Welcome back to another episode of health hacks

as I continue my theme of talking about stress and how it

impacts our health and longevity, and today, I want to

share how it impacts our fertility. Stress can interfere

with our reproductive hormones, because when the body is in the

stress state. It is producing cortisol and adrenaline in order

to get us to safety, and we need energy to be able to fight or

flee, and the body is setting us up to be able to do all of that.

And in order to have that kind of energy, it has to shut down

other systems in the body in order to give you what you need

in the moment. And so it will shut down your immune system. It

will shut down your digestive system. You can't be in, you

can't be in your rest and digest system at the same time that

you're in your fight or flight system. And it will also shut

down procreation, because you're not going to stop and make a

baby when you're trying to get to safety, and when we are in

this fight or flight state, it is supposed to be short lived.

And then when we get to safety, now we can get back into our

rest and digest system. And that's where we really want to

spend most of our lives, is in that calm, parasympathetic

nervous system. And yet, in today's world, we're not we're

spending most of our lives in our sympathetic nervous system.

And so over the course of time, if the body's always having to

produce cortisol and adrenaline, it has to be able to do this.

It's doing it at the expense of other things. And so it is

producing these at the expense of producing progesterone. And

without progesterone, we can't actually hold on to a pregnancy

because we need that progesterone in order to create

the lining of the womb. And as a result, our fertility and our

ability to hold a pregnancy is negatively impacted because of

the stress that we are under. And so if that's you, look at

the stress in your life and look at what you can be doing in

order to balance that out. There are some stresses. There's that

you can't do anything about, however, there are other

stresses that you can control, and steps you can take to

mitigate them. And one beautiful way to really calm the nervous

system is to spend time in nature, taking walks in a local

park, enjoying outdoor activities to rejuvenate your

mind and body, planning to get out for hikes close to home on

the weekends, just a little bit of time in nature where you can

go for a walk, sit on a bench, close your eyes, gaze Up to the

sun. Breathe deeply, listen to the birds, listen to the wind in

the trees. Notice the different colors in nature. All of these

things help to calm your nervous system. And you'll notice that

the moment you step into a beautiful, natural surrounding,

that very soon after that, you'll feel the stress leave

your body. It's an incredibly powerful way to get out of that

fight or flight state. And throughout this series on

stress, which started back at episode number 445 and we're now

10 episodes in each episode, gives you different tools that

you can use to calm your nervous system. So check them out. See

what works for you, because not everything will work for

everyone. Find one that works for you, and if you need support

with your fertility, please reach out. Melissa at your

guided health journey.com. We can certainly run labs to

determine the state of health of your body right now, where your

hormone levels are at, where your cortisol levels are at,

where your mineral levels are at, is your body healthy enough

to sustain another life? And we want to make sure that you are

as healthy as possible, so that you can and so that you're not

becoming deficient throughout those months of pregnancy. So

reach out, Melissa at your guided health journey.com. I

would be happy to help you get into your healthiest state so

that you can have a wonderful, happy, healthy little bundle of

joy down the road.