On the fertility journey you might find yourself offered advice on a regular basis. You may find well meaning friends, family, work colleagues, even strangers telling you that you just need to relax, stop worrying, take a holiday, chill out …. and pregnancy will happen!
Being told to relax can be infuriating especially if you find it hard or even impossible to do, as your ovaries tick like a clock and your dream of motherhood feels out of reach.
Being ‘taught’ how to relax is something quite different.
Truth is we are living in a culture where stress and high pressure have become the norm.
This ‘fight or flight’ adrenaline fuelled state is a given for many each working day. Yet this state of being is a primal response designed to give us courage and strength to either run away or fight to the death if we needed to.
Thankfully few of us have to do either of these things in the course of a normal day. Yet lateness, traffic, transport, work pressure, relationships, social media, economics and fertility problems can put our nervous system into fight or flight. This state is counter productive to getting pregnant and staying pregnant.
When we are in ‘fight or flight’ we are in survival mode. In mode energy and nutrients are mobilised for speed, power. Survival takes preference over reproduction. We make adrenaline from progesterone. We need progesterone for pregnancy. We need to keep our stress levels down.
So how do we switch off fight or flight? How do we relax in a caffeine fuelled adrenaline culture that celebrates and rewards busy-ness and over working?
It helps to know that we have both internal and external stress. We need to lower both.
External stresses are more obvious and I mentioned them earlier, work, traffic, other people etc.
Internal stresses are not so obvious but can drive our health, energy and reproduction in an unhelpful direction. Dehydration, unstable blood sugar, poor gut health, lack of nutrients amongst others can put our nervous system into high stress. So no matter how many holidays we take or how chilled the external is, inside the nervous system is still wired for danger.
How and what we eat can lower internal stress. How we move, breathe and think can also have healing benefits.
Fertility nutrition looks to take out the foods that cause stress in the body and up the amount of nourishing foods that give us the raw materials for pregnancy. Did you know that in order to make progesterone we need enough vitamin C, magnesium, b6 and zinc?
In a fertility yoga practice we learn to breathe effectively, we connect with ourselves, we get grounded and we work deeply and gently to open and nourish the hips and pelvis. Here we can increase oxygenation. We need oxygen for energy. We need energy to make a baby. We can improve the circulation in the pelvic organs and this can literally nourish the reproductive system.
Ways of breathing, movement, meditation, relaxation, self care and food that nourishes and nurtures the deep tissues in your body are all part of the work I do with women and fertility. I don’t offer diets or quick fixes but I can guide and support you on path to radiant health, relaxation and energy moving towards the dream of meeting your baby.