Which Comes First, Chicken or the Egg? Stress or Infertility?

You know that I am trying to embrace a mind-body connection during this cycle. I’ve been talking about prana and Qi. I am guessing some of my real life friends are scratching their heads thinking, “what’s gotten into her?”

Well, if I ask myself truthfully, I guess I trust my mind more than my body. I am working on strengthening that love and trust with my body through things like yoga and acupuncture – not just for fertility.

And of course, there’s always that dreaded fear that thinking too hard or worrying or stressing over having a baby reduces the odds of that very thing happening.

A new book I’m reading, The Mind-Body Fertility Connection: The True Pathway to Conception by James Schwartz actually draws upon studies and research to create a real connection between stress and the body’s physiological reactions to it. Like, a woman’s muscles around her fallopian tubes tightening during ovulation as a result of a past stressful situation.

RESOLVE, the National Infertility Association, promises that stress does not cause infertility, but struggling to conceive certainly creates stress and they encourage women to look into daily practices to help minimize that stress.

Melissa, both at Stirrup Queens and in her weekly column at BlogHer takes issue with the quick correlation between stress and fertility:

even if the mind-body connection exists and stress levels affect hormone production, pointing out how stress affects the body and asking those in a health crisis to relax through therapy, yoga, and meditation is reductive (and, in turn, raises stress levels when you hit that brick wall). If it were truly a solution, the infertility crisis would be moving towards resolution rather than chaos as technology improves and stress reducing outlets increase.

Good point.

Tell me, what’s your take on the mind/body connection? Does thinking about it stress you out even more?

Image: Newscom