Fertility and Stress
Is stress effecting your fertility? You might know by now that stress raises cortisol levels, increases inflammatory markers in the body, and disrupts adrenal-thyroid performance - all of which push your body to act more infertile. Stress actually makes us age prematurely from a hormonal standpoint.With infertility on the rise, it’s important for you to take your stress seriously in your
20s and 30s and do all that you can from a functional nutrition standpoint to protect your fertility from the real effects of stress.If you’re trying to get pregnant or thinking about it for the future, it’s probably not surprising to hear that stress can affect your fertility. But what about how your relationship to your fertility is affecting your stress levels?Anxiety around getting pregnant - or trying not to get pregnant - can be a big factor in upping your stress response and corresponding cortisol levels, which only will further diminish your fertility and overall reproductive health.In other words, if you’re on high alert trying to get everything perfect in order to boost your fertility, that added stress and pressure could be compromising it!To help you stay balanced, here’s what you need to know about both sides of this relationship:
- How stress affects your fertility: Experiencing stress and its accompanying insomnia, anxiety, low energy, and sugar addiction are all signs that your adrenal glands are suffering. This unfortunately not only makes you feel lousy, but it indicates a high cortisol and low DHEA ratio that compromises ovulation regularity and diminishes egg quality, both essential factors in your fertility.
- What to do about it: Eating a diet with the proper micronutrient content, as outlined in the WomanCode System, is essential for supporting your adrenals and reproductive system. Certain supplements may also be required to boost adrenal function and lower stress.
- How your fertility affects your stress: Constantly worrying about your fertile capacity, monitoring your cycle-tracking like a hawk, and feeling fearful every time you go to the doctor are all examples of how your relationship to your fertility could be causing more stress in your life. When this happens, the added stress has the effects noted above, and continues to compromise your fertility.
- What to do about it: Feeling confident in what your body needs to be most fertile can be a huge relief. Imagine if you could take deep breaths each day, knowing that you are on track to healthy ovulation and conception! When you’re taking these steps through our program, you’ll breathe easier knowing that you are actually preventing premature hormonal aging.
Ready to balance your stress levels and your fertility?
Join me as I cover how to really deal with stress from a functional medicine standpoint, how to heal and support your adrenal glands, the foods and supplements that help with stress, and exercising with your cyclical patterns to balance stress in my popular audio class, Address Your Stress the WomanCode Way!We will be covering lots of material essential for healthy fertility and I'll be sharing my favorite stress management practices as well ;)
Are You Trying to Conceive?
If you want to do everything in your power to improve your chances of becoming a mom—then we want to help you optimize your fertility.Whether you are just starting to think about having a baby, or have already tried naturally or have been trying with IVF, our Fertile FLO Program will help improve your chances of conception.Click here to download my FREE guide, The 5 Health Foods to Avoid to Get and Stay Pregnant.
