The Truth About Fertility and Relaxation Techniques is Finally Revealed

I’m sure you’ve heard it all before “take a vacation” - “stop trying so hard”…and no doubt you’ve felt that fury when these casual remarks are thrown about I know I did.

Side note (There may be some wisdom in that ‘take a vacation’ advice as a new study suggests almost a 30% increase in IVF success when the egg collection is done on a sunny day (the weather for the transfer didn’t influence conception rates).

As I’ve mentioned in other blogs stress can play a big part in fertility and the ‘just relax’ mentality can be triggering especially if you’ve been at this for a while. Self care is important for everyone and with your heightened stress levels taking time out to relax can be helpful to give your body a chance to recover from the onslaught of stress. But stress is mostly caused by our perception of events (the unfairness of infertility, feeling judged, unworthy, defective) rather than the events themselves. Therefore it’s logical that that massage or relaxation Mp3 will only reduce stress for the time you’re on the couch relaxing or on the massage table.

FertileMind is NOT a relaxation approach to infertility - let’s be really clear about that. It’s about starting to notice how your mind sabotages your happiness on an hourly basis - even more so when you’re trying to get pregnant. How does that help you get pregnant faster? As you begin to notice stressful habits of thought that are increasing adrenaline and cortisol you get better at short circuiting those mental events so it’s not only an evidence based powerful coping strategy you’re actively changing those chemical messengers in your body.

Stress caused by infertility is a kaleidoscope of different kinds of psychological distress.

Grief

Anger

Disappointment

Shame

Sadness

Etc etc.

For many people you might experience some or all of these emotions during one 24 hr period - so you can see why the ‘just relax’ brigade or a 90 minute massage is only a temporary fix. FertileMind tailors Mindfulness meditation and Compassion training for each of these common barriers to quality of life. Even a short 10 minute mindful breathing exercise is associated with more hope - and that’s something everyone facing fertility treatments can do with buckets of.

Tracy