Night sweats: what are the symptoms and the treatment?
What are night sweats?
When you have night sweats in your sleep, you’ll wake up at night soaked in sweat. If you have it badly enough, you might literally sweat yourself out of bed in order to change the bedding. Oddly enough, you’ll feel cool to the touch, and might even be shivering. Sweating makes your body cool off, preventing it from overheating.
What causes night sweats?
There are a few different reasons why you might sweat excessively while in bed at night. We’ll sum up the most common ones below.
The bedroom, bedding, and/or nightclothes are too warm. Your body has to be able to cool off in order to sleep. If it’s difficult to cool down, or if the body isn’t able to get rid of the heat, your sweat glands will remain active. This makes it so that you wake up in the middle of the night coated in sweat.
Medication. Certain medications can cause night sweats as a side effect. A few examples are antidepressants, hormone supplements (such as estradiol), medicines that lower your blood sugar levels, and sometimes even paracetamol.
Diseases and conditions. Think of cancer, diabetes, HIV, idiopathic hyperhidrosis, or adrenal gland and heart problems. Sleep apnea can also cause someone to sweat a lot at night, just like fevers as a result of infections can.
Being overweight.
Exercising too late at night. It’s best to do it during the day. Exercise makes your body experience stress (which isn’t necessarily a bad thing) and warm up. It takes a while before your body winds down and gets rid of that excess heat.
Alcohol, caffeine, smoking, and certain foods. (Excessive) alcohol consumption and things like spicy food can cause you to experience night sweats. Alcohol makes your blood vessels dilate, which causes more warmth to escape. However, quitting alcohol and drugs can also cause night sweats. In that case, it’s a withdrawal symptom.
Nightmares can also lead to night sweats. Just like fear and stress. These things make you produce more adrenaline, which makes your heart beat faster and makes your blood pressure rise. More energy is released, which causes you to sweat more.
Night sweats because of hormones!
Last but not least, hormones. For women+, (peri)menopause, pregnancy, or the postpartum period can cause night sweats. This is because of the sudden shift in hormones. The hormone estrogen is most important here. The part of the brain responsible for keeping your body temperature in check is sensitive to this hormone. When there’s a sudden drop in your estrogen levels, your body thinks it’s getting the signal that it’s too warm, even if that’s not the case. It will begin to produce sweat to get rid of this warmth. Voila, night sweats.
In men, a lowering testosterone level is often the cause. This may happen because of aging, or for example because of the removal of the testes.
Tips for night sweats
It’s self-explanatory that losing weight, drinking less alcohol, quitting smoking, caffeine, and drugs, and saying goodbye to spicy food will help if they are the triggers for your night sweats. But, there are other things you can do.
Sleep with your hands and feet outside of your duvet. It’s easiest for your body to expel heat through these body parts, so it can help to keep them cool.
Wear airy nightwear, preferably made from cotton.
Make sure your bedroom and bed are properly ventilated, and keep the temperature between 15 and 18 degrees Celsius. A duvet made from cotton or wool can also help.
Don’t drink cold water right before bed, and instead have it lukewarm. Cold water will make your body want to warm up, which is exactly what you want to avoid.
Have you noticed that you mainly sweat a lot at night after having had an extensive meal? Try to keep this in mind.
Regular exercise will help you regulate your hormones and will decrease stress. This may help get rid of your night sweats. Regularly moving your body helps to keep your hormones in check, and decreases stress. This, in turn, will make you have night sweats less frequently.
Do you often suffer from night sweats, and did these tips not help you enough? Be sure to discuss this with your doctor. It is often possible to do something about it. For women+ in (peri) menopause who suffer from night sweats, hormone replacement therapy is very effective.