The Ayurvedic Guide to Fertility. Heather Grzych

fertility department, while those women with seemingly more challenging lives are popping out kids like champs.

      So why is the modern woman having difficulty with fertility? There are many reasons, but here are some of the more common ones: First, there are particular time frames when women are more fertile, and because many are now heeding the call of nature much later in life, they are missing the peak fertility windows. Second, modern women build very rich lives outside of family life. They can put all their energy into their passions and simply neglect the passion of creating a family. Third, in their quest for achieving the perfect life, modern women have lost an appreciation for events that happen outside of their control — which are, unfortunately, the majority of natural biological processes occurring in the body and in nature. And this third reason may be due to the fourth reason: the environment can be so toxic for women that it affects their health and creates confusion about whom or what they can trust.

      When it comes to fertility, many women are limiting themselves by the very thing that appears to give them power in other areas. Modern women appear empowered and strong because they are going after the great career, breaking molds, or shattering glass ceilings, but they may be lacking in the areas of love and family. I find that many women in my Ayurvedic practice aren’t even creating the space in their lives to meet a compatible partner, let alone start a family. Some dislike their jobs, bosses, colleagues, workload, or traveling so much — but they can’t stop prioritizing these things above all other facets of life, including family.

      Many let this go on until they reach a point where they don’t feel they’ll be able to reproduce naturally because they waited too long to have a child, and due to this, they undergo many years and thousands of dollars’ worth of medical procedures to have a baby. Women try to outsmart time with the help of their doctors. Egg freezing, intrauterine insemination (IUI), in vitro fertilization (IVF), and getting a sperm donor and/or donor eggs and embryos are examples of the procedures a woman will undergo in order to check motherhood off her to-do list. Such an approach ends up working for some, and ends up with unfortunate outcomes for others. Even with egg freezing, there is always the risk that the freezer breaks. And root causes affecting fertility do not get addressed by focusing only on fertility treatment, and they can remain or get even worse after the baby is born.

      And it’s not just women who are having problems with fertility. Male infertility is also on the rise. The times are changing for both women and men who want to start a family. It’s become difficult and expensive for so many people to have a child. However, there is also good news: the overwhelming majority of women who have children still conceive naturally, so there is hope for any woman looking to do so.

      The Misaligned Superwoman

      Today, modern women are exhausted, confused, and burned-out. Why else would we be so into yoga? We love burning ourselves out. Apparently, vacation time has been on a steady decline since 2000. A study done by Project: Time Off found that more than half of American workers left unused vacation days in 2018. And those who do take vacations frequently work while on them. With so many of us working like dogs, it’s no wonder we are suffering from stress, anxiety, digestive disorders, insomnia, substance abuse, and so forth. Really, people? Is this what we’ve decided is the American dream?

      I’ve been guilty of it myself. I remember canceling a vacation once when my team at work was implementing a critical project and I felt guilty leaving during such a difficult time. Guess what happened right after I called off this vacation? I got sick twice in one month. Oh, the irony: I canceled a vacation when I needed it most. I must have thought that no one else could function without me, or perhaps I didn’t want anyone to function without me. What an ego. Truth is, if you work with a good team, then the moment you are out of the environment, people will shift around and start picking up the slack. Unless you are a key employee (this is fewer people than you may think), you are always replaceable, regardless of how late you work or how much time you put into that presentation.

      Guess what happened when I left that job a year later? The work went on without me, as I went on my way with my work.

      What have you done to burn yourself out in the past? What are you doing now?

      A high percentage of people who experience stress (73 percent) report common psychological issues, such as irritability and anger, nervousness, lack of energy, or the urge to cry. An even higher percentage of people (77 percent) experience the common physical symptoms of stress, including fatigue, headache, upset stomach, muscle tension, and even loss of sex drive. So many of us are truly misaligned today. The wisdom of the body must be recaptured.

      How we fill our free time is up to each of us. Some women will not take any time to relax or play, finding more and more opportunities to work themselves into the ground. Others are so lazy or so tired from work that they will sit in front of the TV all day or night.

      It is important to look at yourself if either boredom or burnout is happening. They are two ends of the same spectrum. Either way, the wisdom of the body is being overridden by all the things you think you are supposed to be doing.

      And this I can guarantee: However you are now, it’s going to get magnified if you have a baby. Every pattern you have presently will become exaggerated if you give birth to a child and don’t change your lifestyle because, in addition to having the same job, house payment, car payment, and so on, you will also have much more chaos and a tiny human depending on you who requires all the free time your sleep-deprived self can give.

      What happened to listening to Mother Nature? Instead of being the intuitive goddesses women have been known to be throughout the ages, we are tiring ourselves out too much to truly listen. I can tell you where Mother Nature is: she’s inside your body, and she’s calling you home.

      I’ve often wondered why we have so many yoga teachers today, myself included, and why the vast majority of yoga practitioners and teachers are women (which, oddly, is the complete opposite of how it is in India, where yoga was developed). Women are lost and confused. We are looking for more meaning. Things have gotten so crazy for us that we all need to go lie on the floor a couple of times a week and have some soothing voice tell us that everything is going to be okay, as long as we look within — and yet we don’t truly look within and have to keep going to yoga class every week for a little break from life. This is not true healing. This is only a brief respite from the root causes. The world needs women to do yoga off their mats and go make themselves and the world a better place.

      Undoing the Decades of Neglect

      Modern culture doesn’t celebrate feminine creative power very well. It celebrates women achieving things — becoming the CEO, starting the company, and doing it all with four kids. However, women are not taught much about the deep wisdom of their bodies and how to read it. I certainly was not.

      If you had a woman in your life who thoroughly explained to you when you were a teenager what a treasure your body was, then consider yourself lucky. Many women today are educated about the female reproductive system in school, and only briefly. I still remember the day in fifth grade when the boys were taken outside to play kickball, and an educator proceeded to inform all us girls about the impending changes that would be happening to our bodies over the next few years. No one asked questions. We were all way too embarrassed. Here was an opportunity to teach us about the magical, mystical power we hold inside, and instead we felt traumatized. Like it or not, puberty was happening.

      We are taught at this young age that we start to become different from boys, and that our bodies are something to be protected — from boys, from creepy adults, from pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases. There is very little celebration of this newfound power awaiting us, and as a result, many of us do not learn how to fully tap into it and there’s always an element of fear or disconnection surrounding our relationship with it. This often changes for us once we contemplate having a child. Suddenly we become very interested in this feature of our bodies that we felt was a nuisance for most our lives.

      Biologically speaking, a woman develops the drive and capability to procreate at an age that is too young for her mind, family, religion, or culture to deal with. A young woman can have a baby once she goes through menarche (first period), which typically occurs between ages 10 and 15, with 12.6 being