes anymore, but I do still occasionally suffer from night sweats. That cooling pad, which had been sitting at my bedside at room temperature as they are designed to do, took my temperature down almost immediately.

And the marketer in me has to give them credit for their cute tagline: “Cool products for hot women.”