How to Reduce Infertility Stress with 5 Micro Resets

Hi, good afternoon everyone. I'm Erica Hoke. If you don't know me, um, I am passionate about accessing all the things available to you that are within your control to help you with your infertility journey. Um, so we're going to talk today a little bit about, um, about how to get off the emotional roller coaster, how to flow with your stress, because when you try to control something, then a lot of times that does not work out, right? Um, and we're going to identify some things that are within your control, um, just small micro resets that you can do, um, to help your stress level. So if you happen to be watching on YouTube, go ahead and hit the subscribe button and hit the bell so you get notified when I go live. And also, um, hop on over, um, I'll drop it in the comments, hop on over to our group Flourishing Through Infertility. Alright, so here we go, you guys. So, so many people, and remember, I'm you, I was you, I'm you. So many people tell people going through infertility, tell us to just relax, right? That's when we all wanna punch them in the face. So we're not gonna talk about it like, oh, just relax, it'll happen, but we are gonna talk about ways to be proactive and to manage what's going on. So one of the things that I love, and we're going to talk more about this, and you might have seen some of the information coming out that I've been sharing in the group about accessing your limbic system through tapping. So tapping is a great way, and I was just talking to one of my friends about this, tapping is a great way to be able to calm yourself down. It basically interrupts your brain's response to extreme stress situations where you're on the verge of having a panic attack, you're having a panic attack, maybe at the doctor's office, maybe before or after a procedure, maybe, you know, you're working. And this used to happen to me, like I would be working and I drove, I did field sales, and so I would get my period in the middle of the day and then have to go and make a sales call. And it just, that that awful feeling that you get, you know, when you know another cycle has gone by. So tapping is a great way to access and interrupt that panicky feeling, that terrible feeling, and it accesses your limbic system and it sends a message to your brain basically saying like, you're not gonna get eaten by a bear, okay? So calm down, you're not gonna get eaten by a bear. Another thing that I do along these same lines of working with our brain and our limbic system is I utilize essential oils through the form of aromatherapy. So the great thing about essential oils is that it works super fast. It's clearly, it's portable, very effective because the limbic system is right next to your olfactory nerve, and so it works super fast. It also is able to— I have all my notes written down over here— it also is able to help you deal with your emotions and process your emotions. So some oils that I like are Stress Away, Valor, and Peace and Calming. Peace and Calming is actually a really profound oil if you have like white Cote syndrome. I had somebody reach out to me about how to control her blood pressure when she went in for her visits and things like that. So you can go look at PubMed about patchouli. Patchouli is in peace and calming, and patchouli actually has been studied pretty extensively for its use in being able to lower your blood pressure. So some other oils that I like are tree oils. That would be like spruce, pine, things like that. Those are super, super groundful and helping, helpful. So why are we even caring about our stress level at all, right? So we are caring about our stress level because there's a cortisol hormone loop, right? And so again, when people tell you just relax, they're not wrong and it's annoying, However, whatever you can do to control your stress is going to help you in the long run normalize your hormones, normalize your cortisol, cortisol levels, and all those things are key in conception, right? Okay. So here is another one of my best practice tips for, for getting your stress level under control. Uh, it's a very simple thing to do, whether you set a timer, um, in the morning, whether you set a timer before bedtime, but just the mindfulness of keeping a gratitude journal, um, is so helpful in controlling your stress because what does it do? It reframes and refocuses your attention to the good things in your life, and that's never a bad thing. So, um, sometimes that stresses me out, honestly, like, and maybe it stresses you out too, trying to think of all all the things that I'm grateful for, and of course I am, but sometimes it feels like pressure and not something that is overflowing from your heart, which makes you feel bad about yourself, right? So my friend calls them small joys, and this is where the mindfulness part comes into play. So the small joys can be like a cup of hot coffee and a cold day, a nice cozy sweater, being able to, being able to work, having a job to go to, being able to take a walk when you want. Whatever those small joys are, it's really important for us to just take a few minutes. I like to do mine at the end of the day, and this is, if you've done Reset on the Run, this is kind of one of the things that we utilize is our ta-da list. And so not only do I like to do the gratitude journal at the end of the day, but then it also ties into my ta-da list, my ta-da list. So at the end of the day, we're focusing on the good things that we accomplished and not our to-do list that we— all the things that we didn't get done, right? Which can sometimes feel very demoralizing if you're a Type A personality. So, um, the third thing that I really feel like would help, um, that I use, that, um, I discovered during my, my, some of my talk therapy and my counseling sessions was creating some margin in your life. Um, so when I say creating margin and creating, um, downtime, um, I mean creating downtime. When I say margin, I mean creating some downtime. So whatever that looks like for you, um, everybody is this is, you know, something that's super customizable and something that is, um, you're only— you're only— you are gonna know, right? So whether that is 20 minutes, um, 2 or 3 times a week, whether that's 5 minutes 7 days a week, but just setting some time, um, for yourself to have a hot bath, read a book, uh, go to a movie by yourself, lock yourself in your bedroom for a movie, you know, whatever that looks like for you. Just creating some downtime, especially if you know, like, you're gonna have a really hectic week and you're gonna have a really hectic weekend, you know, being able to fit some of that time in where you can just have some time for you, where you're not responsible for anybody else— your husband if you already have, other children, that you're not responsible for them either. So, um, Very, very important. And so I'm also going to be talking about, um, coming up this week, are you addicted to stress? So you may be addicted to stress if you live your life without margin, right? Because that means that you only feel comfortable if you are performing or if your schedule is full to the point that you are stressed out. We're going to explore that some more. Okay, so, um, that also ties in, especially in the infertility world, to are you punishing yourself? Are you pushing yourself so hard? And are you, um, are you not giving yourself any margin in your life as a form of punishment? I can tell you that this 100% was me when I was trying to get pregnant, because if I didn't have any downtime, then I didn't have any time to think about what wasn't happening for me, what wasn't working for me, right? So it's that I'm gonna fill every moment of the day so I don't have to think about, I don't have to process feelings that I don't want to face. So we're gonna stop doing that, okay? All right, so that is 1 through 3. If you like these and you want to hear 4 and 5, go check out my blog at ericahoke.com. And thank you so much for joining us. I promise that it will be worth your, worth your while to go and check that out. And health and blessings to you guys. Bye-bye.