Top 10 Fertility New Year’s Resolutions
It’s time for New Year's resolutions! While you can make them any time of year, many of us like the fresh start of January. If you are hoping to become pregnant this year, we here at Simplina have 10 resolutions to help you get your health and your partner's health into baby-making mode.
1. Eat real nourishing and nutritious food
Food is your foundation. The meals you eat daily provide nourishment for your body to sustain itself and be strong. You are what you eat. All of those nutrients—vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, etc.—support new good quality eggs and healthy sperm. They optimize your hormones.
What is “nourishing and nutritious” food? Real, unprocessed food (if there is something on the label that doesn’t sound like food, don’t eat it) that includes organic vegetables, fruit, protein, healthy fats (avocado, olive oil and coconut oil), and smaller amounts of healthy carbs (brown rice, quinoa).
Avoiding sugar is important. White sugar, high fructose corn syrup, processed sweets, and baked goods or sugary drinks don’t provide your body with any health benefits. You also generally want to avoid alcohol when TTC. Foods that have a high-glycemic load (i.e. they are sweet and dump lots of sugar into your bloodstream) have been shown to have a negative impact on fertility. You don’t need to cut them out forever and it is hard to say goodbye—but if you want to improve your chances of getting pregnant it’s 100% worth it to cut out refined sugar.
2. Sleep
Sleep is so important and so underestimated. Not sleeping enough can negatively impact your health, your sex drive and fertilty. Not sleeping enough or on regular intervals can disrupt your ovulation and for men it can lower testosterone. Protect and invest in your sleep. That means you guard your time—sign-off on work emails like you would at the office even if you are working from home. Do not do any work in bed. Make-sure your room is dark and cool. Have a good quality bed (I love my organic mattress) with comfy sheets. Have wind-down time with no blue-light (phone, TV, computer) one hour before bed. Aim for 7 to 8 hours of interrupted sleep a night. You can even take some magnesium before bed to help your muscles relax. Or dim the lights and have an epsom salts (which contain magnesium)with lavender essential oil bath to soothe your way to sleep.
3. Green your Home
Make your home fertility- and baby-friendly. A lot of conventional shampoos, body washes, laundry detergent, make-up, and cleaning products contain chemicals that are documented to disrupt fertility. Overtime, this matters and it matters when TTC. BPA, phthalates, parabens, and a host of other chemicals are even found in some products called “Natural” and this term has no legal meaning.
Check-out my two blog posts on greening your home and your personal care products. To find clean products, search the Environmental Working Group’s Skin Deep database to find where your products stand and which ones to buy.
4. Protect yourself from wireless and mold
Products you can smell and touch aren’t always the culprits. Mold (which is a mycotoxin) can impact your health and remain unseen in the house. There is limited research on humans and fertility, but animal research has shown that mold acts as an endocrine disruptor. If you live in an older house, a house that has sustained any form of water damage or a leak in the past, a house that is damp, doesn’t get good sun, or you live in a damp climate (Seattle, that’s you), then you should pay the money to get a proper mold inspection. A mold inspector uses a special detector to get behind walls and on pipes or other places where mold lurks. Mold is a neurotoxin and only grows if left untreated.
For wireless, we all have it. The key is to reduce your exposure to electromagnetic frequency (EMF) waves that wireless puts off. It’s not harmless and has been linked to a range of health issues and fertility. It has been shown to damage sperm and increase miscarriage rates.
While you can’t go wi-fi free, you can avoid putting your laptop on your lap, use a wired headset, keep your phone away from your body, and purchase protective equipment to block the EMF waves for the laptop, phone and other household items. You can also turn-off your wireless at night.
5. Filter your water and drink lots of it
Water in many cities not only has chlorine, lead, and other chemicals, but it can even have pharmaceuticals that are not being filtered by waste-water treatment plants. In addition to chlorine and lead, DC water was found to have anti-anxiety and antidepressants—which is really no surprise if you live here. Find out what is in your water here. You don't want to buy your water in plastic either. The best option is to filter your household water with a serious filter so showers, cooking and drinking water is all clean. If you rent, it is still worth it to get a filter, but you just need multiple smaller ones (like on your shower head) rather than a base filter.
You also want to hydrate yourself. Drink half your bodyweight in ounces. If you weigh 150 pounds, aim for 75 ounces of water a day. This is true for your partner too.
6. Take it down a notch - stop and smell the flowers
Reducing overscheduling is a big win for fertility. Too many of my clients are working full-time, taking classes on the side, making significant household decisions about moves, buying, etc, have a host of social obligations and dealing with infertility on the side.
We have a plate for our meals because we have a limit on what we can eat at one time. The same is true in life. If you want to get pregnant this year, you need to recalibrate your lifestyle so that taking it easy is your new mantra. Read my blog about scheduling your day for optimal productivity, but not over scheduling.
I completely empathize with how irritating it can be when people casually say stress causes infertility, but there are a number of “oops” babies when people go on vacation. Your body needs to follow the circadian rhythm (natural clock) and that supports your hormones and cycle. In turn, that can help with fertility. High cortisol and being in “fight-or-flight” mode can reduce or shut-down ovulation.
Look at your plans for the year and how you spend your time. It might even be as simple as spending time with someone you feel exhausted by—a “friend” that doesn’t give back and just seems to emotionally take from you. Decide what activities or people need to change in your life to give you more breathing room. Now use that new found time to make the changes discussed here—adopting new habits such as changing food patterns, greening your home, taking time to learn, and exercising. That time has to come from somewhere. Ask yourself what can be cut or what can others do? Even hiring a cleaning person can be worth it if that is four hours of your time.
7. Take care of your mental health
Take the new year to find a good therapist and schedule meditation, quiet time or yoga daily for 30 minutes. I see mental health the way I see physical health. You need to exercise almost daily or several times a week to keep your muscles toned and be fit. Your mind is no different. You need to deal with your issues (we all have them), your past, and confront what’s bothering you to keep yourself in a mentally healthy state.
Infertility is a significant stress. In fact, data show that infertility can produce the same PTSD symptoms as having a chronic disease like cancer. Mentally, not knowing what the future will bring everyday is scary. Too often, my clients put their mental health in the backseat and don’t want to pay for a therapist. Usually, this is one of the first investments I recommend people make because you, your relationship, and your mental wellbeing are paramount.
Also, you want to address your mental health before you need it immentiently. You can usually talk to a therapist for 5-10 minutes as a discovery call before booking a full appointment and it may take a bit to find the right therapist, but your mental health is a needed investment. On top of talking to a therapist, I suggest daily meditation, yoga, or just quiet “me time” to reduce your stress hormones—even if you don’t feel stressed.
8. Plan time for TTC
You also need to plan to get the timing right for TTC. Even if everything is optimal— good health, good eggs, good sperm, good uterine lining, etc.—on average your chance of getting pregnant with any one try under the age of 35 is about 20%. That’s why you don’t want to get your days wrong and miss the window to maximize your chances.
There are lots of apps out there, but some of the algorithms are based on statistical averages and many of my clients are not average. Doing basal body temperature testing, test strips, or cervical mucus to figure out when you are fertile is essential. It may not be the magic day 12 many apps suggest…because they don’t know your health. When you do identify these windows of fertile time, you need to plan. That is not the time to accept socal invites, take on a new work project, or commit to a family gathering. This is your time to relax. This applies to natural conception, an IUI, or IVF. You don’t want to be late or stressed the day of your appointment. You should take that day off and go home and rest.
9. Make a baby plan
Take the stress out of the unknown by putting all your options on the table. Decide what your plans are and invest in your options early. You don’t want to be waiting 3 to 4 months for an appointment with a Reproductive Endocrinologist when time is critical. Your first choice might be to conceive naturally and do all the steps you need to optimize egg and sperm health with a good healthcare provider—but you can still make an appointment with a reproductive endocrinologist and get diagnostic testing done to make sure something like blocked tubes are not to blame.
By getting an appointment now, you become an “existing client,” able to get quick appointments in future. Starting early also gives you time to find a provider that you like and a game plan for step 2 and step 3 if step 1 doesn’t materialize. Just knowing if you have a specific diagnosis and what the fertility path is forward can lead to reduced stress and provide more options in the long-run.
10. Move, but not too intensely
Moderate exercise is beneficial for both men and women for fertility. High-intensity exercise is not helpful and can be harmful. Swimming, yoga, pilates, light jogging or fast walking, are fine. No marathons, rock climbing, bike races, high-intensity exercise classes, or anything where you vigorously work out for longer than 45 minutes to an hour a day. There is strong data on how this negatively impacts male sperm and studies to show women are less likely to get pregnant. Fresh air, sunlight, and movement are all good things—in moderation.
Overwhelmed? I get it. I was when I was starting out. Which is why I created the Simplina coaching program—to help both you and your partner make the changes you need to optimize your fertility in a way that is personalized and doable for you. Join our coaching program to start today.
And best wishes for a healthy new fertility year ahead!