Written by: Dr. Simone Sesboüé, Executive Contributor
Executive Contributors at Brainz Magazine are handpicked and invited to contribute because of their knowledge and valuable insight within their area of expertise.
Life with infertility can be heartbreaking, devastating, and terribly exhausting, especially after years of trying to conceive. In fact, the agony of infertility runs so deep that you feel irrevocably changed by the experience. It changes how you see yourself and the world. What started as something that happened to us becomes who we are. You become used to living in a state of fluctuating despair and hope. And surprisingly, this does not turn off when and if you get pregnant and even once the baby is born. Women experiencing stress with infertility treatment are more prone to suffer postpartum depression.
Infertility is not life-threatening, yet it is as stressful
Mental health problems, including depression, are key fertility health issues that affect infertile women more severely than infertile men. According to a study, women dealing with infertility have depression and anxiety levels similar to cancer patients.
Through my coaching practice as well as my personal experiences, I have become intimately familiar with infertility’s psychological ravages.
When I ask my clients how they would rate the emotional impact infertility has on their life — from 1 low impact to 10 high impact — all of my clients are at 8 or above at the time they contact me. Sadly, very often, they give it a 10. A full 10 of emotional pain, of no quality of life, no trust in themselves, no faith, no hope. These factors exert a massive toll on their relationships — with their partner, parents, siblings, and friendship circle — as well as on their job and career opportunities.
When I take a look at my clients’ self-care priorities, all too often, I find mental health at the lower end. While trying to conceive, clients are used to applying any remedy to increase fertility but tend to neglect the importance of mental health. Although fertility clinics are emphasizing more and more the importance of receiving psychological support while in fertility treatment, my professional experience is that too often, patients wait until they are deeply exhausted, desperate, and hopeless, leaving them with an existence they describe as “shattered and out of control.”
This is why I am advocating — with urgency — that mental health has to become a self-care priority when going through infertility, long before everything falls apart.
So, how can you stop the excruciating emotional pain of infertility?
In this article, I will focus on the first step of self-help, and in my opinion, the most important one, in order to break the downward spiral in mental health.
Press the PAUSE button! … Yes, PAUSE!
Being in the midst of an “infertility battle” — with pressing doctor’s appointments, hours of daily google searches, and an impending biological fertility deadline — becomes a real threat when women approach their 40s, making pause sound like the most impossible thing to do; yet pause is the best remedy to help you reorientate.
What do I mean by “PAUSE”?
Pressing PAUSE is like the red alarm button. It is the safety parachute, the life jacket, when you are experiencing severe infertility stress.
It is to literally stop everything for a moment to ground yourself and calm your nervous system. Not only to stop the suffocating stress of that infertility journey but to rest, regenerate and look deeply inwards to connect with yourself. A pause can last seconds, days, weeks, and even months but always brings a new dimension to your life.
It is the antithesis of the to-do list, of more appointments, of more google searches, of more treatments. In a pause, you can question the direction your life is taking. A pause lets you think. By lifting our heads from all that suffocating infertility battle, we can spot chances and opportunities we wouldn't otherwise see. Then true to ourselves, we can take the right direction.
As one of my recent clients put it: “… it instantly gave me a feeling of peace and after a little while a sense of control. A feeling I had lost completely over time. I was finally feeling again who I am and what I can do about my fertility journey.”
I'm advocating easy, practical ways to introduce pauses into your life, such as the emergency pause for breath.
Emergency Pause for Breath
One of the easiest and most effective techniques to lower stress instantly is to take a short and deep pause for breath.
Stress affects breathing. With stress, breathing becomes unconsciously accelerated and shallow, reducing the oxygen supply to the body. With breathing exercises, you can consciously influence this shallow, accelerated breathing to slow down. It breaks the vicious circle of rush and panic, resulting in an instantly beneficial effect on our mental and physical well-being.
By attending to your body for a few seconds, you can shift your mind and your mood. And it is easy to implement; conscious breathing is possible at any time the need arises. This makes breathing exercises an ideal helper in everyday life to alleviate discomfort and master stressful situations.
Although it sounds simple, it is powerful.
I invite you to try and experience it yourself:
Shift your attention to your belly, softening it and letting it expand (instead of breathing from the chest), and breathe in gently and exhale slowly. Repeat a few times until you feel that your breath naturally calms down and follows a natural flow. Repeat daily.
Reflect after a few days of pausing for breath:
When have you tried those pauses? Morning, evening, at home, in bed, in nature?
In which situations have you needed those pauses most?
When were they most helpful?
What was challenging in the beginning? What still is?
What is great about the pauses?
What will you do differently? And what will you continue to do?
Personally, I do breathe pause a few times a day. Even in moments when I do not feel stressed. It instantly grounds me, lets me think clearly, and act consciously instead of reacting panic-fueled to an event.
I will share more easy, practical tips on integrating pauses in your life in the upcoming article and how these help to navigate successfully through IVF treatments.
With much compassion,
Simone
Note: Pauses can be initiated by yourself with easy, practical tools in daily life and instant relief felt. However, if you experience high levels of anxiety or symptoms of depression, then working with a professional is highly advised.
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Dr. Simone Sesboüé, Executive Contributor Brainz Magazine
Dr. Simone Sesboüé is an internationally recognized and certified life coach, hypnotherapist and former stress researcher specializing in helping women, men and couples navigate through infertility and a peaceful pregnancy after infertility. At the heart of Simone Sesboüé’s work is her personalized and holistic IVF support that draws on the latest research findings from mind-body medicine, neuroscience and positive psychology. Dr. Simone Sesboüé holds a Ph.D. in work stress/burnout from the University of Bern, Switzerland, and an MBA from EDHEC Business School, France, and the University of Colorado Denver, USA.
