October is the month for Emotional Wellness – a key concept to embrace for all infertile couples looking to increase their odds of starting a family
How much time do you spend thinking about your own emotional wellness? Have you ever thought about your emotional wellness? If you’re like most individuals, you spend enough time managing your own physical health and probably don’t spend nearly enough time getting in touch with the other half of the wellness equation.
Emotional wellness is being conscious of and attentive to your feelings, thoughts, and behaviors – regardless of whether you look at these feelings or actions as positive or negative. Being healthy is an important part of maximizing fertility, but simply exercising and eating right isn’t where it stops – you have to maintain a positive emotional state as well to keep infertility stress to a minimum.
Let’s look at some of the ways you can improve your emotional wellness and increase your odds of starting a family:
Talk to Your Partner
Whether you feel like your thoughts and feelings are positive, neutral or negative, convey your feelings to your partner. This open dialogue can help relieve stress and minimize interpersonal tensions. You may find that your partner is dealing with infertility in a different, but completely acceptable, way.
Recognize Your Situation
Infertility is an obstacle to work through, so take a moment and mindfully reflect on how this journey is impacting you from a physical and mental standpoint. Recognizing how you’re reacting can improve your emotional wellness through better awareness of your current state.
Find Your Person
We all have that one friend who has all the answers, but this might be the time to seek out the best listener among your circle of friends. Find the person who can listen and understand your situation in a caring and non-judgmental way, versus the one who thinks “it’s going to be fine” or “stop worrying!” is the answer.
Focus on Other Things
Emotional wellness is partially managed by controlling your exposure to trigger situations and events. If you’re having a difficult time conceiving, you may want to limit your interactions with baby-focused events. The answer isn’t to become a hermit or to neglect your friends who have young children, but strolling the aisles of the local baby shop likely won’t help your emotional wellness.
Don’t Put All Your Eggs in One Basket
This is a figurative way of saying “don’t make infertility the only thing you think about.” You must continue to live your life, set goals and work toward them, and create your own identity in the world. Emotional wellness can be hard to maintain if the only thing that is important to you in life becomes overwhelming to manage.
Find Healthy Diversions
Whether boosting emotional wellness through yoga, guitar lessons, dance classes or painting sessions, find a healthy diversion that can help channel your emotional energy in a constructive manner. Something as simple as walking around the neighborhood each day is a healthy and stress-relieving way to reconnect to your emotions.
Seek Professional Support
Working through fertility treatments can be a stressful and emotionally painful time. Enlisting the help of a professional therapist or spiritual counselor may be incredibly beneficial to maintaining positive emotional wellness. These counselors can work with you to create coping strategies and relaxation techniques that minimize stress and tension.
Allow Yourself Time to Cry
Crying is a completely natural and healthy reaction that releases stress and tension. Sometimes, a good cry is all we need. Letting your emotions out can have a cathartic effect on our health and wellness. But, try not to fall into a routine of constant crying and subsequent withdrawal from everyday life.
Create Balance
One of the best ways to promote better emotional wellness is to seek balance in your life. Think of life like a unicycle. Aiming for a perfect, 50/50 balance isn’t how a unicyclist stays upright. Instead, they swing back and forth in little arcs, just as life will swing back and forth between its highs to lows. The trick is to not swing too far to one side and center yourself within life’s many obligations.
A focus on emotional wellness means asking for help, partnering with the right people and professionals, and fostering a sense of internal awareness. Accept support when you need it, never dismiss a helping hand, and understand that working on your emotional health is as important as managing your physical well being. If you and your partner are currently working through fertility issues and infertility stress, a focus on emotional wellness is a key component to maximizing your chances of starting a family.
For more information about fertility-focused wellness and leading-edge fertility treatment options, contact Red Rock Fertility today!
