Everyone experiences stress in their lives. If you have felt your breath fastening, heart racing, hands getting sweaty or face getting flushed – that is nothing but your body’s response to “stress”. Your body responds to stress either physically, emotionally or mentally.
Putting that medically, stress is a sympathetic nervous system’s response to a trigger event. The body breaks down hormones, like adrenaline, into the bloodstream, resulting in the fight or flight response. This physiological response increases our alertness, motivation, and readiness to react to real or sensed danger.
Stress and its Impact on the Body:
Anything in excess is harmful, and the same goes for stress. Stress can harm your body if it gets chronic or consistent. Short-term stress can cause difficulty getting sound sleep, make you an irregular and poor eater, raise your alcohol or drug consumption and cause irritability.
Long-term stress can cause high blood pressure, upset stomach, headaches, and a weakened immune system. Chronic stress from a psychological standpoint can lead to depression, anxiety and panic attacks.
Does Stress affect Fertility?
Couples striving to grow their family would have surely faced a huge deal of stress. It’s natural to be disappointed that you aren’t pregnant yet, especially if you had expected that it would be uncomplicated. So, going out there and seeking fertility treatment can be disheartening to a great extent.
Your fertility journey is never easy but what drives you is the feeling you will have when you hold your baby. Stress becomes a very normal part of a couple on a fertility journey. However, chronic stress is a concern. So, coming to the discussion – does stress lower your chances of becoming pregnant?
Stress may or may not reduce your chances of getting pregnant. Stress can never be the sole factor behind decreasing fertility. According to studies, patients experiencing infertility have the same rates of depression and anxiety as those suffering from other medical conditions such as heart disease or cancer.
Stress does not correlate with your fertility success directly but affects your depression and anxiety, which can, in turn, influence your willingness to continue riding the fertility roller coaster. Anxiety can also have a negative impact by lengthening the time it takes to become pregnant. Stress has been shown in studies on women undergoing in vitro fertilisation to reduce the likelihood of pregnancy.
Overall, stress does not alone lead to infertility but affects a woman’s ability to get pregnant. Research shows that women with a history of depression are two times more likely to experience infertility.
Ways to Deal with the Stress of Infertility:
It’s Okay to Feel the Way You’re Feeling
The most important step toward relieving stress is to acknowledge that the feelings you are undergoing are perfectly fine. Emotional pain helps to manage and possibly release some of the distress and anxiety associated with your inability to conceive. Releasing your emotions can hopefully maintain your hormones in check and increase your chances of becoming pregnant.
Talk it Out!
You may feel like not talking about this to others, and there could be many reasons for it. Either you do not want to hear about someone else’s fertility experience, wish to keep your medical problems private, or you still sense a taboo linked to infertility, anything of this sort can stop you from talking. However, this leads to isolation when you need to support the most. You can consider joining a support group or fertility communities on social media because sharing is the best.
You Don’t Have to be Harsh on Self
You do not have to give up on things you used to do. Keep your mind away for some time from getting pregnant and get involved in activities that you have loved – it could be painting, socializing, volunteering, reading, or simply working. Moreover, do everything you can to keep yourself motivated. Try giving yourself a pep talk – trying to uplift yourself is more empowering compared to when others try to motivate you.
Taking a Break is Okay!
Taking a fertility break can mean anything from avoiding reading about fertility on your phone to not talking about getting pregnant with your partner. Take a moment to reconcile with your self-interest, and know that life outside fertility treatment can be therapeutic. Explore past interests that may have been put on hold due to treatment.
Seek Support
There’s nothing wrong with going to a fertility specialist. If you have been trying to conceive for the last six months, then it’s time to book a fertility consultation. A good fertility centre like Banker IVF will not just provide you with fertility guidance and treatment but also with fertility counselling.
