Whether you are trying to get pregnant naturally or by having fertility treatment it can be a very stressful time. Everyone telling you to relax certainly doesn’t help!
So what can you do to help yourself to relax?
Exercise
Swimming is an excellent form of exercise that is very calming and relaxing. You don’t even have to be a good swimmer to do timed laps. Swimming slowly and meditatively may actually be more helpful. Just make sure not to swim on the days you are trying to conceive or having fertility treatment as being immersed in water, especially chlorinated water, is counter-productive.
Yoga and Tai Chi are both excellent mind-body exercise forms. They can help you physically become fitter and more supple while enabling you to destress and become calmer. The spiritual dimension of these Eastern exercise methods can also help you tune into your inner self and enable you to visualize yourself pregnant. And we all know how powerful the mind can be!
Meditation
Many people use meditation as a way to reach an inner calm, and it can certainly help you destress. Even if you don’t want to sit on a mat in the lotus position chanting, you can still use meditation and visualization techniques to help you get relaxed. There are a lot of New Age style CDs on the market which are very soothing to listen to. You might find it helpful to download one on to your MP3 player so that you can listen to it while the doctors are giving you treatment.
Laughter
Laughter is all the rage today. In 1979 Norman Cousins wrote a book, Anatomy of an Illness, claiming to have cured himself of cancer by laughing himself well. People were skeptical, but now thirty years later there is a big laughter therapy movement worldwide. There are laughter yoga classes, laughter clubs, clown therapy and even hospital clowns, often medically trained like doctor and clown Dr Patch Adams. Medical clowns usually work with very sick children to help them cope with the procedures they have to endure.
Laughter And Fertility
And now Israeli researchers have shown that medical clowns’ humor can help women having fertility treatment get pregnant. The researchers developed a program to help patients in an infertility clinic destress and relax. They arranged for clowns dressed as chefs to visit the women and do a routine. They found that women’s chances of getting pregnant from an embryo transfer almost doubled after if, immediately afterwards, they had a visit from a clown! The clown’s visit was only a short one of about 15 minutes, and yet it had this amazing effect of increasing the conception rate of the women in the study from 20% to 35%! And this wasn’t even the purpose of the study – it was just a side-effect!
See how you can benefit from laughter too. In between treatment sessions why not try a laughter yoga class or watch your favorite funny movies. It can’t hurt and it will certainly help you relax. And while you are actually lying there having your fertility treatment you can listen to your favorite comedians on your iPod.
You can just tell your doctors you are laughing yourself pregnant!