Web app · from the Menopause Package

The Hot-Flash Emergency Card

It is not the heat that is worst — it is the helplessness. This card means the plan already exists when it strikes. Add it to your home screen, and you will always have it with you.

When it comes — do this

Drop your shoulders and breathe slowly. In through the nose for 4 seconds — out slowly for 6 to 8. About six breaths a minute. It breaks the stress response that makes the flash worse.
Cold on your wrists or neck. Cold water over the pulse points for 30 seconds, a cold can, the chilled spray bottle. The blood cools the rest of you.
Open or take off a layer. This is why you dress in layers: a tank top + something that opens in five seconds.
If you are around people — say the words: Excuse me, hot flash. Keep going, I'm listening. Nine times out of ten the answer is warmth of the other kind. The secrecy makes the flash worse; the word takes the edge off it.
Let it pass. A hot flash is a wave: it rises, peaks and settles — usually within a few minutes. You do not have to put it out. You only have to ride it out, and that is what you are doing right now.

Add to your home screen

iPhone / iPad

Open this page in Safari → tap the share button (the square with the arrow) → choose "Add to Home Screen" → Add.

Android

Open the page in Chrome → tap the menu (⋮) → choose "Add to Home screen" (or "Install app") → Add.

When it is more than a nuisance

If the hot flashes are running your life — wrecking your sleep night after night, disrupting work, making you dread meetings — then it is a medical matter, not something to tough out. Effective treatment exists. Bring the symptom diary and the question list (the Healthcare Toolkit in the package) and book an appointment with your doctor or an OB-GYN. You are entitled to help.

And one line that truly matters: intense heat with chest pain, a racing heart that does not settle, or fainting is not a hot flash — call 911 right away.

This is the emergency part — it is open to everyone, so nobody has to stand alone when the heat strikes. The complete Hot-Flash Emergency Card (the night and the bedside kit, your triggers, how to prevent) is included in The Complete Menopause Package — together with the book and seven more tools.