If you are reading this, chances are you are fascinated by the power of the human mind, or more likely you are exasperated and exhausted from your fertility journey. In either case, welcome – you are in the right place!
So how then Hypnosis or Hypnotherapy (using hypnosis therapeutically) can support your efforts to conceive? Lets start by analyzing what hypnosis is and is not. Hypnosis is not magic or voodoo. It is though a natural, yet altered state of mind that helps to calm the conscious mind, and allows to communicate directly with the subconscious (about 90-95% of the mind).
Subconscious mind, sometimes also called emotional mind, has a huge impact on our emotions, beliefs, habits, and behaviors. Every memory and experience that you had since birth, or even before, is stored in your subconscious mind and affects your daily life, often making you feel that your conscious mind is not in the driver’s seat – think of XYZ that you can’t stop eating, drinking, smoking, watching, buying, doing…you get the idea.
What does it have to do with your infertility, including unexplained infertility, or even secondary infertility you might ask? What if you are in your late 30s or 40s? I hear you. Whether you are trying to achieve pregnancy naturally or with assistance of ART (Assisted Reproductive Technology) such as IVF, or you are going with IUI or ICSI, my guess is you are feeling stressed. You might be telling yourself, your partner, and the whole world that now is a perfect time for you to have a baby. Consciously you are ready for motherhood, but your subconscious mind says “not so fast”.
Unbeknown to you now, when you were a little girl, maybe your aunt told you a story about her difficult pregnancy and childbirth. Subconscious mind remembered that. Perhaps your mother or grandmother have stated that being a career woman and a parent is not compatible. Again, subconscious mind put a checkmark on that.
Maybe you are worried deep down about your relationship with your partner, or that there will not be enough money when the baby arrives. Some of your concerns are creating conscious barriers, but there are usually many more subconscious mental and emotional blocks that are putting breaks on your efforts to get pregnant.
The stress of trying to conceive or worrying about having a miscarriage activates the “fight or flight” state, communicating via hormones to the reproductive system to shut down, and keep running away from that “tiger in the bush”. In order to reverse this pattern, you need to invite your body into the relaxed state by activating your parasympathetic nervous system, which signals to the body then that it’s safe to “feed and breed” and reproduce.
If your body perceives that you are not safe, the production of the stress hormone cortisol shoots up , and all the resources in your body are allocated towards escaping the danger, and not to creating a new life. Pregnancy is not even an option.
Hypnotherapy is a great tool to quiet your nervous system, and to reassure your body that you are Safe, the number one concern of your body. Using hypnotherapy, we can uncover the subconscious blocks, and address the conscious limiting thoughts by shifting your mind in the positive direction, so they will not be in your way of becoming a mama.
Multiple studies have shown connection between pre-existent Anxiety and/or Depression and lower pregnancy rates. One study found that failure to conceive has caused stress in these women equivalent to patients with cancer. Inability to get pregnant is known to cause PTSD in some women, and as a result, leading to increased incidence of Anxiety and Depression.
I hope it’s becoming to you very clear that stress, on conscious or subconscious level, is not your friend. Say, of course, Yes to eating healthy meals, exercising regularly, and doing activities you enjoy so you can relax – all are the steps in the right direction, but it may not be enough.
Using hypnotherapy will help you achieve very deep levels of relaxation, which is overall beneficial for fertility, and allows you to get to the root causes of what’s in the way between you and your baby. A study published in Fertility and Sterility, 2006, has shown the rate of success with IVF doubled when using hypnosis (See https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16566936/).
When working with hypnotherapist who is also an experienced fertility coach, you are enabled to leave past in the past, and build confidence around becoming pregnant and staying pregnant, even if you already tried for a long time.
Just watch out – rather than becoming sleepy, you might actually become pregnant.