THE MIND-BODY APPROACH TO INFERTILITY
Why it’s the future of fertility medicine.
There’s a kind of hierarchy to fertility medicine.
In the current Western world we see pills and procedures as legitimate treatment options, and we see "softer" options as less: things like mantras, mindfulness, movement, breath, rituals, connections, and self-expression. Yet there’s increasing evidence proving just how real and effective these “soft” therapies are.
Some thought-provoking examples.
Nine sessions — over one month — of a specific kind of “pain reprocessing” talk therapy resulted in observable brain scan changes, and complete or near-complete pain relief that lasted at least a year! Meanwhile, the study arm that continued with injections, pills, physical therapy, and the “accepted treatments" for chronic back pain had little to no improvement.
A Harvard study led by placebo researcher and acupuncturist Ted Kaptchuk showed that a group of IBS patients who got fake acupuncture done in a way that made them feel listened to and treated in a thoughtful way got IBS relief 62% of the time! The most successful medications for IBS get relief between 30 - 50% of the time and include opioids — which we know have serious risks.
Numerous UC Davis studies show that gratitude practices lower blood pressure, decrease the risk of depression and anxiety, improve cholesterol scores, decrease cortisol by 23%, decrease inflammation markers by 7%, slow down neuro-degeneration due to aging, heck, gratitude even lowers creatinine levels — a sign of how well our kidneys are working!
And singing, yoga, and dance have been shown to help reestablish neurological patterns that improve connections that are changed by trauma.
In his podcast, Ezra Klein asked trauma expert Bessel Van Der Kolk why we’ve come to over-weight certain approaches and under-weight others, and how we can come to respect modalities that don’t have a lot of social status right now. Van Der Kolk put it simply. He said we need a culture shift. He also said that much of the world is ahead of the West on this.
“We are trapped in this paradigm … and limited in our cultural assumptions of what is helpful.”
So here’s why I believe a mind-body approach is at the heart of cutting-edge fertility care!
#1
Our brains dictate our bodies! Although the ovaries, testes, endometrium, etc might be the reductionistic focus of mainstream fertility treatments, the truth is, our bodies are driven and directed largely from the chemical and electrical signals it receives from our brains. When we change things in our brains, we change things in our bodies — that is the future of medicine!
#2
Many drugs simply mimic what the body can already do through its own neurotransmitters and brain circuitry. We can optimize and stimulate our own “internal pharmacies” via things as simple as ritual and connection — which also happen to feel really good as opposed to more pills.
#3
Stress absolutely causes physiological (body) changes. It activates RFRP neurons in our brains that directly suppress reproductive function, it generates neurochemicals that compete for receptors with other hormones like FSH, estrogen, and progesterone, and more. So even if we have other fertility issues — say something super anatomical like a blocked tube — stress will still complicate things, and depending on how we relate to it, make treatments more or less likely to work.
In short, it’s simple. Separating the mind and body is outdated and increasingly absurd given the AMAZING science and evidence we now have!
If you’re approaching your own fertility from an "either-or" or a “both aren’t really necessary” point of view, you’re operating from that outdated mindset and you’re actually hurting your chances.
This is exactly how and why The Baby You Want course works. The 90-day mind-body program is all the "soft stuff" that makes the mainstream treatments either unnecessary — or more likely to work! I keep saying it, my program is about babies, but it’s about a culture change too. It’s time we start doing infertility better, and now we’ve got the brain scans and Doppler ultrasounds to prove it.
Warmly,
Nicole
EXPLORE MORE MIND-BODY MEDICINE
My YouTube video on the Science of Stress and Infertility
Ezra Klein Episode on Rethinking Trauma
Nicole Lange
LICENSED ACUPUNCTURIST
HOLISTIC FERTILITY EDUCATOR