Say ‘Yes’ to Healthy Living for Optimal Fertility Over 40
I see women inquiring all the time about specific things they can do to boost fertility or improve egg quality over age 40. As we age, egg quality becomes one of the biggest barriers to a successful pregnancy. Who really knows if exotic supplements or eating certain things at certain times of the month can make a difference? Maybe, maybe not.
There are however, a whole lot of healthy habits that we can agree would probably help fertility and would certainly make us feel better anyway—such as exercising regularly, sleeping more, eating healthfully and relaxing more. [Read this blog series regarding research supporting this notion.] These healthy habits are important at any age, but even more so after 40, when everything we can do to boost fertility counts.
Raise your hand if you believe these healthy lifestyle habits are good to include in your fertility program. Raise your hand if you do all these regularly. I’m guessing a lot of hands just went down. (Mine too, I’ll be honest!)
What About Staying Motivated?
When it comes to maintaining motivation for healthy behaviors (or any goals we have really), it can be very helpful to team up with others who are on a similar path. Very few athletes excel while training alone. Even cockroaches run faster in the presence of their peers. I’m not joking…this is an actual body of social psychology research referred to as Social Facilitation or the Audience Effect. It applies to humans as well as cockroaches .
Essentially we are more motivated and more consistent if we feel others are noticing what we are doing. If they are actively cheering us on, even better!
So consider using this principle to your advantage and look for ways you can team up with others who are already on a healthy lifestyle path that you’d like to get on, or who are committed to making the kinds of changes you are wanting to make. With current technology, there more ways than ever to connect with others around such pursuits.
In fact, for my own process of creating the 90-Day Egg Nurturing Course, I discovered how the support of others can be a game changer with any activity that requires focus and discipline. Back in May, I decided that this course must be created ASAP. I had a whole outline from the book I had been working on, but there was still a lot of content creating to do. With all the priorities in my life pulling for my attention, I knew it was going to be a challenge to stay focused.
Someone in a Facebook group for course creators invited others to join her in an “Accountability Group” where we were required to post daily whatever progress we made, and we’d be dropped from the group if we didn’t post 5 out of 7 days. I knew this was exactly the kind of push I needed. After I joined that group, my motivation, focus and consistency went up about 10 levels, and I made tremendous progress that I know would not have happened on my own!
When I personally experienced how this accountability group was propelling me through my internal resistance, excuses, and distractions, it became clear to me that building a support community to go with the 90 Day Egg Nurturing course was going to make a huge difference in people’s results.
I knew from past experiences that having the support of a community could make or break someone’s success in a lifestyle-change program. Healthy living is a core component of this egg quality program, and it’s no secret that maintaining healthy habits is hard for most of us.
So the 90-Day Egg Nurturing community forum was born, August 1, 2018, and it is currently thriving with the initial members who joined when the course opened. Through setting self-nurturing intentions for the week or sharing recipes for “fertility smoothies,” and so forth, we are influencing each other to stay on this healthful path toward optimal fertility.
Go Forward With Others
Whatever healthy habits you want to incorporate, you’ll want to stick with them over time. And having a supportive group of people around you who are marching to the beat of the same drummer can really help with your consistency and motivation.
So look for ways that you can join groups or form groups. You don’t need a lot of people. You can set up a simple free Facebook group to communicate with each other. You can set up group calls on skype or zoom to connect in real time. You can find one buddy and text each other with your daily updates.
We are much stronger together than alone, so look for ways to join forces with like-minded others.
An Opportunity to Join
Of course if this is your season for nurturing healthier egg naturally, you are welcome to enroll in the the 90-Day Egg Nurturing Program. This program is tailored toward women in their 30s and 40s who are taking proactive steps toward cultivating optimal egg quality, and maintaining healthy living is a continual theme in the program and the group.
I’m getting very encouraging feedback from course participants so far. They’ve shared that feel like they have a fertility plan, they are more hopeful and positive, and they are enjoying their lives more. Some have set their next TTC cycle for around the end of the year, and others are continuing to TTC while nurturing their eggs.
More Options for Motivation
There are many more ways to use various resources to support your healthy living goals. As a clinical psychologist who has specialized in health behavior, I have so many tricks up my sleeve in this department, and I’m looking forward to sharing this with you here in future blog posts. Say tuned!
Find more resources throughout this website for increasing fertility and improving egg quality after age 40, or at any age.
