Clinical hypnosis consistently halved menopausal hot flash frequency, severity

Key takeaways:

• Clinical hypnosis was more effective than cognitive behavioral therapy for reducing hot flash frequency and severity.
• Cognitive behavioral therapy was shown only to reduce stress associated with hot flashes.

CHICAGO — A meta-analysis suggests clinical hypnosis is more effective than cognitive behavioral therapy for reducing hot flash frequency and severity for menopausal women, researchers said at the Annual Meeting of The Menopause Society.

“Clinical hypnosis is an effective and clinically significant treatment option for reducing menopausal hot flashes, meaning that it consistently has an improvement of at least 50% or greater in reducing the frequency, severity and daily interference of hot flashes,” Vanessa Muniz, MA, a doctoral student at Baylor University, told Healio. “On the other hand, while cognitive behavioral therapy is also great for improving daily interference of hot flashes, sleep quality and quality of life, it was not found to be effective in reducing the frequency and severity of hot flashes.”

In a scoping review, the researchers assessed data from 23 studies investigating cognitive behavioral therapy or clinical hypnosis that were conducted between 1996 and 2022. Of these, eight studies administered clinical hypnosis and 15 studies administered cognitive behavioral therapy for the treatment of hot flashes.

Clinical hypnosis interventions consistently demonstrated efficacy in reducing hot flash frequency and severity, as well as improving quality of life, sleep quality and mood.

Findings were mixed for cognitive behavioral therapy, according to the researchers. While cognitive behavioral therapy was shown to reduce stress associated with hot flashes through cognitive restructuring, any measured effects on hot flash frequency were “small or null.”

Muniz noted that only four studies assessed hot flashes using skin conductance monitors; these studies demonstrated that cognitive behavioral therapy did not reduce physiologically measured hot flashes. Clinical hypnosis, however, was associated with a 60% reduction in physiologically measured hot flashes.

“I was surprised to find such stark differences,” Muniz told Healio. “While I knew, based on my research, that clinical hypnosis is effective in reducing the frequency and severity of the hot flashes, as well as the daily interference and sleep disturbance caused by hot flashes by over 50%, I was not expecting the results for cognitive behavioral therapy. There is no study where hot flashes were clinically significantly reduced with cognitive behavioral therapy.”

Muniz said, given its effectiveness, additional clinical trials of clinical hypnosis for the treatment of hot flashes among postmenopausal women and breast cancer survivors are needed.

“In addition, research using neuro-imaging technology is needed to gain more insight into the neurophysiology of clinical hypnosis for hot flashes,” Muniz told Healio. “It would be helpful to conduct a study in which cognitive behavioral therapy and clinical hypnosis were treatment arms and compare the interventions in a single, controlled, randomized clinical trial.”

For more information:

Vanessa Muniz, MA, can be reached at vanessa_muniz1@baylor.edu; X (Twitter): @Vanessa_Muniz_R.