For the past 10 years or so, I have been a very active and fit person. I’ve done yoga, pilates, kickboxing, mixed martial arts, and running. I loved running, but when we were going through treatment trying to conceive our daughter, I was told no running. No strenuous activity whatsoever. I started to get antsy at the fact that I could no longer go out for my 10k daily runs, so I returned to practicing yoga on a daily basis. When I started running I would do yoga once or twice a week to help stretch out my muscles from running, but I hadn’t had a daily practice for a few years. Once I got back into the daily routine of getting out my yoga mat and setting aside sometime for myself to relax and to focus on bringing positive healing energy into my body, it became a very healthy habit. Since I wasn’t allowed to run, I was taking that energy that I would’ve been putting out and instead turning it inward and using it to get rid of the stresses and frustrations of the constant medical testing.
It has been shown time and time again that for some women stress can affect the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that regulates some of the hormones that signals to the ovaries to release eggs every month, and therefore affect ovulation too. In some cases a woman under stress could ovulate less regularly, making it difficult to plan for the moment when they’re most fertile. More research shows that stress can impact other aspects of fertility aside from ovulation, including issues with fertilization and implantation in the uterus. One study from the University of California San Diego even found that if women were stressed while going through IVF treatment they had less success in every step of their procedure (fewer eggs retrieved and fewer eggs successfully implanted) than women who were not as stressed. Another study from Israeli researchers showed that women who were visited by a clown during IVF treatment had a higher chance of conceiving since laughter is known to reduce stress (I odn’t know who these women were as I for one am terrified of clowns).
For me, and I am sure many others that struggle with infertility, being unable to get pregnant when you want to can be a huge source of anxiety, stress and sometimes can even lead to depression. I found that when I practiced yoga I was much less anxious and my stress levels were reduced greatly.
Finally after 11 months of being treated at the fertility clinic the day before Christmas eve we received the wonderful news that for the time being our struggles with infertility were over and in August of 2014 we welcomed our daughter into our family. I am now going through treatments again to hopefully get pregnant with number two and I have been practicing yoga almost daily. I still find that yoga has a positive effect on me and that I leave my mat calmer and much less anxious than I was at the beginning of my practice, which I am sure is not only beneficial for my fertility treatments, but for my well being as a whole too.
Jenn Tuthill is a certified personal trainer and yoga instructor. She received her certification to teach yoga for fertility from Family Passages. She has been practicing yoga for over 10 years. She was diagnosed with infertility in January of 2013 and successfully underwent treatment in 2014. For more information ‘like’ her Facebook Page.
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