How Does Yoga Impact My Fertility Journey?

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In this video:

• What are the benefits of yoga?
• Navigating the Emotional Roller Coaster of Infertility
• How exactly does yoga help?
• How to Get Started With Yoga

What are the benefits of yoga?

In this episode of Ask Monica, we explore the benefits of yoga for fertility, including its impacts on our physical, mental, and emotional health.

Monica Moore:

I really can't stress how important yoga is to get through your fertility journey, actually to get through any journey, but particularly what we're talking about today - fertility.

The scientific benefits of yoga have been studied, as well as we can study Eastern medicine:

• It decreases cortisol levels, which is the hormone produced with stress.
• It innervates the parasympathetic nervous system, which encourages "rest and digest" and relaxes smooth muscle, such as the uterus.
• It increases levels of feel-good hormones, like dopamine, endocannabinoids.

Navigating the Emotional Roller Coaster of Infertility

When going through infertility, you feel a sense of helplessness and powerlessness. Perhaps when you have a bad result, you internalize these feelings to mean: "I'm flawed. I'm broken. There is something wrong with me."

These difficult emotions and feelings pop up and we still need to go about our day. But these feelings don't go away. They get stored in the body and they can cause issues over time. They can cause anxiety and depression. They can actually cause physical discomforts.

The only way to release them is to acknowledge them and then to potentially move the body to really feel where they are being "stored" internally.

How exactly does yoga help?

There are so many ways that yoga can benefit someone on a fertility journey (as well as those navigating regular life). Here are a few of my favorites:

Builds Back Confidence In Your Body

Yoga provides a moving meditation, a mindfulness, a reason to be present. It allows you to trust your body again. It allows you, once you get on the mat, to know, hey, my body actually can do this. I think for so many years, after going through so many treatments for infertility, you start to feel like you've cultivated distrust in your body.

I also have a lot of health coaching clients who have excess weight that feel this way as well, and when they're going through fertility treatments, it's just compounded by that.

Stretches Your Ability to Handle Discomfort

One of the main things I want you to think about is that yoga helps you learn to deal with discomfort or unpleasant sensations. Whenever we feel triggered by something, we want to employ a coping mechanism. Maybe it's alcohol, maybe it's food, maybe it's vigorous exercise.

Well, a lot of those get taken away from you when you're on a fertility journey. Then you arguably have increased stress, plus your coping mechanisms are no longer available to you.

Instead of expending energy fighting these emotions...

• What if you had a feeling and you just allowed it?
• What if you didn't try to temper or blunt a feeling of discomfort or restlessness?
• What if you trusted over time that you can get through this, that as uncomfortable as it might be, it's not going to hurt you, it's not going to devastate you, it's not going to hold you back?

What the research says:

Lisa Rosenthal, the founder of Fertile Yoga, explores the specific benefits of yoga for fertility patients and how to begin your own practice.

Shows You That Nothing Lasts Forever

You actually can get through these difficult positions or times in life, and these sensations will eventually dissipate. To me, that is the magic, so to speak, of yoga. So when you get into a pose, let's say it's a warrior pose, and your thighs are killing you, and you're thinking, "When am I going to get out of this pose?"

Leaning into that pain or discomfort or sensation (and knowing that you've gotten through it and lasted a couple of extra seconds each time) translates off the mat, to being able to do that in real life.

Flexible & Customizable to Your Needs

You don't have to be bendy to be able to do yoga. You don't have to go to an hour long class. It doesn't have to be anything formal, just go on your mat. See your yoga mat as home base. See it as this place where you can be yourself. Maybe set an intention when you sit there, "I am exactly where I need to be right now. I'm exactly who I need to be right now."

You're not flawed. You're not broken. You're not any of these things that you may internalize due to external circumstances that are beyond your control.

How to Get Started With Yoga

At Illume Fertility, we have a lot of options for you. If you're unable to get to an in-person or virtual Fertile Yoga class, try one of our pre-recorded classes or follow along with another gentle yoga video.

It doesn't need to be an hour. It doesn't need to be 45 minutes. It can be just 10 minutes! I would highly recommend that you get on your mat for 10 minutes a day. Just go there. Maybe it's a stretch, maybe it's child's pose, maybe it's a few poses.

Your body will tell you whatever it needs, and you can honor it that way.

Yoga Can Make a Big Difference

Studies have shown that even after only one session [of yoga], there is a change in the brain waves of the person. They are able to see it on brain imaging. And then cumulatively, that change gets to be pretty amazing. So give it a try!

As always, good luck with your journey. Reach out to us with any questions. Good to see you guys. Thanks for tuning in today.

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