Having Infertility Stress? Use Pilates As Your Soothing Tool To Unburden Infertility Stress
You can optimize your chances of conceiving a baby with classical pilates exercises.
Suppose you're in the midst of fertility treatments or trying for a baby naturally. In that case, Pilates exercises will reduce your stress and return your body to life.
What's Pilates?
Pilates is a complete exercise method that consists of different movement styles. Based on six principles, each movement aimed to nurture a balance of spirit, body and mind:
Breathing
oxygenation and circulation
Concentration
Precision
Control
Centring
Joseph Pilates, creator of Pilates, designed each movement in the method with one purpose in mind:
To return the body to life so the body can do what it knows how to do best.
The Pilates method is a powerful tool used in the dance, physio and rehab communities, but it's not uncommon for the uninitiated to think it's yoga.
To set the record straight, Pilates differs from yoga in many ways.
Joseph Pilates carefully invented the Pilates apparatus to help move the body with flow and precision.
While you can do yoga only on the mat, you can do Pilates on a mat and the apparatus. This is one of the significant differences between Pilates and yoga.
However, the question is:
Why should you consider doing Pilates when trying to conceive a baby?
Benefits of Pilates Exercises
Generally, for many decades, Pilates has been helping people to:
Reduce stress
Reduce lower back pain
Reduce body aches
Improve flexibility
Improve body awareness
Improve focus
Research has shown that Pilates will likely improve physical and psychological measures in sedentary women—if you do it once a week!
Imagine the benefits of Pilates to your mental and physical health if you do it 3-5 times a week.
Why You Should Do Pilates When Trying to Conceive a Baby
More specifically, you should do Pilates daily for one primary reason:
To reduce stress in the body.
I have mentioned the benefits of Pilates to the general population and its popularity in some professions.
However, you can reap its significant benefits when trying to conceive a baby.
This is because the longer you try to conceive a baby, the more likely your stress level will increase if you don't take action to prevent stress.
Think about it:
A woman of childbearing age typically has an average of 12 menstrual cycles in a year. Ideally, each cycle starts and ends within a month.
I know there are variations to this stat, but you know what I mean.
Therefore, you should have 12 cycles yearly if you're regularly menstruating.
As a result, you rely on your menstrual cycle to conceive.
That means you're constantly checking and doing something to get pregnant each cycle. If you're not pregnant in one cycle, you hope to be in the next one.
If nothing happens for a year, that's approximately 12 trials yearly. For some women, attempts can go on year after year.
I know this to be true because I tried to conceive consistently for over six years before I conceived, precisely in the seventh year of my trying.
That's about a whopping 83 trials!
I know some women who have tried to conceive for over ten years.
If you do the maths, given those trials, you can imagine the level of stress that might have built up in the body if nothing proactive was done about it.
The truth is, stress cripples our body and renders our best efforts useless!
Of course, there may be other reasons you're not getting pregnant. However, suppose you're not achieving a positive pregnancy with each passing cycle. In that case, it usually causes stress in your body.
This affects your spiritual, mental, and physical health and your ability to conceive.
This is why Pilates is an effective tool for reducing stress. Your mind and body will thank you!
Also, I mentioned that each movement in the Pilates method was designed to return the body to life. This is based on six specific principles.
For instance, in Pilates, you start each movement with a specific breathing technique known as Pilates breathing.
With your mind concentrated, you can control your body to start and finish each movement with Pilates breathing.
If you do Pilates this way to conceive a baby in mind, you'll:
Feel relaxed
Have increased blood flow in your body (including to your reproductive organs)
Get stronger from the inside out
Feel empowered
Conclusion
Although some people practice Pilates with an aesthetic goal, focusing on the numerous benefits, not just the aesthetic ones, is essential.
In particular, through the Pilates breathing technique, you improve oxygenation, thereby increasing blood flow to your reproductive organs.
In other words, you'll likely get blood flow to your ovaries, tubes and womb through Pilates.
As a woman, your body has the innate ability to conceive a baby. By increasing blood flow through Pilates, you allow your body to function at its optimal level.
That’s how Pilates returns the body to its natural state, allowing it to do what it knows best.
My friend, that's the essence of the Pilates Method for you.
Inspired by this post? Watch out for my next post on the basic techniques of the Pilates Method and five exercises you can start doing now!