EP 280 Could These Five Things Be Sabotaging Your Fertility Health?
In this episode, I'm going to be talking about five things that could be sabotaging your fertility efforts to conceive. And a lot of these things may not be so obvious to a lot of people,
I will be covering:
Why too much of a good thing isn’t so great for your fertility health (you’ll find out what I mean!)
The importance of sleep and how to regulate it if you’re having trouble.
Why many fertility disruptors can be hiding in your kitchen and ones that even fooled me!
Important times to eat during the day and why!
For more information about Michelle, visit www.michelleoravitz.com
For more information on fertility diet, you can pick up my free fertility diet ebook in the notes. https://www.michelleoravitz.com/fertility-diet
The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/
Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/
Links mentioned in this episode:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5457858/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4350886/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7400274/
[00:00:00] Could these five things be sabotaging your ability to conceive?
In this episode, I'm going to be talking about five things that could be sabotaging your fertility efforts to conceive. And a lot of these things may not be so obvious to a lot of people, So stick around.
So number one is over exercise. So while exercise is something that is really good for the body and it can actually improve fertility health. If a person is overweight or if they have not exercised before, it can improve your lymphatic movement, your blood circulation. And increase your overall energy. However, if you over exercise, too much of a good thing is not so good. So while exercise is amazing for the body, in some cases, over exercise has been shown to adversely impact reproductive health. So studies have confirmed that over exercising could [00:01:00] impact menstrual cycle irregularities and ovulation. or, amenorrhea, which is when your period completely stops.
There was one study done where women underwent a really intensive training for military camp. And what they found was that 68 to 98 percent of them who started out to have regular periods, ended up becoming irregular after the training.
So what's been observed with over exercise is that it impacts the luteal phase. So it can cause luteal phase defect in the menstrual cycle, which means that the second part of the cycle, which is after ovulation is shorter than it should be. And the reason that is so important not to happen, is because it's a really important time for implantation to occur. And if it's too short, it doesn't allow for that pregnancy to take place. Over exercise can also increase cortisol and cortisol tends to compete with progesterone, [00:02:00] which is why it can impact the luteal phase since progesterone is the main hormone. that increases around the luteal phase.
And it's a really important hormone, not only for pregnancy to occur, but also to support pregnancy, they also found that ovulation hormones such as GNRH, FSH and LH, as well as estradiol were suppressed, and that led to an ovulation, which means that they were not ovulating. And that is why over time it can either make the periods irregular or take away the periods altogether.
And as you know, you need to ovulate in order to get pregnant otherwise you're not going to have an egg to fertilize. So that is one of the reasons why overexercising can really impact the body is because it causes a lot of stress on the body. When the body experiences a lot of stress, it also increases cortisol, which is a stress hormone. Cortisol tends to compete with progesterone, which is a really important [00:03:00] hormone, but also the body overall is in a deficit of energy.
So this could be also under eating. or over exercising, then it doesn't have enough reserves to ovulate and to have the menstrual cycle or to put it towards reproductive health. And I've talked about this before, is that reproductive health really, in essence, is a reflection of overall health. And in order to have a robust reproductive system, the body has to have enough energy and reserves in order to support it because pregnancy takes a lot of energy.
And if it doesn't have enough energy and also enough blood to support it, then it is going to put that off to the side and worry more about survival because it's going to. focus whatever energy it has, if it's at a deficit, it's not going to spend too much. It's going to conserve its spending, which in essence, the spending is towards reproductive health.
It's going to conserve the spending so that it can focus more on overall health.
So here's another thing [00:04:00] that I'm going to mention is that really this depends on the person and the body weight. So if somebody , is overweight and has a lot of reserves and energy that's really not being used and has been stored, then they benefit with a higher intensity workout. And even with that, not too much, but they can afford to do that because then their body will increase its energy and also decrease insulin resistance. So it actually can help in certain circumstances to increase it a little bit, nothing overdone, but like a little bit extra exercise in certain cases is important. But for women who have a normal body weight and they over exercise, then that can bring them at a deficit. So you look at it like an energetic bank account. We don't want to decrease that bank account, that reserve of energy, because we need that reserve in order to reproduce. So in order to create new life, you're kind of having an extra, an extra something, it's important that the body's able to support that.
So what is considered too much? So [00:05:00] anything more than seven hours, seven hours or more of aerobic exercise per week and moderate exercise is ideal, which is one to five. Hours per week and one to five hours per week has been shown to improve fertility. So it's important to keep it within a healthy range and not do too much. And nowadays, a lot of the gyms, they do very high intensity workouts and it's not the end of the world. If you like to do that once in a while, however, doing it every single day and sometimes even doing two. different times of exercising or just really overdoing it that can definitely tax the body and when the body feels taxed and There's too much of a deficit.
It starts to feel anxious So the body itself starts to feel like it needs to go into survival mode and what happens cortisol goes high Because it's a stress on the body So yes exercise can be a stress and a deficit of energy can feel like a stress Because then [00:06:00] the body's like, oh what's going on? I need to like, really.
Hit the reserves or slow down my energy output and what that equates To is that we can't worry about reproducing right now so typically that is how over exercise can impact the reproductive health so Number two is plastics and i'm sure you've heard about this plastics. Yes. We know that it's not great for the body obviously but a lot of people don't realize that plastics can be hiding out in places that you least expect it. So the obvious ones are plastic bottles, you'll see that everywhere.
A lot of people avoid them. You'll see people with glass bottles or stainless steel bottles. And listen, I know this, but sometimes I use plastic bottles when we're away. So all of what I'm saying doesn't have to be done to an extreme. And if it's too stressful, then that causes a whole other chain of events in the body as well.
So it's not that you have to [00:07:00] completely avoid it, but for the most part, there are certain things that you really should watch out for. And first things first, did you realize that a lot of sanitary pads Have plastic and that is in the very precious area of your body and you're in there and your blood and you're open when you're having your period, your lining is more open and you're more susceptible to absorbing things when you have your period.
So it's important to find sanitary pads that are using organic cotton or a non toxic. And there are a lot of great. Brands out there. Same thing with tampons. You're sticking 'em up there. And you wanna make sure that it doesn't have any toxins or endocrine disruptors or chemicals that can impact your hormones. Here's another one. This is something that a lot of people don't pay attention to, and it was including me until I found out, and I was shocked when I found out, was tea sachets.
And they're so pretty looking. I remember when regular normal [00:08:00] bags of tea it went from something really flat and boring to something that's three dimensional and really pretty and shiny. And guess what? The reason why it's shiny is because it has plastics and that plastic and that sachet can leak out a lot of nano particles of plastics in the hot water. Because as we know, many plastics are not supposed to be microwaved.
Well guess what? The heat itself leaches plastic. So when you put that in really, really hot boiling water, what do you think happens? It gets into your whole tea that you're about to drink. On a similar note, you'll find a lot of coffee makers have plastic. You'll find coffee pods that are plastic, and you're putting it in this hot coffee maker, and they're in a plastic container. And the coffee machine itself, or even like the machine that doesn't have the pods, goes through.
Plastic. So it's hot water that goes through plastic. So those are things to pay attention to. Even an electric [00:09:00] tea kettle, a lot of them have plastic on the top. So there are ones that are just made with stainless steel. Those are things to pay attention to. Another thing that is very , commonly used, and I didn't pay attention to this right away.
And I knew this stuff are cutting boards and a lot of cutting boards are made with plastic. So that's a whole other thing. And you're cutting on those boards and you're cutting tiny pieces of plastics and putting them in your food and then taking that and heating it up.
So imagine infusing plastics into your food and why is plastic so bad? it's because plastic is an endocrine disruptor. It has chemicals that disrupt your hormones. And BPA was one of the chemicals and it was focused on a lot. And then they had other plastics, which is a marketing thing. Other plastics where they said BPA free. Why? Because they found out BPA was very much [00:10:00] impacting hormones, but not just hormones, but it also contributed to birth defects. So imagine this is just one that has been discovered, but there's probably a lot more when something leeches into your food, it's just not good.
You don't want anything leeching in your food. You want tools to stay tools and not to eat your tools. So it's important to have. Materials that are not going to leach and that can withstand the heat.
Here's another one. , it's a shocking one because again, this totally bypassed my mind. I never thought about this, but have you ever thought about those disposable coffee cups? Yes, they're made of paper, but what causes that paper not to crumble? And to get wet plastic, so there's a plastic lining that prevents the hot water from degrading the paper cup around it. So that is plastic that is getting exposed to very hot water so this is another thing that most people[00:11:00] don't realize, but it actually does leach out nanoparticles of plastic. And again, the endocrine system in the body is super sensitive and it works like a thermostat where it finds that something. It gets high, it's going to lower its own ability to produce it.
So a lot of times plastic can confuse the body and the body will think it is an estrogen. It's called xenoestrogens and it can cause the body to get confused and that can cause a cascade of events, not so good events that can impact your reproductive system. So what can you do? So I know this sounds overwhelming at first but all you have to do really is just take out some time at first and Eventually, it's gonna be a lot easier once you come up with a plan So take some time look through your kitchen and see what kind of products are possibly leaching or possibly not and to get help with that you can visit ewg. org and I'll have [00:12:00] that in the notes below. And that is a great resource. They look at different products. They look at different, chemicals and they rate products based on. How safe they are and how non toxic they are. So it's a great resource that is easy to get. And there are a lot of other apps out there that you can find as well.
I remember think dirty was a great one. You can find, different products and look them up and see what is good and what is not so good.
But EWG is a great resource that you could pretty much look up anything. And they also have EWG certified products that you can find that they have looked into and saw that they were safe and they're safe enough where they are ready to put their stamp behind it. So once you do a little homework. On that, it's going to get a lot easier because then all you do is just reorder certain products and the prices are not that much of a difference and it's just so worth it because ultimately the price for your reproductive [00:13:00] health is higher than anything else.
So, number three, inadequate sleep. It sounds obvious, you know, sleep is important, but people don't realize just how important it is. Besides not being able to function with sleep, there's so many other things that sleep does for you that we don't even realize, especially for our reproductive health and our hormone balance.
And it also goes back to that whole energy deficit. It's important to have enough energy for your body. And one of the ways that we restore our energy is through sleep. So the sleep wake cycle or circadian rhythm impacts the menstrual cycle and the ovulatory function. Think of this as a pulse. So it's kind of like a pulse from nature. We get the pulse of lights and then we have our own pulse where we have our own rhythm , of rest and awake.
In the morning, we'll have a rise in cortisol at night. We have a rise of melatonin. And so there's this pulse that happens within our body within our 24 hour clock. And that pulse ripples [00:14:00] into our menstrual cycle and our own internal rhythms.
So sleep is vital for hormone production, but it's also vital for lowering cortisol, because if you don't sleep enough, cortisol rises. And as we know, cortisol likes to compete with progesterone, so it can really impact your menstrual cycle function.
Keep in mind that you want to balance out sleep. So you don't want to sleep too much because sleeping too much isn't great either Sleeping too little isn't great. Anywhere from eight to nine hours of sleep per night is ideal so what can you do? In order to have good sleep hygiene, you want to get some sunlight early in the morning because one of the ways that our brains know night from day is by light. So when you perceive the light during the day, that anchors your circadian rhythm and helps you sleep at night and produce more melatonin at night.
Another thing that you can do is start to dim the lights as it gets closer to evening. So you want to dim the lights a couple of hours before [00:15:00] you go to sleep, or just make them a little lower, nothing too bright. And if you are in front of devices, you can get Something called blue light blockers, which are sunglasses.
Well, they're not sunglasses, they're glasses that block out the blue light and they make everything look yellow. And that helps your brain because the blue light actually wakes up your mind and it makes you think that it's daytime. You might also want to have your sleep time routine. So things like diffusing lavender oil giving yourself a little self massage, reading a book, having some warm herbal tea
are things you can do to ease yourself into better sleep.
So number four, and I see this a lot in my practice and I never hesitate to let my patients know. I just don't love it. And this is wearing your radiation. I see this with smartwatches or people putting their phones on their bodies so here's the thing when it doesn't have wires, it's got waves.
So the wires help the energy [00:16:00] to move, but then if it doesn't have that, it's got waves and those waves impacts your own energetic body. This isn't good for men or women. Cell phones have been shown to increase radiation and they emit invisible waves that your body does perceive on an energetic level. When they're close to our bodies, we are receiving that wave. We are absorbing those waves. These waves have been shown to influence your sleep, and they've been shown to influence your brain activity as well.
And I will link to that study in the notes. And TCM, traditional Chinese medicine, talks about our bodies and how they run on this vital life force energy
So this energy that we have, it responds to our environment, and this is one of the reasons why nature is so beneficial. And when we have a disruption of that, of something that is not really natural and is foreign to the body and the body doesn't really know what to do with it, it disrupts your energetic patterns.
So yes, [00:17:00] technology can make things very convenient, but it comes with a cost, and it's important to protect your natural energetic frequency. So what can you do? So one of the things that I recommend is keep your phone outside of your room.
And if you have it in your room as an alarm clock, turn it on airplane mode. And if you absolutely can't do that for whatever reason, keep it away from your bed as far as you can. Also avoid putting things on your body that are cordless, that run on energetic frequencies, that are invisible.
Another thing that you can do is grounding. So putting your feet on the earth or on a grounding mat can help absorb those energetic frequencies in the body. So it's one way to clear out our body's frequency and also walking outside, being in nature, having that connection with nature and really connecting, even touching trees, because trees are, if you look at them with their roots in, they go into the earth too.
They use that energy that the earth provides. Something else that I [00:18:00] recommend is shungite, it's a type of stone that has a lot of carbon, it's carbon rich, and it's been shown in a study with rats to lower radiation in the body,
and because it's carbon rich, it absorbs and neutralizes the radiation.
So lastly, number five, and this is a huge one, is skipping breakfast.
So from an Ayurvedic perspective, when the sun comes up. Our bodies are primed to digest, so the sun reflects our internal state of Agni. Our fire increases as it's daytime, so our bodies are primed to eat.
And skipping meals, especially breakfast, which is a very important meal to prep your body so that it has energy for the day. It can increase cortisol as well. So again, this is a third thing that can increase cortisol
and cortisol competes with progesterone, a very important hormone for conception.
Skipping breakfast can also lead to weight gain. And there was a study that was done observing college students that were skipping [00:19:00] breakfast and it's been shown that young women that were skipping breakfast
had a correlation with menstrual cycle irregularities. I will put that study in the notes as well. So Ayurvedic practices encourage eating during the day and slowing that eating down as the sun goes down.
So during the day, and especially in the afternoon, that is when the body is primed to eat its largest meal. So our own internal acne, which is our digestive fire, is increased by responding to nature's fire, which from 12 to two is the highest when the sun is out.
So unlike what is frequently done with intermittent fasting, which tells you to skip breakfast. And by the way, was mostly studied on men and not women. And. Instead of skipping breakfast to do that, you can actually, if you'd like to fast fast when the sun goes down. So three or four hours before you go to sleep is ideal and it helps you to have better [00:20:00]sleep and it allows your body to rest fully.
in that fasting state so that it's not focused so much on digestion, which takes a lot of energy. And then you can focus more on hormone balance and all the benefits that you can get from restorative sleep.
So what should you do? So I often suggest eating a balanced breakfast that includes proteins, healthy fats, healthy carbs, and fiber. So an example can be Eggs and spinach along with an avocado smash on buckwheat toast or full fat yogurt because full fat dairy is better. And has been shown to be healthier for fertility health with berries and granola and nuts and seeds. So there you have it. Those are five things that can possibly be sabotaging your fertility health. For more information that can help you improve and boost your fertility health, be sure to subscribe to this podcast.
Thank you so much for joining me today [00:21:00] and I'll see you next time.