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The benefits of meditation for fertility

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Thousands of studies have demonstrated that meditation has multiple positive benefits to both physical and emotional health. It can help improve sleep, manage weight, reduce stress, improve relationships and alter your experience of pain - all of which can positively influence any type of fertility journey. In particular, this practice can be highly complementary to the work you do with an ELANZA Coach. 

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Here's some of the evidence for and mechanisms behind how meditation works:

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Meditation for egg health

 

• Stress reduction: Feeling stressed out day to day is linked to altered levels of reproductive hormones and with ovulation problems. Stress may also impact fertility. One study, for instance, showed that as levels of alpha-amylase (a marker of perceived psychosocial stress) rose, women’s chances of getting pregnant decreased. Meditation relaxes the nerve signals that coordinate the “fight or “fight or flight” response. 

 

• Reduces inflammation: Meditation can decrease levels of inflammatory chemicals called cytokines, which are released in the body in response to stress. 

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• Improves sleep 

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• Improves self-awareness and constructive habits

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• Helps fight addictions and compulsive behaviors: Meditation changes both the function and structure of the brain to support self-control. People who regularly meditate develop more gray matter in the prefrontal cortex (the “executive functioning” area of the brain).

 

Meditation for emotional health

 

• Reduces symptoms of anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorders

 

• Reduces job-related anxiety 

 

• Increases compassion

 

• Reduces relationship conflict and better manage anger 

 

• Reduces loneliness 

 

• Improves attention span, focus and memory 

 

• Reduces sensitivity to pain 

 

• Improves outlook and reduces depression 

 

• Bonus: even meditating over a short period of time may have benefits