I connected with one of the counsellors on our FB group this past week. She always brings a weekly theme. This week was self-care.
I can tell you that I have not done a lot of self-care these past weeks. I have been doing acupuncture, which is 20 minutes of guided meditation. But 20 minutes a week is probably not enough given the amount of stress I have been under.
I was thinking the other day that I should find some free yoga classes online.
Conveniently during this week's session, the counsellor had recommended Bettina Rae for Fertility Yoga.
I'm going to use this page to link my fave videos:
For Beginner's:
This is a longer video, maybe about 50 minutes of yoga for beginner's.
Many women, including Bettina, say that the number one thing you can work on for your fertility is to reduce your stress.
I was watching another one of Natalie Crawford, MD's YouTube video's the other day, and she was describing cortisol levels. How in nature, this was built so that you can run away from a bear, which nowadays, this stressor has minimal existent for most people, but the stress response is still there. Cortisol lowers your blood flow and nutrients to the reproductive organs, because if you are getting chased by a bear, or another example would be during a season of drought and low resources, you don't want your fuel sources going towards reproduction when you may need it to survive.
Here is one that is gentle for when you are preparing for IVF.
I think this was a good one for these past few days of FSH stimulation medications.
Don't forget to drink lots of water to flush your body and make you feel refreshed!