How your lifestyle can affect conception

For males and Females our diet and lifestyle choices directly link back to our fertility.

There are many factors we can't control in our lives, to keep it simple, we have narrowed down our top 7 lifestyle changes we can make to help increase the chances of conceiving.

Sink into your pillow
Pass the wine and unhealthy habits
Weight increasing your wait
Save the sweat for the bedroom
Stress it out
Diet, vitamin and mineral intake
Skip the Lube and Douches

1. If you are trying to conceive or expecting, you should get between 7 to 8 hours of sleep a night. Sleep helps restore your brain and organs to regulate your hormones. When you decrease your sleep, the benefits of sleep also decrease. If you do find yourself spending hours staring at your ceiling take a look at some tips we found useful below:

https://www.sleepfoundation.org/sleep-hygiene/healthy-sleep-tips

2. We all know smoking is bad for you when it comes to fertility it directly affects your sperm/egg quality. Tobacco contains toxins, cadmium and cotinine that can reduce sperm and egg production (including AMH levels).

Alcohol interferes with your body’s production of antidiuretic hormones. This may elevate estrogen levels as your preoccupied liver is busy processing the alcohol and can’t get on with its normal job of eliminating excess estrogen. This therefore can create a hormone imbalance which affects your menstrual cycle.

3. Weight can be the biggest issue when conceiving. For a woman, an underweight body will most likely have irregular ovulation and an overweight body will have excess insulin stored which will interfere with ovulation. In both cases, the chances of conception drastically decrease. For a man, being over/underweight has a huge impact on their sperm count and quality.

A healthy BMI (Body Mass Index) is recommended to help in all factors of your health. For a man, being over/underweight has a huge impact on their sperm count and quality.

4. We all know experience is important to maintain a healthy body and mind but too much experience can do the opposite. Vigorous physical activity can inhibit ovulation and reduce the production of the hormone progesterone. Overall the benefits of exercise outweigh the risks but it's good to be mindful that intense training can impact your ovulation cycle as a woman.

5. You may have heard the advice "just relax" a few too many times, that now the only relaxing thought is to headbutt that well-meaning friend. Though to avoid the nose bleed it's important to understand it may be a good time to reassess a few unhealthy behaviour/ lifestyle choices that have crept up on us over the years. If that be, checking emails in the middle of the night or simply drinking one too many wines. The overall most important thing is to look after our physical and mental well-being and this may take some repairing steps along the way. To help with this it's important to talk and verbalise your thoughts.

For further information on this: https://health.clevelandclinic.org/how-to-relieve-stress/

https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/feelings-symptoms-behaviours/feelings-and-symptoms/stress/

https://www.verywellfamily.com/can-stress-keep-you-from-getting-pregnant-1959951

6. A healthy diet is the best way to get the vitamins and minerals you need in your day-to-day life. When it comes to conceiving or being pregnant it can be harder to maintain this just through a healthy diet. Prenatal vitamins can play an important role in filling in these gaps. Folic acid is the most important vitamin to take when planning a pregnancy. Fruits, vegetables, and proteins, all are necessary regularly for optimum metabolism and functioning of the body.

7. A majority of lubricants are toxic and harmful to your sperm quality. Lubricants can affect the sperms motility, making it harder for the sperm to reach the egg. Fertility experts recommend skipping lube entirely if you can – as most types are too viscous (thick) for sperm to swim through. This can also cause DNA damage to the sperm itself, or even kill the sperm. If you can't go without, use a sperm-friendly, glycerin-free, PHP-balanced, isotonic lubricant is what you want to look for. View the Pre Seed Fertility Friendly Lubricant on Amazon