To maintain or restore your health for fertility, you’d do well to seek a balanced diet, keep a regular meditation practice, and get enough exercise. Of course, I could say that about any time of life, and it’d still be pretty good advice. However, these things are especially important when you’re trying to conceive.
Kinds of Fertility Yoga
The type of yoga you do matters as well. Do a gentler type of yoga, where your body, mind, and spirit learn the art of relaxation. Some good examples include Yin and Restorative yoga, as well as slow-flow and subtle yoga. you can still get a tremendous workout, but it doesn’t have to come at the expense of your body’s much-needed energy.
Certain kinds of yoga are considered by many to be too strenuous, and are thus not suited to improving conception. These include Bikram (hot) yoga, Ashtanga yoga, and intense flow classes.
- Iyengar yoga, a form that uses props to help you slowly and methodically find the edge of your practice — maintaining postures while encouraging breathing and meditation.
- Kripalu yoga, which helps to increase awareness of the mind, body, and spirit through a series of easy-to-perform postures.
- Couples yoga, a popular practice among those experiencing fertility difficulties. This yoga brings couples together by encouraging each partner to help the other perform the posture.
When entering a fertile time, start practicing your restorative poses. Most positions allow you to soften your abdominal area and begin to consciously remove tension from around the uterus, fallopian tubes, and ovaries.
Does It Really Work?
The debate rages on regarding the effectiveness of fertility yoga. A study performed at Harvard Medical School analyzed conception rates in women who attended mind-body fertility retreats (including fertility yoga). According to this inconclusive study, women who attended fertility retreats were twice as likely to get pregnant after a year of trying, as compared to the control group.
The Three Minute Egg works closely with Bahia Ohlsen, who combines her knowledge of yoga, Accupuncture, and Chiropractics; and has produced some rather favorable results.
Read more about yoga and fertility in my next post. I’d like to thank Bahia Ohlsen of The Chiropractic, Acupuncture and Yoga Center in Chicago, Shared Journey, and Yoga Journal for some of this information.