You’ve made it through another year. The end-of-year work wrap-up is behind you, the family obligations are done, and now, finally, you have time.
Time to breathe and time to focus on what matters to you. Time to even make this fertility thing happen.
Except that’s not quite how it works, is it?
Many women approach the summer holidays with a determined optimism about conception. Thinking that: less stress equals better conditions equals this might finally be the month. And while there’s truth in that connection, the approach itself – the trying harder, the increased focus, the pressure to make the most of this “optimal” time – can become its own kind of stress.
Add in the Australian summer heat, or travel to tropical destinations, disrupted routines, and what was meant to be restful starts to feel like another kind of overwhelm.
In this article ,we will look at:
- What research shows about heat and fertility (for both women and men)
- Why trying harder backfires
- Understanding the fertility pause
- Tools for settling your nervous system
What the research says about heat and fertility
Recent research shows that extreme heat can disrupt hormonal balance, affecting menstrual cycles and ovulation patterns. Prolonged exposure to high temperatures can impact egg quality through oxidative stress, and temperatures above 27°C are associated with decreased conception rates in the months that follow.
But the body adapts. While extreme heat affects fertility, the impact is weaker during summer months when our bodies acclimate. It’s the unexpected heat – travel to tropical climates that your body isn’t prepared for, or heat combined with other stressors – that creates problems.
The heat itself isn’t the villain. It’s what heat stress does to an already stressed system.
Heat and male fertility
While we’re talking about heat and fertility, it’s worth noting that heat affects male fertility more significantly and directly than female fertility. Sperm production requires temperatures slightly cooler than body temperature, which is why the testes sit outside the body. Exposure to high heat – whether from hot tubs, saunas, tight clothing, or even laptops resting on laps, or prolonged sitting, riding bikes – can reduce sperm count, motility, and quality.
If you’re trying to conceive, this is one area where practical changes actually help. Your partner avoiding hot baths during heatwaves, wearing looser clothing, taking breaks from intense heat – this is all straightforward biology.
The myth of trying harder
The reality is: fertility does not respond to effort the way other goals do. You can’t will your way to conception nor optimise your way there. In fact, the more you try to force it, the more you work against yourself.
Consistent research shows that chronic stress affects fertility through measurable biological pathways. Women with elevated stress markers take 29% longer to conceive and face twice the risk of infertility. High cortisol disrupts signalling between your brain and ovaries, interfering with ovulation.
The relationship between stress and fertility is complex and unfortunately circular: struggling to conceive causes stress, and that stress makes conception more difficult, which creates more stress. Studies show that up to 40% of women seeking fertility treatment already have symptoms of anxiety or depression before their first clinic visit.
But the stress that affects fertility is not the obvious kind – like job loss, grief, or upheaval, although they may be factors as well. It’s more the low-grade, persistent pressure of trying. The endless tracking, timing intimacy, monthly disappointments, constant mental calculations of your body and comparisons to everyone else. Factor in the well-meaning questions. It’s easy to conclude that your body is failing at something it should naturally know how to do.
This type of accumulative and ongoing persistent stress can readily turn even a beach holiday into pressure. You’re supposed to be relaxed now. This should be the perfect time. Why isn’t it working?
Understanding what your body actually needs
Fertility requires something counter to how we approach most challenges. It requires receptivity and openness. A kind of surrender that doesn’t mean giving up, but rather stopping the fight – of both the mental struggle and the stress responses it creates.
When your body perceives chronic stress, it wisely diverts resources away from reproduction. This is ancient survival wisdom: when conditions feel unsafe, reproduction becomes a lower priority. The very act of intense focus, of treating conception as a project to manage and control, can signal to your body that conditions are not right.
What your body needs is to feel settled. Regulated and safe enough to be open to the possibility of new life.
The summer as practice ground
This is where the Australian summer holidays become genuinely useful – as practice for a different way of being. Forget about making this “the month.” Instead, use these weeks to practice what your body actually needs: being utterly present in your whole self.
What this looks like in practice
Stop tracking (at least for now). If you’ve been meticulously tracking ovulation, temperatures, symptoms, and timing intercourse for months, consider a break. Not forever, but for these summer weeks. Let your body just be a body, not a data source. Let sex be about connection rather than conception windows. Give your nervous system a break from constant vigilance.
Practice being in your body
Spend time in water – the ocean, a pool, wherever you can feel yourself in physical space without thought. Swim. Float. Move. Consider it as an enjoyment exercise, to reinhabit your body as something more than a vessel for a future pregnancy. Walk barefoot. Feel sand, grass, earth. This kind of embodied presence helps regulate your nervous system in ways that thinking about relaxation never can. Let yourself be delighted in your body – again.
Let pleasure be enough
Australian summer culture already values simple pleasures for their own sake. A cold drink on a hot afternoon. A BBQ. Time with people you love. A day at the beach. Let these moments be complete and enough in themselves.
Notice when you slip into striving
You’ll catch yourself – mentally calculating dates, wondering if this sensation means something, googling symptoms, thinking about what you should or shouldn’t do. When you notice it, just notice it. Then gently come back to where you actually are. This beach. This moment. This breath. Practising being in the moment and not in your head, figuring stuff out – again.
Tend to what actually feels good
Put aside what you think should be good for fertility, and tend to what genuinely nourishes you. Sleeping in. Reading all afternoon. Saying no to draining obligations. Long, easy conversations with your partner about anything except conception.
The heat and your body
As for the summer heat – respect it, but don’t fear it. Stay hydrated. Take breaks in the shade during the hottest parts of the day. Listen when your body says it needs to slow down. Swim often if you can.
Your body knows how to regulate temperature. The summer heat becomes a problem when it compounds other stresses already on board, such as exhaustion, dehydration, overactivity, and pressure to keep up with holiday plans.
When the body pauses
Sometimes when conception isn’t happening, cycles become irregular and ovulation unpredictable. It can feel like your body is refusing to cooperate or working against you.
But it’s not that at all. Your body just needs a break.
It might well be asking for something you haven’t thought to give: the space to settle, to regulate, to feel safe enough to welcome new life. The summer weeks become the ideal time to let your whole exhausted self rest and to enjoy being still and quiet for a while.
What comes after summer
January will end. Eventually, you’ll return to routines, to work, to regular life. And yes, you may return to more active approaches to conception – tracking, timing, and medical support if needed.
But what you practice now during these holidays is the ability to be present, to let your nervous system settle, to distinguish between helpful action and anxious striving. These skills become valuable resources you can draw on when any intensity or discomfort returns.
Women who learn to regulate stress do conceive more readily.