Some would say I am the queen of taking on too much. Of multi tasking to my hearts content. Why can’t I brush my teeth and clean the bathroom at the same time? 

I still have a tendency to do this but I will say one thing. I am getting better and better at recognizing what is too much and saying no.  My mum once gave me a book to make this point and the one quote I specifically remember was this: 

When someone throws you a ball, you don’t have to catch it.

For the longest time I tried to catch everything that was thrown at me and then some. If you are trying to balance your body and take care of you there is no way you can do this. It ultimately ends up doing more than just hurting you mentally or emotionally – this stress, this idea of over compensating or over doing it, truly affects our hormones and our bodies natural flow.  

There have been a million different studies and books written on stress relating to fertility. If we take this one step back and look at how stress and even just being too busy affects our bodies you can really see how important it is to check in with yourself and make sure you’re doing enough for you to begin with. 

Stress puts our bodies into ‘flight or fight’ mode which increases our cortisol hormones –cortisol is the primary hormone responsible for the stress response, it is ruled by the hypothalamus. The hypothalamus is the same part of the brain that controls the release of LH and FSH from the pituitary gland that work together to stimulate ovulation. There is a direct relationship between stress and our hormones. 

In my experience it’s not enough to just change what you eat, you really have to change the way you think and the way you treat your own body. If I look back and take stock of every time my cycle has come over the past two years, bar none, it was after some huge emotional release or moment of internal reflection. I truly believe that your emotional and mental stress has a huge impact on our bodies ability to regulate it’s cycle and start to heal itself. When we recognize this and in turn treat ourselves with patience and love and allow ourselves to be where ever it is that we are, good things will start to happen. 

In Traditional Chinese Medicine they have a pretty wonderful philosophy – Where there is too much of anything, reduce it, and where there is too little of something replenish it.  For our bodies to function properly everything needs to achieve balance. 

So what does this mean? If you’re interested, there are a few things that have really helped me through this specific process and I will be going through each of these over the next few days. 

BREATH. MOVEMENT. CHECKING IN. SAYING NO.