Stress, Sleep and fertility

Stress can have negative impact on our sleep and in turn this can also have a negative impact on our fertility. Why is this?

Sleep is linked to fertility through the hormone melatonin (sleep support hormone) which has a close relationship with hormones that are involved in ovulation.

Melatonin also has an equally close but opposite relationship with cortisol (the hormone that hangs about after a stress response).

When cortisol is high it makes melatonin low and vice versa.

In the chart above you will see that cortisol should be higher in the morning and then drops down to its lowest at midnight and melatonin is the opposite. Makes sense right?

One is more for being awake one more for sleep.

But what happens if our system doesn’t release the cortisol and it hangs about in the system when we are too stressed?

Unfortunately, melatonin won’t increase in the way it should in the evening and this can create havoc with our sleep patterns and in turn affect fertility too.

I spend a lot of time asking about the sleep patterns of my patients and often it can be easily fixed. We work together with herbal prescriptions, acupuncture, self cultivation techniques and habit tweaks to get sleep bang on point! It’s important and so it’s important to get right. If you would like to find out more about how I might be able to help you. Let’s have free 15 minute chat.