This is the third part of a 3-part series: Finding your Fertility – How to naturally conceive a healthy, happy baby.
More and more couples are struggling to get pregnant. Not only is it heart breaking, but it is socially isolating because people don’t talk about it. My patients tell me partly it’s shame and embarrassment that keeps them quiet. “It’s as if I’m failing at being alive,” one patient confided to me. People are supposed to be able to make other humans. It’s the most basic of animal tenancies. Men and women make babies. Easy, breezy right? The artificial reproductive technology industry and the devastated couples in my office tell me no.
To be honest reproduction is actually quite complex. And there are several factors that prevent or allow a pregnancy to go to term.
Unfortunately one of the major factors of infertility or subfertility concerns is stress – the normal stuff which is compounded by the emotional stress and anxiety of not being able to conceive. So even if you are eating a nutrient rich diet and avoiding toxicity in the environment, if the body is stressed, conception may not happen.
There are essentially 2 arms of the autonomic (involuntary) nervous system.
There is the sympathetic nervous system. You may know this as the fight or flight (or freeze or faint) part. This arm keep us safe from acute danger. Saber tooth tigers, fires, and other frightening elements. The sympathetic nervous system provides the physiological state necessary to out run, out wit, or out fight our stressful opponents. It is all about survival. And as I tell my patients NOT about thriving.
The 2nd arm is the parasympathetic nervous system. We call this the rest (relaxation), digest, heal and (here it is) sex part. This is the arm that helps us thrive, and live delightful lives (which is what I want for you.)
Our ancestors experienced a different ratio. They spent most of their time hanging out in their rest, digest, heal and sex mode (oooooh yeah…) and little time in stress mode. That’s opposite for us in our wacky, modern times.
Stress is everywhere: deadlines, employers, employees, family stress, toxins, emotional trauma, lack of support, food allergies, poor nutrition (despite mega calorie consumption). But it’s not just the bad stuff: also getting married, graduation, vacations. Even the good stuff can create the same reaction in the body.
Stress bullies our physiology. It changes our body’s priorities; survival is key – not making babies is NOT a priority when then body is stressed. It changes how our sex organs function. It changes how those sex organs produce sex cells. It decreases our ability to detoxify our bodies.
3 things you can do about Stress
There are a ton. But here are three super, duper ways.
1. Deep breathing
Do not underestimate this. Breathing. Scoff. Right? No. Slowing down and breathing is the most effective way to flip the switch between survive and thrive (baby-making) mode. And! BONUS! It’s completely free! I want you to breathe deeply INTO the belly. As your lungs fill with air on your inhalation your abdomen should expand outwards. As you exhale, the belly will return to neutral. This will take practice. The muscles involved need to be worked just like any other muscle in the body. Start small. Offensively small. Start with 5-10 deep belly breaths per day. Increase as you get more comfortable. Aim for 100 deep breaths into the belly per day.
2. Exercise
We need a physical outlet. That is another difference between us and our mostly not stressed ancestors. When they were stressed there would be some sort of accompanying physical release. A sprint to get away. A fist fight. A dragging their family member out of a burning forest. The physical movement is like discharging a battery. Stress. Exercise. Release. It helps the body slide into rest, digest, heal and sex mode. There are arguments about what is best. It seems though that the best comes in short, intense bursts, mimicking what I just described. Feeling anxious because your boss is breathing down your neck? Why not run up the flight of stairs? Got a terrible phone message? Drop and do some push-ups. Stress. Exercise. Release. Yoga is a great part of the routine, but mix it up. If all else fails find something you like, and do it as often as possible.
3. Get professional help
Sometimes we need to call on the pros. And there is nothing wrong with that. Counselling can be effective. My favorite professional supported stress reducers are:
Acupuncture: This gets people into what I call “the Zen Zone” the deep state of relaxation from where we do our healing. This is parasympathetic in overdrive. I commonly use it in conjunction with artificial reproductive technologies. Actually 80% of the couples (yes men too!) I work with doing acupuncture while undergoing IUI, or IVF (intrauterine insemination or invitro fertilization) have conceived and carried the pregnancies to term and had healthy, happy babies. That is double if not more the standard odds of IVF alone.
Brain-Based Transformational Coaching – This is my absolute favorite. It is a mind-body treatment that helps the body overcome stress, anxiety in a safe, non traumatic way. I’ve had 3 female patients seeing me for fertility treatments who decided to try Brain-Based Transformational Coaching and all three of them are now happy mammas.
It delights me to no end. (Part of what helps my life be thriving and delightful is helping other get their thriving and delightful lives.)
Please share this content, even if you don’t know any one who is struggling. Like I say, people don’t talk about this. You never know who might benefit. And I say, the more people with thriving, delightful lives, the better off this planet.
Here are the other two part of this series:
Part 1: 3 things to avoid if you’re trying to conceive a healthy, happy baby
Part 2: 3 things to make sure you consume if you want to conceive a healthy, happy baby
Here’s to your delightful, thriving, baby-making life,
Dr. Tonia
