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Did you know that stress can have a significant impact on fertility? In this video, we break down the science behind how stress affects reproductive health, hormone balance, and conception. Learn how cortisol, the body's primary stress hormone, influences ovulation, sperm production, and overall fertility.
Taryn Darlow
8 min
Trying to Conceive
Video
00:00:00 If you've been struggling with fertility, there is one piece that people may overlook, and that's the nervous system. So when we are stressed, and we probably hear this so frequently, but when we are stressed, it is going to have a significant impact on our health. And I'm going to show you today how stress and nervous system dysregulation affects your sex hormones. So when we eat, our body converts food into energy and energy gets converted in this case into cholesterol. So when we eat, our body converts food into energy and energy gets converted in this case into cholesterol. Now, people often get scared of cholesterol, but cholesterol is absolutely necessary because it is the building block for our stress and sex hormones. So if you want to imagine you're a healthy individual, your body feels safe, so it's going to go, okay, let's make estrogen. So if you want to imagine you're a healthy individual, your body feels safe, so it's going to go, okay, let's make estrogen.
00:01:06 And I'm going to need estrogen to develop follicles that are going to become the egg that then gets released. Now, because I've produced an egg, I then need to release it. So I'm going to need some testosterone because testosterone is going to trigger ovulation. And then because I ovulate, then I need progesterone. And then because I ovulate, then I need progesterone. And progesterone helps to maintain and thicken the lining so that when a fertilized egg arrives, it can implant itself so that there is a viable pregnancy. And then because we are human, we're naturally going to have stress in our lives.
00:01:52 So our body is going to say, let's produce some cortisol to deal with that stress. Now, what happens is when we are stressed or our body is dysregulated for whatever reason, Now, what happens is when we are stressed or our body is dysregulated for whatever reason, it may be because you have some big trauma. It may be because you have work, financial or relationship stress. or maybe you're just simply putting stress on your body because you're not eating enough, particularly protein, you're exercising too much, so you're putting your body under more stress or you're being exposed to toxins and heavy metals that are disrupting your body.
00:02:26 or you're being exposed to toxins and heavy metals that are disrupting your body. So then our body is going to choose how it prioritizes utilizing cholesterol to make the sex hormones. So when you're stressed, the body goes, well, I'm not going to reproduce, so I'm not going to need any estrogen. So estrogen is not prioritized and instead the body will choose to make more cortisol. Then because your body doesn't feel safe enough, it's stressed, it's not going to then ovulate,
00:02:59 it's stressed, it's not going to then ovulate, you don't need testosterone. And if you don't have testosterone, you're not gonna ovulate and you're also gonna have a low libido because your body doesn't want you to feel the drive to engage in sex to produce a baby. So you get rid of your androgens, your testosterone, you have very little amounts of that.
00:03:22 And then because you don't ovulate, you don't need progesterone. So then what happens is when we are stressed, our body keeps pouring into building the cholesterol building blocks, the cortisol building blocks, so that your body can deal with all the stresses that you're putting in your body. So then what happens is when we are stressed, our body keeps pouring into building the cholesterol building blocks, the cortisol building blocks, so that your body can deal with all the stresses that you're putting in your body. Now, here's the thing. Your body's going to keep creating energy, right? And it's going to keep converting it into cholesterol. And because you are stressed, it's going to keep pouring and pouring into making cortisol. Now, here's the thing. Your body's going to keep creating energy, right? And it's going to keep converting it into cholesterol. And because you are stressed, it's going to keep pouring and pouring into making cortisol. and so you're going to have a body that has too much cortisol it doesn't know how to deal with it it can't pour it into the right cups because you're so stressed and then you're going to get to a point where you're going to burn out your adrenals are going to become so tired that you're
00:04:19 going to have this imbalance where you're not going to be able to produce enough cortisol at all. So this is how stress impacts your sex hormone. So you can see now through this why it all. So this is how stress impacts your sex hormone. So you can see now through this why it is so important that we manage our stress and regulate our nervous system so that our body feels safe enough that it can choose reproduction. Because if it's not safe, it's going to choose survival over reproduction. If you always remember that we are just animals at the end of the day, and that our basic function is to survive and reproduce, when we're stressed, it's always going to choose our priority,
