You are not quite ready to have a baby. Maybe you haven’t found the right person yet, maybe doctors have measured your hormones and told you your egg reserve is going down and perhaps you should freeze your eggs or maybe you are in a relationship but are not ready to have children. Many of the women who come to see me to help improve their chances at egg freezing have one of these stories to tell me. They don’t know what to expect in this process and want to maximize their chances at success, If this is you Chinese Medicine can help
First, get your mind/body into a fertile space. This is funny because although you are not ready to make a baby yet, you want to tell your body that you are ready. Your goal is to make a lot of follicles that contain healthy eggs. To do this, the body needs to be healthy and relaxed. Blood flow needs to bathe the follicles with good nutrients. It can’t do this if the stress response is activated. When this happens, blood flow is transferred to the adrenals for the fight/flight /freeze response.
We can see the effects that stress has on people during the pandemic. Living in uncertainty is a trigger for stress. What is the antidote? The great minds tell us that uncertainty provides us with an opportunity to create a new consciousness to manage challenges. What will be yours?
Meditation. In order to minimize the effects of stress, self care is a must. Meditation provides a useful tool to still the mind. Creative visualizations are another way to slow the stress response. I also find that listening to inspirational podcasts helps to shift my attention on what is possible. Yesterday , I heard a speech from Oprah Winfrey who has also seen her share of difficulty but has risen to become an inspiration to others
Nutrition. Next, pay attention to what goes in your mouth aka your diet. An egg freezing diet consists of organic fruits and veggies, grass fed organic beef, other animal proteins like chicken and fish ( be aware of mercury), nuts and seeds, and some grains ( if you can tolerate it). For some individuals who have inflammatory disorders like autoimmune conditions, endometriosis, and other problems it might be wise to cut out gluten and dairy. In general, the foods to avoid include: refined processed foods, sugars,and caffeine. Chinese Medicine believes that you shouldn’t eat cold foods because they make a cold reproductive system and that means less blood flow going there.
Exercise is good for you. In Chinese Medicine, we look at the body/mind/spirit as a whole. There is no separation. So, in order to be your fertile self, you need to have balance in your life, In an effort to do this you can incorporate exercise. Exercises like yoga ( not hot yoga), pilates, moderate aerobic exercise, and some weight training is good to help move energy. If you have PCOS, exercise is super important to help regulate blood sugar as it gets the sugar into the cells without the need for insulin. Plus exercise helps manage stress. However, training more than one hour a day might get your adrenal glands pumping out more stress hormones than you need and diverts blood flow away from the reproductive organs.
Ovarian massage is a taoist practice to bring energy to the reproductive organs. To do this place your thumbs and index fingers together to make a triangle and put your thumbs on your navel and with your index and other fingers make circles on your ovaries 10 times in one direction and 10 times in the opposite direction. I also love to incorporate the inner smile meditation while I am doing this, thanking my reproductive organs for the amazing job they are doing.
Take supplements. There are so many to take that can improve egg quality. CoQ10, Vit D, prenatals including folate, N – acetyl- cysteine are some that help fertility in general but should be advised by a professional . The reason why is that here are certain supplements that are good for PCOS, endometriosis and other conditions.
Take herbs: In Chinese Medicine we write custom herbal formulas based on an individual presentation. We look at the tongue, listen to the signs and symptoms, and look in detail at the menstrual cycle, I write ones for patients with PCOS, endometriosis, amenorrhea, low ovarian reserve, PMS, hormone dysregulation, fatigue, and low sex drive. Chinese Medicine takes the whole person into account for example, if a woman is having stress we add herbs to help with that. Or if I woman is having digestive issues we add herbs for that.
Get good sleep. Super important to let your body restore itself. If you are having difficulty sleeping, make sure your sleep hygiene is good. This means to get to sleep before 11:00pm if not earlier. Take electronics out of the bedroom. Try taking an epsom salt bath, or take magnesium chelate before bed. There are other supplements to take as well. Melatonin can be used for sleep as well as fertility and certain herbs can also help with relaxation.
Connect with nature because it is healing, Taoism looks to nature to help inform how we live. When we connect with the earth, the trees, water, the sky , and the animals we see the ebb and flow of life. Even the smell of flowers can bring us back to our senses and is a simple way to enjoy life. So delight in your senses. If you don’t have flowers to smell try some essential oils. They can have invigorating, sensual and/or relaxing properties. Oils like lavender, rose, ylang ylang, and others are powerful.
In the end, you can do everything right and it can’t guarantee a positive outcome. This is where faith comes in. We don’t know if our eggs will make babies or not. For many of the single women I work with, because they had frozen their eggs they relaxed their tight grip on meeting a mate. Many ended up getting pregnant without using their frozen eggs but some had great success in their forties with their frozen eggs. Everything and anything is possible. Our spiritual beliefs can be an important instrument to harness trust in the universe. Some of the most important lessons of my life have come out of difficulty when I have been forced to live in the unknown.
Creating life is a gift. Use these helpful suggestions to maximize the egg freezing process for you.
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