Being diagnosed with infertility leaves a couple feeling shattered and disheartened. The couple’s world seems to have stopped with the diagnosis. They start to feel their life getting out of their hands.
But, the most important thing to do during this time is to stay calm and try to focus on how you can improve your chances of getting pregnant.
Dr Rakhi Goyal, a leading fertility specialist, helps us understand how yoga can help increase the chances of conception and how it can support relieving stress and anxiety.
Introduction to Yoga for Fertility
Yoga is often regarded as one of the most important forms of exercise for individuals. Yoga is beneficial to the mind as much as the body. It helps reduce stress, improve the mind’s clarity, and increase focus and calmness. Yoga has been a part of our lives since ancient times, and adding it into daily life will always help clear, relax, and sharpen memory and concentration level.
Fertility Yoga has started becoming more and more popular, especially among individuals who have been trying long to conceive. Fertility yoga poses can help alleviate stress related to reproductive issues and may support increasing the chances of conceiving.
Discussing the Fertility-Related Stressors in Lives
- Dependency on social media
We search even the smallest thing relevant or irrelevant that comes to our mind on social media without knowing how it can affect us. There is no doubt that Dr. Google can be very helpful most of the time, but there can be times when searching things can turn out to be way too bad too soon.
And so, falling into the trap of google and social media can be very easy, leaving you feeling uncomfortable and bewildered. Moreover, it can take a toll on your mind emotionally and mentally.
Taking a break from social media every now and then can help you to ease yourself. Social media is just a medium of transporting information to your brain. Because when reading or searching anything on google, it sometimes becomes difficult to differentiate between fiction and non-fiction, leaving one feeling stressed more than they should. Consulting a fertility specialist would be the best result you should rely on.
- Avoid uncomfortable interactions
We understand that not everyone you meet will be able to relate to or understand what you as a couple are going through. It may become difficult to spend time with your family and peers who cannot connect to your situation. Whatever they say somehow turns out to be all the wrong things you wish you did not hear. If you are not comfortable, simply say NO, there is no harm in declining to have a conversation related to babies all the time. At parties, birthdays, and baby showers, you start to feel discontent, and it is perfectly normal to feel the way you are feeling.
You shouldn’t have to explain your situation to every other person, a simple NO should work. Choosing your mental health should be your utmost priority.
- Balancing work and personal life
If and when you are diagnosed with infertility and need to get fertility treatment, the first thing that starts to hover in your mind is how will you balance your work and personal life? How are you going to go to multiple doctor’s appointments? Will these fertility treatments turn out to give you your miracle baby? STOP right then and there BREATHE….1.2.3..till 10 and allow yourself to understand that balancing both your personal and work might not be easy but is not something you cannot do. You are strong. You are fearless, and you will always be hopeful no matter what. Birla Fertility & IVF has fertility experts who can be your best counselors, assisting you at every step throughout your journey and making sure your clinic visits are as few as possible.
How Yoga and fertility are related / Yoga benefits your fertility
Yoga is one of the best exercises or one of the best ways that can help you keep your mind and body sane.
- Tune well with the body
To control your mind, it is very important for your body to be in sync with your brain. Yoga allows your body to be at peace and be mindful of what actions need to be taken. It helps to soothe the growing stress, tension, and anxiety in the mind and body. Doing yoga can help relieve not just stress but also reduce overall body weight, increasing your chances of getting pregnant.
- Relieves stress and anxiety
Yoga is known to relieve stress and anxiety levels. The relationship between stress and infertility has been in studies for years. Stress is one of the known causes of infertility in many couples. In addition, studies have shown that women with higher levels of cortisol have had a lower chance of getting pregnant. Yoga helps to reduce these stress levels and help you achieve the necessary strength needed to relax your mind as well as body to further help increase the chances of conception.
- Improves hormonal balance
Hormonal imbalance is a common cause of infertility in both males and females. The health of endocrine glands is essential to help improve the chances of fertility. You can keep your hormone levels in control through yoga and a proper diet.
- Improves blood circulation
There might be certain blockages in your reproductive system that may be hindering your chances of getting pregnant, yoga helps in increasing the blood circulation in your body as it flushes out all the toxins from your blood. It enables you to detoxify and prevents any health issues that may arise.
- Tones and strengthens the muscles
Yoga helps to tone the muscles and helps reduce the overall body weight. It reduces the weight of overweight women and also helps to increase their flexibility, thereby increasing their chances of conceiving.
- Relieves hip and pelvic tension
Yoga helps to relieve the pain caused due to endometriosis in the hip and pelvic muscles. Endometriosis is a condition in which the tissues that normally line the uterus areas start to grow out of the uterus resulting in pain and discomfort. These tissues can either be found on the fallopian tube, ovaries, or the intestinal tract.
Yoga offers many health benefits that may help in reducing the symptoms associated with endometriosis. Fertility yoga should be done to improve egg quality as it may improve the quantity and parallelly increase the chances of conceiving. In addition, yoga poses for fertility can improve breathing posture and, strengthen the muscles and relieve tension and stress of infertility.
Fertility Yoga Poses
Below are a few yoga poses to increase fertility that may help in keeping the body physically and mind mentally healthy. These yoga poses are for male and female fertility.
Janu Sirsasana
This asana, commonly known as the one-legged forward bend, helps calm the brain and eliminates mild depression. This posture helps to stretch the spine, liver, spleen, and hamstring.
Paschimottanasana
This asana is known as the seated forward bend yoga pose, which helps to stretch your lower back muscles and hips. It helps tone up the abdominal and pelvic organs, stretches shoulders, and relieves stomach pain. In addition, it reduces mental stress and benefits reproductive organs such as the ovaries and stomach.
Baddha Konasana (Butterfly Pose)
This asana helps to stretch the muscles of the inner thighs, hips, knees, and genitals. It helps to improve blood circulation and may also be beneficial for women in smooth conceiving.
Bhramari Pranayama (Humming bee)
Bhramari Pranayama is a yoga asana for improving your breathing. It helps relieve tension, anger, and anxiety and relaxes the mind and body.
Balasana
This asana is also known as the child’s posture. It can help you stretch your legs, knees, back, and hips muscles and should be done on an empty stomach. This asana helps to relax and relieve physical and mental stress.
Shavasana
This asana is known as the corpse pose. Lie flat on your back, ideally without any pillows or supports. If necessary, place a light and small cushion beneath your neck. Close your eyes for a moment and try to relax your entire body by focusing on all body parts one at a time. Lying on your back can help reduce stress and anxiety.
Yoga for PCOD
Yoga can help an individual in more ways than imagined. The 2 most common causes of PCOS are stress and overweight. Yoga can help eliminate these two causes, it relieves day-to-day stress and gives the strength and ability to build the energy needed to cope with stress and anxiety. Besides medication, yoga and meditation act as a natural alternative to help relieve stress and manage weight.
Conclusion
We understand that a step taken toward IVF or infertility treatment brings along its own bucket of difficulties and challenges. In addition, couples who haven’t been able to conceive even after trying for more than 1 year should consult an IVF specialist who can provide them with a plan to help manage the cause of infertility and provide the best suitable treatment. Dr Rakhi Goyal, a renowned IVF specialist, will best be able to provide the support you thought you did not need and provide a personalised treatment plan as per your diagnosis while also understanding any fertility challenges that you might have faced as a couple.
FAQs:
- Which yoga poses are the most effective for conceiving?
Hatha, Iyengar, Yin, and Restorative yoga are mild forms of yoga that are suitable for beginners and can help with conception.
- Can yoga help you get pregnant?
No, there isn’t any evidence of a direct relationship between yoga and conception. But, yoga may help those who are attempting to conceive. In addition, yoga reduces stress, which might negatively influence your ability to conceive.
- Is yoga linked to miscarriage?
Yoga does not cause miscarriages, but if you are pregnant and worried that practising yoga would lead you to miscarry, my advice is to avoid performing yoga.
- Can yoga unblock fallopian tubes?
There is no fact-based research or study to declare that yoga can successfully unblock fallopian tubes. However, consultation with a specialist might help a couple to understand what can be done to manage and how doctors can treat fallopian tubes.
- Can infertility be cured by yoga?
Yoga can improve both male and female infertility by reducing stress levels and improving mental health. It allows your body and mind to control the increasing stress levels. Infertility can be cured, but it depends on the cause of infertility.
- Which yoga is best for conceiving?
These exercises will improve circulation and massage your reproductive organs. Directing this energy toward your uterus and ovaries can help.
- Does fertility yoga helps with PCOS?
Yoga works on several levels in a much deeper and subtle way. First, the yoga poses help to relax the body physically and mentally. With each asana, ensure you relax by while taking deep breaths.
