Fertility problems are actually multi-factorial conditions, but they mainly depend on the physical health of the person, the genetic factors, and even the environment. In addition to many causes, stress and anxiety may affect your fertility, whether you are trying to conceive naturally or are undergoing fertility treatment.
One of the leading specialists in women’s health and reproductive medicine, Dr. Sharmistha Sarkar, is confident that fertility is not restricted to the biological level only but that mental health is also an important aspect of it all. This blog mainly talks about how stress and anxiety affect your fertility and the techniques to maintain good psychological health.
The Link Between Stress and Fertility
Both mental and physical hurdles are possible causes of stress and fertility that may affect even men and women. Stress, in general, whether it is emotional, psychological, or physical, can have a direct impact on the body; that is, it may reduce your fertility.
- Hormonal imbalance: One of the most important ways stress can mess up your fertility is the deregulation of hormones. The body is exposed to the effects of the sympathetic nervous system, the nervous system of the body that is because of cortisol production. Due to the cortisol level, the harmony between our reproductive hormones is distorted, leading to the fact that the right progesterone and estrogen need to be maintained to ensure a healthy ovulation and pregnancy.
- Disrupted Menstrual Cycle: Stress is one of the major reasons for an inconsistent menstrual cycle. It’s up to the body to decide whether to deal with stress or to let the reproductive mechanisms of a woman occur, causing menstrual abnormalities as a result.
- Increased Risk of Conditions Affecting Fertility: Long and continuous stress has the potential to worsen chronic disorders that are related to infertility, such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, and fibroids, during which the fertility of the couples is greatly affected.
- Impact on Sperm Quality: For the male, some of the effects of stress on sperm quality include reduced sperm quality. Researches are showing that the main effects of stress are the loss of sperm count, motility alteration, and sperm morphological mutation.
Anxiety and How Its Affects Your Fertility
While the greatest impact of stress on female fertility was long speculated, anxiety can equally affect your fertility. In contrast to stress that is due to environmental factors, anxiety is caused by constant worrying or fear that often it is something out of control.
- Psychological and Physiological Effects: Being stressed out makes our body pump mostly cortisol and hardly any estrogen to the needy places. This hectic way of life results in anxiety at a young age. However, it is worth noting that expressing worries or staying awake through the night can raise stress levels. In addition, insufficient sleep, along with anxiety, can lead to a malfunction in the immune system and thus add more difficulties concerning fertility.
- Lifestyle Factors: Suffering from infertility makes people suffer from anxiety. They might choose to smoke, drink liquor, or eat more than they should. On the other hand, these actions may result in reproductive morbidities at the end. Eating behaviors and certain drug use may have bidirectional influences on the menstrual cycle.
- Impact on Fertility Treatments: Treatment of infertility with IVF and IUI can be impacted by anxiety. IVF involves many failures, and low success rates can be the cause of frustration for people going through it. Gaining weight and other lifestyle-related issues can lead to an increased risk of developing reproductive system problems and glucose disturbances.
- Effect on Partner Relationships: Anxiety about fertility will also take a toll on a couple’s relationship. Becoming parents and feelings of loneliness or anger could be reasons for emotional distance in partners, which is one of the tough things during the fertility journey.
Ways To Manage Stress And Anxiety
- Mindfulness and Meditation: Different mind-body techniques that have been found to be efficient in decreasing stress and anxiety levels are meditation, deep breathing, and yoga. In addition, setting aside a few moments daily to concentrate on breathing the right way, releasing the tension, and just letting go for a while might be the solution to the hormonal balance restoration issue; thus, fertility may improve.
- Therapy and Counseling: Anxiety and other psychological issues can only be resolved through therapy. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) is shown to be a good method of changing the person’s distorted thoughts and therefore, helps the person to find healthier ways to manage things like anxiety and stress effectively.
- Regular Exercise: One way that is very effective in combating stress and, hence, improving the general health of your body is regular exercise. Releasing cortisol can be controlled by working out, as it promotes the development of blood vessels that improve blood flow and can also be an instrument that results in hormone balance. Nevertheless, it is better not to put too much stress on your body and to treat yourself to enough rest so that you can recover your mental and physical health.
- Support Networks: The path of infertility might be tough and lonesome, but talking with others in the same circumstances can be very useful. Self-help groups are the best option to get together with other people who feel the same as you. They are available online and offline and will help you to feel less alone and isolated. Also, don’t forget about your friends and relatives who give you unlimited support and that way you will be able to escape from stress and anxiety.
- Proper Sleep and Nutrition: A Healthy spiritual life demands enough hours of good sleep. To wake up fresh and work during the day, you should sleep 7-9 hours every night without fail. Alongside eating protein, nutrients, and vitamins, those with good health can also fulfill it through the consumption of whole grains, fruits, and lean meats. Choosing food that is rich in both fertility and hormonal balance essential nutrients is one of the best ways of eating.
Start Your Fertility Journey With Dr. Sharmistha Sarkar!
Stress and anxiety can severely affect your fertility and mess up the hormonal balance, impair the reproductive function, and even the underlying fertility problems can become a causative factor. For the differentiation of physical and mental health, both are important for the process of conception, and stress is a real barrier that one must remove for a successful pregnancy.
Contact Dr. Sharmistha Sarkar, who specializes in infertility and can help you deal with the emotional and physical difficulties that you may have.
