Conceiving isn’t as easy as people might think. It takes a lot more than some sperm and an egg to make a baby. Everything has to be perfect and according to plans.
You have to be in sync with your menstrual cycle and not let anything affect that. Unfortunately, many factors can mess with that. Number one being stress.
Stress can change your behavior, make you engage in toxic activities, and weaken your immune system. You need to learn how to cope with it healthily.
Stress Can Affect Your Behavior
If you’re having trouble getting pregnant, there might be more than one thing wrong. All of the getting pregnant challenges are very real. You have to track your menstrual cycle and do everything perfectly. Just to be able to conceive!
If nothing is working, and you simply cannot pinpoint your problem, stress is the most likely cause. There are many effects of stress. It can change your behavior completely. These new behavioral patterns can then further affect your ability to have a child.
Your body focuses on producing more stress hormones (cortisol) than it does on producing hormones such as progesterone and estrogen.
We don’t mean to frighten you, but stress causes infertility in women and men too. We know that staying away from stress can be hard. However, you control how you react to and manage it.
If your stress response is unhealthy behaviors, that might be the problem.
Lack of Sleep
There’s more than beauty to getting enough sleep. What causes a lack of sleep? Stress. Then it all turns into a big cycle. You get stressed, so you’re not sleeping well. That, in turn, causes a lot of pressure on your body. After all, you’re not running on full batteries, so your body struggles.
That can, in turn, make you even more anxious and cause you to miss periods. That matters because, if you can’t track your cycle, you can only guess when you’re ovulating. So, try to get enough sleep and take as many naps as you can.
Emotional Eating
We think we’ve all been guilty of something like this at least once in our lives. If emotional eating is your stress coping mechanism, we have bad news for you — it can cause fertility problems.
That’s especially the case if you indulge in junk food — actually, unhealthy foods overall. That can cause your stomach not to be working properly. Not only that, but you’re not getting the necessary nutrients.
Not fixing this habit can pose a threat if you do get pregnant. Your child needs to be healthy and cannot suffer at the hand of your stress eating.
Extreme or Rapid Diet Changes
Being insecure in the way you look is something we all go through. It’s yet another thing that can cause us to stress daily. Many people obsess over it as well.
So we start going on extreme diets, the kind that involves starving or the absence of necessary nutrients. What happens if one diet doesn’t work? We move onto the next one. These rapid changes aren’t healthy for our bodies at all.
You need to ensure your health first. Having a consistent diet that consists of enough fats, proteins, carbs, fibers, etc. is how you ensure this.
Too Much Working Out
So, we know that emotional eating can make you gain weight. But what about the opposite? What about constantly trying to lose weight obsessively?
Don’t get us wrong — some working out is perfectly fine. It’s healthy and good for you. However, losing too much fat via extreme exercise can stop you from ovulating. That means all of that planning you were doing is now ruined.
That’s why you need to try to keep working out at a healthy amount. Talk to your gynecologist or a fitness instruction about how much working out is just enough. That will help you long term.
Limit Alcohol Intake
Alcohol is the worst kind of poison you can choose to deal with stress. Sure, it might make you feel good and relaxed. We get that. But healthy coping mechanisms do that too. One of them (that we highly suggest) is going to therapy.
Either way, alcohol reduces your chance to conceive. That is the case for both men and women. How much alcohol should you limit yourself to? Experts say none at all. You should stop drinking altogether at the very moment you decide to get pregnant.
Whatever you put in your body is what the baby will get too.
Reduced Quality of Sex
On top of all the troubles stress can cause, lack of quality sex isn’t excluded. Let’s be honest, who even is thinking about sex in times of stress? Unfortunately, it’s necessary if you want to conceive. We’re sure we don’t have to tell you about the birds and the bees.
Stress does reduce sex quality. It can make sex practically non-existent too. In men, it can affect their sperm count as well. On top of that, you will have no desire to do anything at all.
When it comes to women, stress will affect your desire and arousal. It can even take a toll on the satisfaction you get. It all makes sense — if you’re not aroused enough, penetration can be uncomfortable. So what kind of joy do you get from that? Exactly — none.
Sex should never be a chore, but stress can turn it into one. Therefore, manage your stress before it’s too late.
Summary
If you don’t have any underlying health problems, any of the issues on our list could potentially cause trouble conceiving.
Stress is a dangerous thing — it affects not only fertility but all other aspects of our lives. Our immune system can plummet because of it. Not only that, but it can cause us to develop unhealthy coping mechanisms and habits.
Being pregnant is no easy task. Therefore, your health should be your primary concern when trying to have a baby.