Does Stress Impact Your Fertility?

Could your stress levels be impacting your fertility?

Are you stressed because you are having trouble conceiving? Absolutely!

Are you having trouble conceiving because of stress? Ah, yep, very likely.

I'm sure you've been told “just relax and it will happen”? Arrrgghh! of course you have – as if you haven’t tried to relax, right?!

What are some of the things that might be causing you stress?

• Facing a future without a family

• Finding out exactly what the problem is and why you are struggling to conceive

• Coping with another failed round of IVF and the toll it takes on your mind, body and finances

• Carrying to full term when you have experienced miscarriage after miscarriage

• Another failed round of IVF and the toll it takes on your mind and your body

• Sex is no longer sexy. It's becoming robotic and routine

• Taking more time off work for tests, treatment, appointments, grief and loss

• The money you have worked so hard for being sucked up by expensive fertility treatments.

• Trying to be heard and understood by friends and family

• Having to cope with pregnancy announcements or being told 'your turn's next'

And the list goes on and on! Sound familiar?

But .... does stress cause infertility?

Ok, there are several answers here - it depends who you talk to. There is strong evidence showing that women seeking fertility treatment have an increased level of depression and stress symptoms. - they feel stressed. There are also studies that have found that depressive symptoms may lower success rates in fertility treatment. So, the short answer is 'yes'. Stress activates our stress response – technically called our sympathetic nervous system – or what you probably know as the fight, flight or freeze response.

Isn't infertility a physical thing? I hear you ask. What is the stress response and why does it matter to me when I’m trying to conceive?

The mind and body are actually one system, so the stress response is a mental and a physical thing. It was designed to help us conserve our internal resources to face a current threat, like being eaten by a tiger. It is an evolutionary protective mechanism that has kept the human race surviving.

I know you know this, but let's do a quick revisit. Threat appears - heart-rate quickens, oxygen supply gets redirected from organ functions like digestion and your hormonal system and fertility regulation - yep your fertility system. The oxygen and neurotransmitters get channeled to the bigger muscle groups needed to fight the danger or flee quickly to ensure your survival. The body does not want to get pregnant when it is facing a threat - real or imaginary.

Originally this was to keep humans safe from predators (lions, and tigers, and bears...oh my!) but nowadays the predators aren't the wolves, they are daily life pressures. For most people it’s work stressors or relationship stressors, but when you add in fertility struggles and your stress levels reach another planet!

Infertility and the stress of not being able to conceive or carry to full-term are major threats to how you see the rest of your life. Your stress response is likely to be activated 24/7 with day and night thinking, researching, even dreaming or nightmares when you finally do get to sleep. All that stress impacts your entire system decreasing your chances of conceiving and carrying full-term.

Common symptoms of stress and how they impact your fertility

You may have dismissed some of these, but they all point to stress:

• Consistent sleep disruption - difficulty getting to sleep, restlessness, regular or early waking, rising still feeling tired. Sleep is an essential for overall health and wellbeing. Consistent sleep disruption disrupts the hormonal balance that regulate our reproductive functioning. It can lead to irregular menstrual cycles and lower egg (oocyte) quantity and quality.

• Eating and digestive issues - these can cause inflammation, malabsorption of nutrients and hormonal imbalances. An unhealthy gut can create inflammation throughout the body which interfere with hormonal signals, affect egg quality, reduce healthy nutrient uptake like folate, vitamin D and iron all vital for reproductive health. Gut problems can also be linked to endometriosis.

• High blood pressure - can affect blood flow to reproductive organs, cause hormonal imbalances and has been linked to lowering egg and sperm quality. It can also affect the release of mature eggs and the uterine lining impacting implantation of a fertilised egg

• Changes in sex drive - having unprotected sex during your fertile window is of course optimal for conception, however if your sex drive is low you may miss this. Stress can inhibit the release of sex hormones impacting libido and ovulation and sperm production.

Stress is real, don't dismiss it as being some form of weakness or emotional hysteria (like women have been told forever!) Research has shown that women experiencing fertility struggles have heightened mental health issues including anxiety and depression. So high they would meet the criteria for a psychiatric disorder - I kid you not!

Stress, whether it is related to resolving a fertility problem or an external stressor, reduces marital functioning and the quality of life for couples, moreso for women than men.

Did you know that distress is the most common reason women cease fertility treatment? It all becomes way too much to handle. Too much day-in and day-out. And of course if you drop out of treatment where to then?

You need to Unlock Your Fertility Through Mindful Moments

So are we back to "just relax"? Ah, no we are not! While a nice relaxing bath is fab, you need more than the odd bubble bath to calm (not just relax) and heal your whole nervous system.

Research on the MindBody Program for Fertility shows that women who continue through the program have a huge reduction in their levels of anxiety, depression and stress – right down to their core. This is partly because we use the mind-body connection through mindfulness and meditation, specific relaxation and rejuvenation strategies that help heal the body at a cellular level – along with other cognitive behavioural techniques and strategies that help to calm that stressed central nervous system both emotionally and physically. A whole mind-body approach - not just teaching relaxation techniques - you need to understand how your mind works and how to retrain your brain and your body will follow.

Being a part of the MindBody Program for Fertility you are more likely -if you are in treatment - to stay in it longer and you are definitely more likely to enhance your chances of achieving your dream of parenthood.

In fact, research on the MindBody Program for Fertility group program resulted in a 52%-55% increase in take-home baby rate compared to 20% of the women in the control group.

Working with this amazing program, I see my support of women experiencing infertility as a way of partnering with them to decrease their stress levels, whether they are the cause or the result of their struggles with fertility. Whether you are in treatment or not, together we are able to Unlock Your Fertility Through Mindful Moments.

We can’t completely remove all of the stress of this important life journey for you, but you can interact with it differently. There are no quick fixes here, no matter what you see online or from social media influencers - they don't know your journey like you do. And, I know that every journey is different. What I can do is take you through the science-based proven strategies and techniques and be available to walk it with you, so you don’t get overwhelmed, stuck and taken down by the stress of your fertility journey.

Unlocking Your Fertility Through Mindful Moments supports you to let go of trying to control everything increasing the damaging stress response and elicit what is known as the relaxation response (more on this later) and this will give you the best chance of getting through your unique fertility struggle.