Master menopause: learn to treat the symptoms of this normal transition with the top three natural alternatives to prescription hormones.(SUPPLEMENTS: HOW TO)

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As they age, all women experience menopause. This phase of life comes about when the ovaries no longer produce an egg every month, menstruation ceases, and a woman is no longer reproductive. In common parlance, "menopause" describes any of the many changes a woman experiences just before or after she stops menstruating.

When menopause occurs after age 40, conventional medicine considers it "natural"--a normal part of aging. Some women can experience menopause early, and if it occurs before age 40, regardless of the cause, it is called premature menopause. Traditional natural healing systems, however, peg the normal age at around 54.

The process is gradual and is described in three stages. Perimenopause starts many years before menopause, as the ovaries gradually produce less estrogen. During the last two years or so of perimenopause, estrogen decreases more rapidly and many women begin to experience menopause symptoms. Officially, menopause is the time when a woman experiences her last menstrual period, but it isn't diagnosed until a woman has gone without a period for 12 consecutive months. The years after this time are called--you guessed it--postmenopause. For most women, menopausal symptoms, including hot flashes, then wane.

Menopause is one of the most confusing and controversial areas of contemporary American natural healing. Still, many women attest to the benefits of natural remedies for these persistent, and often miserable, symptoms. The following three remedies are effective and valuable at helping ease menopausal symptoms.

Remedy 1. Cool it--Black Cohosh Root

Although the current scientific evidence is mixed, black cohosh (Actaea racemosa, formerly Cimicifuga racemosa) is popular as an alternative to hormone replacement therapy in the treatment of hot flashes. Several studies have reported black cohosh improves menopausal symptoms. We don't know definitively how black cohosh works, and if its action is hormonal in some way. A 2008 analysis of 32 combined scientific studies concluded that black cohosh has been proven to significantly reduce the frequency or severity of hot flashes.