Positive Thinking for Conception
Conception is not always an easy process. Even with the advent of new fertility treatments such as IUI and IVF, pregnancy is never a sure thing.
As a result, the struggle to conceive can bring on a range of different emotions, including many negative thoughts. And while it is entirely natural to experience your fair share of negative thoughts, it appears that this type of thinking may actually contribute to some fertility woes.
However, research now indicates that restructuring of negative thoughts may be able to boost fertility. Here is some information on the power of positive thinking for conception!
Struggling to Conceive: Negative Emotions
While most of us take conception and pregnancy for granted, there are millions of men and women all over the United States who have continued difficulties getting pregnant. Whether you have been diagnosed with male-factor, female-factor, or unexplained infertility, you and your partner probably found the news devastating.
And you may be experiencing a range of negative emotions and thoughts, including:
- anger
- guilt
- self blame
- sadness
- depression
These negative emotions are entirely normal and to be expected. However, if they become overwhelming, they could actually work to make conception even more difficult for you and your partner.
The Effects of Negative Emotions on Conception
Just as physical stressors, like illness, excessive exercise, and a poor diet, can contribute to reproductive problems, so can emotional stress. And the emotional stress associated with infertility and various fertility treatments is particularly great. In fact, research over the past 20 years or so has shown an increasing relationship between negative thought patterns and fertility problems.
Highly Stressed?
A study published in 2005 in the Italian fertility journal, Minerva Ginecologica, suggests that emotional stress can cause severe upheaval in a woman’s reproductive cycle. Women with fertility problems were found to have very high levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their bloodstream. This is the same hormone that has been found to shut down ovulation in female athletes.
The study also discovered that more than 5% of all women experienced disruptions in the menstrual cycles merely because of emotional stress. This can make conception difficult or even impossible for some couples.
The Blues
A study performed in 2001 at the University of California at San Diego analyzed women undergoing differing levels of depression. This study found that women who showed the most markers of depression were up to 93% less likely to become pregnant than their less-depressed peers.
A study performed in 1992 showed similar results for men who were experiencing depression. Couples in which the male partner was depressed were much less likely to conceive than those couples who were not going through depression.
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