July 20, 2020

These blog posts titled “What a BFF (Best Fertility Friend) Would Say” are a summary of this week’s tips to give you strength and assurance as you try to get pregnant.  I hope they help!

With appreciation for inviting me on your journey,

Julie

Make your fertility journey like the Road to Hana

Pleasure on your fertility journey can be cultivated by staying in the present.  Anticipating a future event such as a positive pregnancy test limits your ability to appreciate the small, delightful moments in the here and now.  The accumulation of these bright spots makes an otherwise arduous trip much more enjoyable.

Ever drive the Road to Hana on Maui?  It’s the stops and resulting hidden gems along the way that make the trip so incredibly breathtaking.  Otherwise, it’s one loooong, boring, winding trip that’ll make you throw up. 🙂

How Melatonin Protects Egg Quality

Melatonin is an important hormone for ensuring egg quality.  It protects the egg from damage due to free radicals, controls the release of reproductive hormones like LH and FSH, and helps with implantation of the embryo.

Melatonin is well known as a ‘sleep hormone’ and often taken as a supplement to help improve sleep quality.  But, less familiar, is melatonin’s role in fertility and protecting egg quality.

It acts within the eggs as an antioxidant to protect them from damage due to free radicals.  It also controls the release of reproductive hormones like LH and FSH, and helps with implantation of the embryo.

In your body, melatonin levels naturally rise at night (starting around 9pm) and then quickly drops in the morning, as exposure to light causes its production to stop.

Getting blue light, especially from the sun, in the daytime helps you stay alert while improving performance and mood.  Unfortunately, blue light in the evening tricks your brain into thinking it’s daytime, which inhibits the production of melatonin.  

You can increase melatonin production naturally at night

• Turn off electronic devices which emit a lot of blue light from the screens
• Use blue light filters on your devices
• Wear blue light blocking glasses
• Turn off led and fluorescent light bulbs.  Replace lights in your bedroom with blue light free bulbs.

Interestingly, studies are showing that melatonin may help prevent Covid-19 infection because it boosts the immune system.

And there you have it, melatonin has a double whammy benefit for your fertility and for your immune system.

Make Love, Not Baby

Lovemaking is supposed to be fun and enjoyable – a way to connect with your partner.

Babymaking, on the other hand, is a means to an end and often pressure-filled with the need to show a positive pregnancy test.

If you remove the fun out of the most essential element of trying to get pregnant naturally, you’re going to have an almost impossible time making your dream come true.

How to Get Better Results When TTC

If you’ve tried to lose weight, you probably experienced your set point where you plateau and have a difficult time getting below a certain weight.  You can reduce your set point by eating and exercising differently. 

This set point also applies to other areas in your life, such as your fertility, where you will get noticeable improvement only after making a significant shift.  That shift is different for every person – it could mean eating better, exercising more, taking supplements, getting acupuncture, upping your emotional game and it’s almost always, a combination of these. 

How do you know when it’s time to change things up?  When you’re in the position that you are now which is that you’re not getting pregnant after months or more likely, years of consistent effort and feel like there’s something more you can do – which there always is. 

The key to making enough of an improvement is to leave your beliefs behind and be open to new ideas, mainly because what you’ve been doing hasn’t been working for you so approaching it from a different angle may give you better results. 

I see this often in people who write me asking for supplement recommendations.  They’re already taking supplements – adding more supplements isn’t likely to shift the needle enough to make a huge difference and I can certainly confirm that with my clinical experience.  The problem is that they’re thinking of supplements as the only route to success and it’s not – it’s only a small piece of the picture. 

By now, you’ve probably already explored every aspect within your comfort zone and have maxed out how you can benefit from within that space so you need to challenge yourself to go out of it because that’s where your growth and opportunity lies.  And it’s going to feel uncomfortable at first until you become more familiar with  that new area or skill. 

For example, eating differently doesn’t happen overnight.  It takes time for it to be part of your new routine.  Going to an acupuncturist for the first time can be a little scary because you don’t know what to expect. 

However, if you’re willing to ride out the discomfort and unfamiliarity, you’ll eventually reap the benefits of it. 

So take a good objective look at what you’re doing now and see where you can improve.