Self Care and IVF
A review of the relationship between stress and Assisted Reproduction Techniques (ART) showed that the distress of the person/people going through IVF is an important factor to consider. Not surprisingly they found that decreasing the burden of IVF may lead to improvements in the outcome of ART.
If you type self care into Google there are 3,840000,000 entries! Search “Self Care and IVF” and there are still 9.310.000 results. Now, that’s a lot of content to try and search through to work out how to best take care of yourself.
Now, I love a good massage or facial, and I also love bubble baths and chocolate cake. Though these are not the self care activities that I think you need to really reduce your level of distress as you prepare for, deal with and go through fertility struggles and IVF.
Click and watch the video below to learn about how your distress is actually having an impact on your fertility and IVF outcomes. You’ll also learn all about the 3 first steps that I want you to take to work on daily, the not so sexy self care. The “stuff” that will make far more of an impact then having a bubble bath will (but if you enjoy a bubble bath, then do that too 😉).
Simply, the 3 Self Care Steps that I want you to start TODAY (This is just a summary, for the full details click on the video below. ):
1. Start tracking your thoughts. Put a timer on your phone, maybe every 10-20 mins, or even every hour. Every time it goes off pay attention to what you’re thinking about. If you find yourself thiking negative thoughts, fear or worry then replace it with just 1 thing that your grateful for in that moment.
2. Prioritise your sleep. 8-10 hours of it! If you aren’t sleeping well then book in to see me (onine or in clinic) and we can start working to help you have better sleep. Want to learn more tips, such as where and what tme of day you should walk to help increase your sleep by up to 2 hours- click the video below.
3. Focus on true and meaningful connections. Daily support has been shown to decrease cortisol (your stress hormone) . What can you do every day for the next week to help you feel more connected and supported.
These 3 steps really are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to self care activies that you can do to help yourself cope better and reduce your distress as you go through IVF. There are a whole range of tools that I ask the women I work with to do and implement. But we all have to start somewhere and now you can start with these 3 today. They aren’t going to cost you $$, they don’t require you to cancel all of your plans or take days off work (which I know you probably need to save for your procedures). Leave me a comment and let me know what are you going to do, right now?
To learn more ways to feel confident and calm for IVF, I’ve created a free checklist for you called your Fertility Confidence Checklist which you can get at https://www.jaclynharris.com/eproducts/free-fertility-confidence-checklist