EP #13 - Top 3 Tips To Navigate Stress On your Fertility Journey
[00:00:00] Tanja: Now, picture this, another negative test, another wave of disappointment. Your heart races, your mind spins and the what ifs starts to flood in. If this sounds familiar, if the stress of infertility feels overwhelming, let's talk about this.
[00:00:51] First of all, it's really, really important for you to understand that stress of infertility is not just something in your head. Research has shown that actually psychological distress experienced by those navigating infertility challenges can reach levels that are comparable to those facing serious medical conditions such as cancer.
[00:01:17] This underscores the very real and significant emotional burden that infertility carries. There has been more and more studies over the past few years about fertility and stress, and how stress actually can impact anxiety, depression, how it can cause sleep disorder, and how it can have all kinds of physiological results as well.
[00:01:45] So it is something that doctors are taking more serious and all around actually are really looking more into it to see like what else can be done to alleviate the stress that is being caused by infertility.
[00:02:01] Now a study that was conducted in 2020 also revealed that the stress levels between men and women is different. So, the point is found that the levels of anxiety and levels of depression were higher in women than in men. And sometimes, when we discuss it, with those women and men that are coming to us and seeing us, we would actually really try to investigate a little bit more about it.
[00:02:33] It's not that men don't feel stressed at all, but they just handle it differently, and there is an altogether different study on that.
[00:02:42] And the other thing that is more importantly is also to really understand how stress is affecting our body. So let's take a look at the stress and the hormones first of all. So that we really get a good understanding of how stress can impact our hormonal balance. Now, if you watch nature, you would actually observe that an antelope that is about to give birth would never ever give birth to her baby if she is threatened by lions.
[00:03:20] She would actually stop the birthing process and she would flee first and seek for in then, a safe place for her to give birth in the calm and safe space that is surrounding her.
[00:03:36] And that's how body works as well. The hypothalamus, who is the boss of our system, that tells us whether we are in a safe space, whether we can be really easy peasy and calm, or whether we are in an emergency room. If that boss decides that we are indeed in an emergency room, it would actually send and communicate through our autonomous nerve system in our body which is again attached to all our organs. That reproduction is not needed because in threat or in an emergency, what we need is a heart that is pumping, we need the lung to keep us alive, and we need blood in the muscles to flee. That's what we need.
[00:04:23] So, all the organs such as ovaries, uterus, uterus lining, all the hormones attached to it that are helping to ovulate an egg or to actually even stimulate the growth of eggs to be ovulated. And then again, uterus lining, which needs to be thick and soft to help implant the embryo, all of these hormones would actually be reduced to the very, very minimum level of their activity.
[00:04:53] And that's simply because nature is here to protect us. It's here to protect us, to keep us safe, to focus on what's most needed in this moment. So, if you feel stressed out on certain days, and that can happen to all of us, including myself, it’s absolutely normal.
[00:05:13] What is not normal is when you are being in a stressful situation, where you feel really threatened and you can feel the fear inside you that's crawling up that is affecting your sleep, that is affecting your behaviour, is affecting your appetite, is affecting the way how you're thinking.
[00:05:36] If all of this is being impacted, that's when we call it a negative stress. That's out of norm. And that's when all the alarm bells should actually ring up because this is not a healthy way on how to support your own well-being.
[00:05:56] And this is all what I care about. I highly, highly care about your well-being, especially when you are trying to get pregnant. All what I want for you is to feel calm and safe and that you feel that you're in a good space with your mind as well as with your heart.
[00:06:15] These two, they need to be synchronized and they may need to be connected. So that it feels that you are aligned. So, it's really about talking this alignment. This is absolutely key.
[00:06:28] Now, some of the techniques that I have been using for myself, whether or not it's fertility related, which has really helped me a lot is breathing. We will dive into this in the next session. Breathing has been absolutely gold.
[00:06:44] So, if you happen to be in a place where there is a breath workshop coming up nearby you or whether you can actually sign up for an online training or an online workshop for the right type of breathing, I can highly, highly recommend for you to pursue that. There is a lot of evidence-based research about breathing and lots of lots of benefits attached to that.
[00:07:11] It's also for people with all kinds of anxiety disorders or depression, or insomnia. Another one that is really very helpful is mindfulness. Of course, we have heard mindfulness a lot and I can totally understand if you are going like, “I've heard enough of mindfulness” yes, totally understand.
[00:07:35] But it's really about like being mindful in small ways, in practical ways. I'm a very practical person. I don't like to run down the theory and then not knowing like, how can I now apply that to my life? I really like to have very practical things. So, mindfulness is best being practiced by small habits that you are doing anyway.
[00:08:00] So think about, what are the daily habits? Then you are doing basically on automatic kind of like feature. One of them would be like getting out of bed. So, when you get out of bed, why not just placing both of your feet flat down on earth and then mindfully connect?
[00:08:21] It's the first step that you do out of your bed in the morning. So, if you keep that in mind and in that moment, just mindfully step one feet after the next and ground yourself, ground yourself. You may even want to touch a picture to it, like a beautiful, strong, grounded oak tree that has been there for over 100 years that has been there, well rooted into earth and that gives you all that strong foundation of, I'm here and I'm ready for the day ahead.
[00:09:00] So that could be one. Another one mindful thought could be like while your cup of coffee or cup of tea is filling up. Just take the moment to do five deep breaths. So, this could be another way or when you are brushing your teeth, which is one of the things that we are doing automatically anyway, every day.
[00:09:21] So this could be another moment of how maybe to work with a beautiful affirmation that is patched on your bathroom mirror and then read that maybe two, three times until it really sinks in and just embrace it.
[00:09:37] So mindfulness, your number two. And then its movement, your number three will be absolutely movement. Move your body because when you get stressed, you kind of like have tendency to get like crunched up, you know, either in your neck. You can tense in your shoulders.
[00:09:57] So, first of all, when you leave home and you're walking to your bus station, MRT station, or wherever you're going to the parking, or maybe you are the lucky one who can actually walk to the office or to work, just roll your shoulders up all the way to your ears and then roll it back.
[00:10:17] Like get your shoulder blades together, get them together, get them worked out. And if it doesn't happen the first time, just do it again. So, this might be like a really good exercise to do when you're waiting even like during the day, when you're entering to the lift, or on the staircase, you're walking up, you roll your shoulders, you're going into a meeting, you roll your shoulders, you go to the bathroom, just roll your shoulders.
[00:10:41] Just do this kind of exercise especially those ones that are maybe on the nervous fringe kind of like, we want for those cells to actually detach from an accumulation of stress and of getting tensed up in your body. So that's how you move. It's super, super important to get moving.
[00:11:05] So studies again show that 10 minutes of walking, ideally in nature, can help to become a complete game changer for your mood, for your anxiety, for the stress that you are perceiving.
[00:11:20] So, I really want to highly encourage you to take a look at what could be the thing, the one single thing from today's episode that you would like to take away and start implementing from either today or later tomorrow onwards. It's always good to take one step each. Don't try to do all things together because that's usually too much and then people give up.
[00:11:49] So I want you to encourage to listen to this podcast maybe again and then start thinking about like, what's the number one thing that you would like to embrace from today's session and start doing it. It can be as little as one breath. The most important thing is that you do it and you start doing it on a consistent way. That's the most important. That's what I want to say.
[00:12:13] And if you feel that you need a buddy, then buddy up with your husband, with your spouse, with your wife, buddy up with your partner, buddy up with a good friend, or a buddy up with whomever, but get yourself motivated to really do it. It's a life changer.
[00:12:30] When you start doing something for you, because remember what I shared before, who is the most important person in your life? It's you. You are the most important person in your life, and you should be your first priority.
[00:12:46] So tell me how it worked. I'm really curious to know. I can't wait to hear back from you. Thank you for tuning in today and for being here. I hope to see you soon again. And please share. Maybe there is a friend who will be so happy to hear about these tips.
