Fertility

 

Struggling to conceive and done everything possible?

Change your internal settings. Fine-tune your thinking. Improve your internal workings, to increase your chances of a happy conception.

You probably know already what can affect your fertility and no doubt, have done your best to make some good changes.

  • Improved your diet
  • Installed regular exercise
  • Reduced or stopped your alcohol intake
  • Ditto for smoking
  • Ceased other harmful drugs
  • Have regular sex at the most opportune times

And still no conception!

A different combination of issues can dampen down fertility responses and opportunities, so let’s have a look at how you can fix some of those things in other ways.

Other ways can be working with the mind and body from a different perspective and Fertility Hypnotherapy can certainly do that. Another way is working with the body to alter the mind perspective, and Fertility Massage can certainly do that too.

 

image circulatory tree roots

Let’s start with the mind and hypnosis…

Fertility Hypnotherapy

It helps to look at any underlying fears or concerns that might be unconsciously blocking the receptiveness of the new changes that you are making. If you have embarked on some of the changes listed above, and 3 months later – still nothing, it can get disheartening. So, it makes sense to look more closely at some of those links that your mind and body are making and aim to correct or alter them.

Repeating same-old
  • We commonly make choices based on the choices we have made before. If that choice yields a good result, we aim to repeat that again, creating a pattern or preferred style.  If that choice ends up poorly, we may still repeat the way we do it again, because we either don’t know how to change our approach to decision-making, or think we just make poor choices and accept it.
  • So, if you have made changes to improve your fertility chances and nothing happens within a reasonable period of time, you might make the assumption that:

It wasn’t going to happen anyway / it will never happen / and go into what’s the use and revert back to your old ways.

This can create a body-mind disconnect, where the improved changes in the body are discounted by the mind because the result is not the one you wanted or not quite what you wanted.

Important to fine-tune what you actually want!

 

 

How does it do this?

Accessing positive imagery

The unconscious mind as opposed to the conscious / rational / cognitive mind, creates meaning from images, and the feelings that arise out of those images (whether they are sad, bad, mad or glad ones). For example, an image of happiness might be your wedding day or going on a memorable holiday, and the feelings and thoughts that arise from these individual memories make an impression, creating a happy memory file. When another memory with an attached image of happiness comes along, that too gets added to the ‘happiness’ gallery.  And it works the other way as well, in building a gallery of sad, bad or mad experiences into memories, and laid down over time as a hard file.

So the more happy experiences that you get to have, the more your happiness file with these wonderful experiences get easily triggered to want more. An image with a feeling attached then becomes that place to go to and further pattern from, as a kind of inbuilt template that gets added to each time a new experience via an image with feeling is similar to the first.  Your mind builds associations and connections to these experiences, whether for good or bad.

Pushing away negative feelings

Another example might be a friend who has finally conceived and tells you her good news, and a part of you feels happy for her and another part feels angry that you haven’t yet. Happiness and anger are competing feelings, so if you choose to be happy for your friend (perhaps even fake-happy!), with the angry / resentful / jealous part pushed away at the time, it’s likely to pop up at some later stage or triggered by another friend’s conception or talk about her new baby.

This underlying anger creates a residue of friction that sits in your body and mind, if you don’t work out what to do with it. It further confuses your body and mind around the issue of fertility as something highly desirable or not. Does she want it, does she not want it?

 

Fertility Massage

  • Your body is your absolute best friend, yet we are often less than kind to it, polluting it internally, ruining it on the outside and having high expectations that it will keep performing regardless of our actions. Easy to agree that that is faulty thinking on our part!
  • Everything that we do, both good and bad, lives within our body leaving its mark and impressions. Massage directly looks for those marks and impressions and seeks to soothe and smooth those areas of unkindness.
  • Fertility massage focuses on the lymphatic system and the abdominal area, as these are the key areas in implementing your inner health changes.
  • Fertility massage is a specialised massage – and aims to improve a woman’s health and function by focussing on areas of stagnation and tension within her body.

Making internal mind changes

Hypnosis helps you to weed out the disconnects in your mind and body and creating a different context for your goal that brings all parts of you together and out of conflict.

Another way of looking at it is how the mind and body create memories and what we do with them to create fresh meaning out of new experiences.

 

 

Making sense of conflicted thoughts and feelings

How is the body and mind supposed to respond if there are happy / angry thoughts and feelings about fertility?  This is probably a natural response to your situation, but over time, the conflictual context builds up as an unhelpful response to thinking, feeling, imagining fertility and a baby.

Hypnosis helps to clarify any conflict in what you want and don’t want. Hypnotic techniques help you to let go of anger and other negative feelings. Especially about yourself and the natural tendency to avoid other pregnant women.  It clears the way for a fresher and more positive approach to opening your body and mind to a baby landing on your shore soon.

pHOTO OF cLAIRE cLEAVER

As a bodyworker, Claire understands the importance of setting the body right again in order to become more fertile. The abdomen is often neglected in that pursuit. Good nutrition, abdominal massage and discussing any underlying concerns are all important areas of groundwork to encourage ease of fertility.

Contact Us to find out how we can help you.

Schedule a fertility massage

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What happens in a Fertility Massage?

Having a Fertility Massage is both a comfortable and surprisingly comforting experience, although there may be uncomfortable areas in the abdominal area and other places. The abdomen is palpated and any areas of tension and distension are noted and gently worked on within a woman’s comfort. Abdominal breathing is encouraged to shift tension from within the abdominal area, with responses again noted for further treatment. Most tension will soften with the combination of focussed breathing and palpation of the soft tissue and any worked on underlying areas (deeper fascia) in the abdomen. A woman is encouraged to talk about her struggles and to note if and when any friction or disturbance shows up in her body, as a way to link her to her mind and body affecting the other, and how to change it.

Base massage oils are complemented with essential oils and are used on the abdomen and spine. The spinal pathways are located alongside of the spine and are important to treat as those pathways link to the various organs, musculature and nerves. A treatment is always a personalised experience and is important in monitoring her progress and changes.

 

Abdominal focus

The abdomen is a vital area of how we digest and absorb nutrients,and eliminate wastes, and is our production house of energy conversion. Any interruption or impairment of any of these processes can cause problems. Elimination of wastes is a much more common problem because many of us sit for long periods at work which reduces internal peristaltic movement (internal movement of abdominal organs) and slows down our other vital systems such as lymphatic system, as well. It makes it easy to accumulate weight when little movement throughout the day is the ‘norm’!  This creates a kind of congestion in our abdominal cavity, and an energetic decrease called in Chinese Medicine terms, ‘stagnation’.

Various massage techniques are used to identify these stagnant areas, meaning sluggish areas, impaired movement or flow in parts of the body (such as adhesions, muscular tension, digestive problems, oedema / swelling, inflammation) and to rectify the areas of need. The particular body focus is abdominal, to relieve tension in the soft tissue areas, aiding digestion, detoxification, elimination and tonifying the viscera (organs). The abdominal cavity – from the diaphragm to the pubic bone – houses our digestive and reproductive organs, and is often an ignored area of focus. Poor nutrition, insufficient exercise, poor sleep, work stress or other stressors can compromise a person’s health, affecting or compromising digestion and eliminatory processes.

Tummy Language: the world over has long recognised this sensitivity of mind and body balance or imbalance, as the case may be; with such pithy phrases as; “broken-hearted” re the heart. Or re the gut – “had a gutful!”, or “can’t stomach it!”, or “full of it!” or “liverish” (cranky-pants), or “all knotted up”. Hence this focus is an important one to assist a woman’s health to be as optimal as possible.

 

 

 

Other Techniques

Other techniques  that are complementary to a Fertility massage are using acupoints, lymphatic drainage and non-invasive pelvic alignments to provide an accumlative effect for the best result. A combination of other natural therapies is often a useful approach, so as to enhance the outcome and the likelihood of a hoped for pregnancy.

 

Intestinal Cleansing

Intestinal cleansing – One of the key steps in improving health – is the foundational step of intestinal cleansing of the gut, whether it’s for weight loss, fertility or cancer. This can be accomplished by abdominal massage, exercise, diet and herbal supplements, either in combination or individually. Massage however makes the strongest first impression, as the physical touch both palpates and manipulates the tonal quality of your abdominal area more effectively than any of the others singularly. It also lets you know straightaway from the first touch, where there are areas of stagnation and / or discomfort. Intestinal cleansing of the gut, gives our overall gut a break, just like a good old-fashioned ‘spring clean’!

Further Benefits of Abdominal Massage 

  • Reduce stress and anxiety levels
  • Improve endocrine system and hormone levels
  • Stimulate T-cell production in lymphatic system
  • Relieve gastro-intestinal disorders
  • Improve bowel function and elimination
  • Support menstrual disorders
  • Reposition displaced or malpositioned organs

The action of abdominal massage is further enhanced with the use of particular base and essential oils, and is especially effective for fertility improvement.

 

How Castor Oil Improves Fertility Outcomes

The oil is extracted from mature castor seeds (Ricinus communis) and is an anti-viral, anti-bacterial and anti-fungal agent, and used topically for certain skin conditions, reduces pain and stimulates the immune system. Castor Oil can be sourced as organic with a cold extraction process or further processed. Organic is the best choice and is generally thicker, more yellow and sticky in texture.

Castor oil in conjunction with abdominal massage, is absorbed into the skin (epidermis and the dermis layers) to aid the skin, joints and the intestine, and also stimulating both T-cell production in the lymphocytes and circulation of the lymphatic system. Abdominal massage can be further enhanced by castor oil cloth applications, sealed in by plastic wrap and topped with either a heat pad or hot water bottle, and left for 30 minutes to an hour. There is no doubt that a warm hot water bottle on a tummy is very soothing and comforting, and causes a person, whether in a therapeutic setting or at home, to enjoy a temporary sedative experience.

Other Benefits of Castor Oil

Edgar Cayce (the “Father of Holistic Medicine”) used and recommended castor oil as the treatment for a variety of ailments and listed over 30 physiologic functions of castor oil including:

  • Increasing eliminations, lymphatic circulation, relaxation
  • stimulating the liver, gall bladder, lacteal duct and circulation (absorbs dietary fats in the small intestine) and cecum
  • Dissolving and removing adhesions, lesions and gallstones
  • Relieving pain
  • Reducing flatulence, inflammation, nausea, swelling
  • Improving intestinal assimilation
  • Co-ordinating liver-kidney function

These claims have been tested by doctors and naturopathics alike and considered both safe and effective, despite science not knowing exactly how castor oil works.

Self-treating

If you are self-treating, you can massage your own abdomen with any preferred base oil, such as almond, grapeseed, olive or castor (preferably cold-pressed) or other massage oil mix. Of all of these, castor oil (thicker and stickier) is the most therapeutic in its use.  Various scientific studies show that the use of castor oil peaks its lymphocyte activity at 7 hours after use and declines naturally at the end of a 24 hr period, thus encouraging the importance of daily use. Hence the importance of regular manual massage, either done by yourself or intermittently by a practitioner as well. In general, a lymphatic and abdominal massage done by a practitioner, is likely to be a more sustained and thorough effort than your own and therefore recommended as part of your treatment plan to become more fertile.

 

 

Castor Oil

It is highly prized as a therapeutic and beneficial oil , 90% rich in ricinoleic acid (unsaturated omega-9 fatty acid) and long used in traditional and alternative medicine. It is “generally recognised as safe and effective”. There are no side effects to castor oil, but it pays to know how to use it correctly for the right therapeutic outcomes. Organic castor oil is thick, yellow and sticky. Heat helps it to be absorbed more easily or it can be diluted with lighter oils such as coconut.

Prostanoids and Prostaglandins

In terms of fertility or rather difficulty in conceiving, it is thought that some women and male partners, have such difficulty through years of living an unhealthy lifestyle and poor nutrition. The use of castor oil in conjunction with other therapies, has a number of beneficial effects on the body to induce an improved health state for conception to be more likely to happen.

Skin conditions are often generated by an unhealthy colon – and the build-up of stored wastes slowing down the lymphatic system. Castor oil stimulates the lymphatic system, specifically the flow of lymph which accumulates wastes and toxins from in the body, and helps to improve the digestive-eliminatory tract. This in turn, helps to improve immune response, producing more antibodies to kill off viruses, fungi, bacteria and cancer cells.

Further studies on Castor oil show that it produces prostanoids, which are precursors to prostaglandins, which is how castor oil can produce the beneficial effects that it does. Prostaglandins are a group of hormone-like lipid compounds derived from fatty acids (the link between castor oil and prostaglandins). They are mediators in the body and have a variety of strong pysiological effects, and help to regulate the contraction and relaxation of smooth muscle tissue. In terms of women’s health, they have a wide variety of effects as in:

  • cause constriction or dilation in vascular smooth muscle cells
  • induce labour
  • regulate inflammation
  • regulate hormones
  • regulate calcium movement
  • control cell growth
  • support kidney filtration
  • support stomach to inhibit acid secretion