Your [gentle] five-day fertility reset
Overdo it in December and January? It’s probably not as bad as you think, BUT if you need a little kickstart that is both gentle and achievable for 5 days and beyond, I’ve got you covered.
The premise is simple, each day lays out a new action to add and carry on to the next day. By day 5 you’ve added five small, yet potentially impactful changes to your daily life.
DAY ONE: Power down.
Action: Turn your device off two hours before bed.
Why: Our devices mess with the way we produce the hormone melatonin. Melatonin is crucial for sleep quality and also works as an antioxidant to preserve egg quality. You can read more about that here.
DAY TWO: Move it.
Action: Move your body
Why: There is emerging evidence from randomised controlled trials that physical activity may improve pregnancy rates and support reproductive health. While the optimal intensity, frequency and duration is unclear, here’s a few general guidelines to get you started -
Frequency - every day. Sounds like a lot, until you think about how long you should be moving for…
Duration - what can you manage? 25-60 minutes is a good ballpark. Can’t manage 25minutes? Fine. Start with 15.
Intensity - extremely intense exercise does have a negative relationship with fertility. Keep it moderate, as rough guide – if you feel warm, a little puffed but can still hold a conversation, you’re in the right zone.
Type - we aren’t supposed to hate exercise. Please just move in a way you enjoy - walking with a podcast, yoga, swimming, surfing, skating, dancing, playing handball.
DAY THREE: Keep it glassy.
Action: Switch out your plastic drink bottle for glass.
Why: Plastics are one of the major ways we are exposed to the toxicants BPA and BPS – chemicals that are widely accepted to have negative impacts on fertility and reproductive health. At this point, we can’t avoid these chemicals, they’re everywhere, but we can take steps to limit our exposure. More information on these toxicants and their impacts can be found here
DAY FOUR: Calm your cortisol
Action: Add 5 minutes of meditation, slow belly breathing or mindfulness to your day.
Why: The goal here is to actively send a message to your body that you are safe, in order to switch off your inbuilt stress response.
We speak about this often at The Fertility Suite. Stress sucks, and while no amount of deep breathing or holidaying will be make a pregnancy happen if the pieces aren’t in place, we do know that high cortisol can impact ovulation, causing a delay, or in some cases anovulation. It’s also been theorised that cortisol may cause deterioration to egg quality through other hormonal flow on effects. In my opinion, there isn’t enough data [at this point] to substantiate this claim – I’ve written more about the research on stress and fertility here.
Both Calm and Headspace are popular apps in our clinic. Mentemia is great free option too (co-founded by ahem, kiwi, Sir John Kirwan).
DAY FIVE: Go nuts.
Action: Add a small handful of nuts to your day
Why: While I don’t subscribe to the “superfood” theory, nuts have all sorts of nutrients and minerals important for reproductive health. Antioxidants like vitamin E, zinc and selenium, fatty acids important for hormones like omega 3’s, and one handful will probably get you around 5-10% of your protein needs.
Look for raw or lightly roast yourself - avoid sugary or flavoured options and you’ll be nailing it.
Manageable huh? Our little habits do add up.
For more advice on habits you can make to become pregnant sooner, my book Trying is available as an e-book. Trying was written to cut through the confusing messages surrounding preconception care and provide clear information based on the most recent research available - and with a chapter on sperm health, rest assured, I’ve addressed the elephant in the room - that conception is a two-person game.
Not sure how to tell if you’re ovulating? A complete guide to identifying your fertility window can be found here.