OK, so you may think that stress isn’t really a key to pregnancy success. You’re right – stress in its many forms can often be harmful to our overall health and wellbeing, including of course your reproductive health and your fertility. So what we’re talking about here is stress management or stress reduction – or better still, stress elimination!!
Let’s look at why dealing with stress is an important key to pregnancy success, and shouldn’t be ignored.
Research shows that stress can have a harmful effect on fertility, and that using mind-body relaxation techniques can improve the chances of conception. And the science behind this is that stress hormones such as cortisol inhibit the body’s main sex hormone (GnRH) which subsequently suppresses sperm count, ovulation and sexual activity. Plus stress also increases levels of a reproductive hormone called GnIH. This hormone puts the brakes on reproduction by directly inhibiting GnRH as well.*
What that all means is that stress is bad news for your fertility. And while any damage caused by stress hormones goes on hidden within your body, there are much more tangible effects of stress that you may notice in day to day life.
For example, have you ever been so stressed, perhaps by issues at work, that getting your period has felt like the last straw and you’ve broken down in tears?
Or have you felt so disheartened and stressed by repeated negative pregnancy tests or failed treatments, that the thought of picking yourself up and trying again has felt almost impossible?
And who could blame you for feeling this way. Infertility is stressful, and it’s definitely not easy to keep going with a positive mindset and optimistic outlook.
However, what I’m suggesting – and this is why this is the first of my S’s for pregnancy success – is that it’s essential to find a way to manage stress, before it has a real negative impact on your fertility.
So ask yourself if you have a way of managing stress right now. And I don’t just mean reading a book to escape for an hour, or taking a long bath. You know these will only give short term relief, and not provide the deep level of relaxation and emotional healing that is required to quieten down the stress hormones.
EFT is a fantastic technique to use to turnaround negative thoughts and feelings to positive. It can help eliminate stress by reducing the emotions that are triggered in you such as anxiety, worry, and fear, and encourage your own natural positive, rational and healthy thoughts and feelings to come forward.
Let me leave you with one thought. It’s how The Stress Management Society defines the cause of stress:
“Stress is caused by two things. Primarily it is down to whether you think situations around you are worthy of anxiety. And then it’s down to how your body reacts to your thought processes.”
Do you know what is exciting about these facts about stress? The fact that it isn’t something that happens TO you; it’s a reaction that you have internally. And that means that YOU are in control of your reaction to stress. And that puts you in a great position of power. 
*References for research: Domar, A., Clapp, D., Slawsby, E., Dusek, J., Kessel, B., Freizinger, M (2000) Impact of group psychological interventions on pregnancy rates in infertile women. Fertility and Sterility Vol. 73, no.4 April; Elizabeth Kirby, University of California, Berkeley.
