Stress and Infertility: How Stress Affects Conception?

Infertility often leads to a silent struggle. Women struggling to conceive regularly report feelings of anxiety, depression, loss of control, and isolation. The levels of depression in women can be compared with people diagnosed with cancer. One leading to another, the majority of infertile women feel ashamed to share their stories, sorrow, and happiness with their family and friends. The reproduction inability can cause mixed feelings of guilt, decreased self-esteem, and shame. These negative feelings can lead to poor quality of life and distress. Thus, stress and infertility are intertwined and they affect each other negatively.

How Stress Interfere With Your Conception?

Unfortunately, stress interferes with conception. Stress can hamper the functioning of the hypothalamus i.e., a part of the brain regulating your emotions and appetite. The same part communicates to your ovaries to release eggs. If you are stressed out, the chances are higher that your ovulation cycle can delay. Besides, if you are having sex around the 14th day for ovulation, you can easily miss the opportunity for conceiving. Doctors will also tell you that there is a deep relation between stress and infertility.

Sudden vs. Constant Stress

You should know the difference between sudden and constant stress.

• If the stress levels are quite high but remain consistent, then your body acclimates with the same, but you ovulate as per your cycle and is known as constant stress.
• But the sudden stress like a death or an accident in your family can throw your ovulation cycle off for months.

The impact of stress levels varies from woman to woman. For some women, even a trip out of town can affect their ovulation cycle. While for others, even a traumatic event doesn’t leave any mark.

How Sleep, Stress, and Infertility Are Connected?

If your lifestyle or work schedule leads to late nights with an early morning wake-up call and the constant lack of sleep tends to affect your body, causing infertility. The research shows that people having less than five hours of sleep are tend to suffer from various problems related to infertility. Graveyard shifts also cause adverse effects on fertility which leads to stress. The night shift workers getting close to the day of ovulation can confront miscarriage at a more significant rate. The chances of irregular menstruation also seem to be on the higher side in women working night shifts. Irregular menstruation is the critical factor for infertility. Thus, you learned about the relationship between stress and infertility. Below I have given a few tips on how to reduce stress.

Sleeping for at least eight hours and avoiding the night shifts can improve the chances of pregnancy. And, if you confront any early signs of pregnancy, look ahead to moderate your mood or stress levels for a healthy life ahead.

How to Improve your Sleeping Habits?

• Try creating a routine for bedtime and stick with the same.
• Avoid checking emails or working before you sleep.
• Try avoiding the intake of caffeine in late evenings
• Always keep your bedroom away from TV and workstations
• Before going to bed, a cup of herbal tea will help you with sleeping.

Emotional Eating Can Harm Your Fertility

Due to stress, you may tend to eat in many unhealthy ways. Confronting constant stress can lead to weight gain, turning to obesity, which in turn is related to fertility issues. It’s not only women who need to watch their weight; even men face the same problem with increasing weight leading to low sperm counts.

You need to keep a check on the intake of junk food and carbohydrate, and this holds true for your partner also. Eating junk food also is correlates with poor sperm health.

How Can You Reduce Stress and Increase Your Chances of Conceiving?

Once we know that stress and infertility have a link the next question is – how to reduce stress while trying to conceive?

Anything which helps you in getting rid of the stress like meeting your friends, shopping or family dinner will be a step in the right direction. The below-mentioned steps can help you in dealing with conceiving related stress issues:

Meditate or Opt for Yoga

If you like to meditate, then nothing can be more soothing than the same. But, if you don’t, then practice warrior pose or hatha yoga can help you in focusing on breathing and other movements of the body. Yoga can be able to help you with lowering down your stress hormone levels which are messing up with conception.

Take a Break

Yes, taking a break from your daily routine and go on a vacation with your partner reduces your stress to some extent. Meet new people or spending time with your friends also refreshes your mind.

If you are having a difficult time getting pregnant, then you can look at various practices that can help you in sucking the stress from your life.

Speak to an Expert for Stress and Infertility

If you still feel stressed, then look forward to meeting an expert who can help you in vanishing your anxiety or feelings of hopelessness. Keeping your emotional health on the right track is a must for pregnancy.

If you know another effective way to reduce stress while trying to conceive, please do share it in the comments section. If you like the article, please share it with others.