Shownotes
Struggling with fertility and feeling overwhelmed by stress and busy schedules? In this episode, we dive deep into how stress, trauma, and lifestyle patterns impact fertility, especially for high-achieving, Type A individuals.
Joined us on this episode is Louise Fitzgerald as she shares simple yet transformative tools to help you.
Louise Fitzgerald is an Intuitive and Mindfulness Meditation teacher. She helps people boost their fertility and nurture a healthy pregnancy with less anxiety and more joy. Providing realistic stress relief tips, and tools to navigate the challenges that come with fertility, pregnancy, and the journey to becoming a parent.
In this episode, we dive into:
✨ Listen to your body’s signals
✨ Break free from stress cycles
✨ Heal trauma and retrain your nervous system for better fertility outcomes
From finding joy in movement (hello, dancing and hip circles!) to understanding how emotional healing supports nutrient absorption, this conversation is packed with actionable tips to integrate into your life today.
Gift to listeners:
FREE GUIDE: 5 minutes to boost fertility and nurture healthy pregnancy
https://louise-fitzgerald.ck.page/da21207fe0
Follow Louise on: https://www.instagram.com/louisefertilitypregnancy
Don't miss out on this in-depth episode filled with practical advice and inspiration to help you on your fertility journey.
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Transcripts
Hello and welcome, Louise. It's so great to have you on our podcast today.
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You're welcome.(...) And the first question, let's kick it off with,(...) if someone is brand new here, they're struggling with fertility, they maybe have been on this journey for a little bit of time, why should they listen to this episode?
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Yeah, that's perfect because busy people do often have this tendency to be like,
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"Well, what are you going to tell me to do?" Like,
"Great job." (Silence)
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Absolutely. I think the...(...) So I'm a recovering type A high achiever as well, as you can probably imagine. So what is it about being busy or being stressed that we continue to like, propagate this idea that it's just always going to be this way?
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(Silence) Yeah.
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(Laughter)
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Yeah. And so what do you do if that's just always been you?
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So that's a good point. So observation first.(...) And if you...(...) So I'm curious about this bathroom example because that might be me.
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So if a day is stacked so much that it's very infrequent breaks, so what about going to the bathroom is useful in this stress relief?
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Yeah.
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(Silence) Right.
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Mm-hmm. Yeah. And I like this idea of like, listening to your body in that I think that plays a role in a lot of different scenarios. So the bathroom is one example. But I think even like, listening to your body when it's time to eat or when it's time to go to bed or write like all of these simple things that we often tend to ignore that really should be the foundation of a good, healthy lifestyle that are also supporting fertility.
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I love that. So I feel like we already have two really important things. One is going to be to observe. Like just notice your pattern, see what's happening.(...) Where are some things that you are maybe finding are out of alignment with you and start there.(...) Number two, listen to your body.
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What are some other tips that high achiever type A's can use to get some stress relief? Because we know that stress is so impactful to fertility especially.
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Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Sorry, so I got excited about the humming.(...)
You can.
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Yeah,
yeah, yeah. So I was I mentioned if you're putting on Beyonce and singing, put in some dancing and hip circles because the hip circles are like, it's kind of like if you're hula hooping without the hula.
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That will help blood flow in circulation to the uterus and ovaries. So, parents gathering like double wind.
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Yeah, yeah.
So I have a question for you that I get all the time, which is as type A, especially women,(...) their biggest form of stress relief is going to the gym.
(...) So let's talk about that.
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If you have some thoughts on.
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Yeah.(...) And so how can people differentiate because I think that sometimes it's easy to like, feel like, oh, I should go to the gym, and they actually do need to, you
know what I mean?
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Versus
I should go to the gym and it's coming out of this place of needing rest. And I literally I just went through this yesterday. I was on a good trip, got back the day before yesterday, woke up yesterday morning and was like, I should go to the gym.(...) And then I like, caught myself and I was like, or I could take a nap.(...) And in the moment, I decided to take a nap. And that was good, right? The day I woke up and had the same, like, I should go to the gym.
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But I could take a nap.(...) And the, and so I like, needed a way to evaluate like, did it make sense for me to go to the gym today or actually rest? And today I went to the gym, and I actually felt better after. So like, the pattern, like, it's easy to be in a rut of like, you know, I need to go to the gym or I should go to the gym, but you don't ever get there. Because you've got yourself stuck in a pattern versus it's actually your body needing rest or, or needing to do something different.
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Right, yeah, yeah, I think it's important for people to have this way of,
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how am I observing myself? It's going back to that step one of observation.
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And what do I notice when I do XYZ? And it's the same with food, like, I had this meal, how did I feel after? Right?
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And if we can keep awareness of that,(...) so I've, you guys don't judge me, please don't judge me.
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(Laugh) But for years, I used to be super active, super fit and then I went into my fertility journey, pregnancy, postpartum, and it's taken me about seven years to get back into working out and going to the gym.
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And the first few weeks were probably the hardest.
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And then it was a feedback loop kicked in where I did the evaluation and I was like, I actually feel so much better when I go to the gym, right? I just feel better.(...) So now it's really easy to continue going to the gym, except every single time I travel, I have a break. And every single time it takes a little bit of overcoming that inertia, if we wanna call it that, of I took a break from going to the gym because I was traveling,(...) theoretically I could keep going when I travel, but I don't. I usually prioritize everything except for that. And when I come back, it's like the first few days I need to, I feel like I'm exhausted, but until I get to the gym, I don't get out of that inertia and get back to like, yeah, this feels amazing. I need to do this cuz I like it.
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Right.
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Sure, yeah.
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Or credits or whatever, like
there's- (Blank Audio)
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Pick a ball, yeah, I love it, I love it.
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(Laugh) Yes.
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(Blank Audio) Yes. (Blank Audio)
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Mm-hm, yeah, yeah, I think that's so important is really that like you,(...) if you're brand new to physical movement and are just starting out like really trying a whole bunch of things and seeing what is it that you enjoy?(...) And you may enjoy something that you don't do all the time. Like I live in a very hot humid environment and I love pickleball, but the pickleball are outdoors.
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So I have decided I'm only doing pickleball for like a season and then it's on the shelf until it's nice outside.
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Right.
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Great. (Blank Audio)
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yeah, absolutely,
it's important from that aspect of just being open and finding like what it is that works for us and our bodies and like being okay with exploration.
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So yeah, we like we teach that so much for food specifically,
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but so I don't know if you can see it right now, but this little patch right now, it's me experimenting with food and being able to like get feedback about what my blood sugar is doing based on what I eat.
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And like so much of it is individualized, right? So we can have this like generalized idea of diet, but even in it, there's so many, like your body's gonna differently respond to everything that you eat. So I think health and healthcare is moving in that direction of like uber personalized, but I think that it's actually closer to who we are as humans is we're not all templates, there's no perfect for everyone. There's no perfect invitation for everyone. It's really like finding what it is that's really that lights you up and more of that.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Amazing. So I want to shift gears a little bit because I know you talked about trauma and kind of what your nervous system has been brought up with or like how it got dysregulated.
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So what is the impact of that on our health and wellbeing long term and how does this connect with fertility?
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Right.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Mm hmm.
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Yeah,(...) I can definitely relate. I think one of the ways that I've explained that to clients is it's sort of like we don't do this anymore. But let's suppose you were walking through the forest and a lion jumped out in front of you and you somehow escaped the lion.
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But now every time you walk down the street and a cat jumps in front of you, your body is having the same physiological response as the lion.
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Yeah, so like you're stuck in that pattern. It's not the same intellectually, you know, it's not the same.
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But in reality, your your nervous system is still doing all of the things that it would
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Yeah,
yeah.
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So what can we do about it?
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Yes, thank you.
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Mm hmm.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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need help. Yeah.
Yeah. Awesome. That sounds like a very easy, practical, and easy way to do it. Awesome.
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That sounds like a very easy, practical, and doable tool to
do.
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Go ahead.
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Yeah.
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I
that.
And so doing this work, maybe the emotional healing that kind of supports retraining our nervous system and healing some of these deeper traumas, how is that supporting our fertility goals?
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Right.
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I'm
not absorbing those nutrients, y'all.
the supplements, but if you're not absorbing those nutrients and it's because
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your body can't relax or go into parent sympathetic mode, then absolutely, that's a lot of things that flush down the toilet.
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Yeah. I love that. Thank you so much. This is such a lovely conversation and I love how simple and easy you've made things to be able to apply into your own lives and or into all of our lives. We all need this, even if we're on the fertility stage.
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So thank you. Thank you so much for being here. Where can people connect with you?
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Awesome.
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Awesome. Well, we'll make sure to connect that into the show notes and thank you so much for being with us today. This is awesome.(...)
You're
welcome. I hope for all of you that are listening in, you have taken some notes and start integrating some of the tools into your everyday life. I think just so much of what you've shared today is very, very, very practical. So thank you for being with us again.
