Getting Pregnant Naturally_ Healthy Choi - Winifred Conkling [31]
Don’t Adopt a Child Because You Think It Will Help You Conceive
Many people believe that they will conceive a biological child after they adopt because they will no longer feel stress about conception. There is no truth to the conception-after-adoption myth. Over the past twenty years, repeated studies have found that the frequency of conception among adoptive parents is exactly the same as it is among parents who do not adopt. Of course, adoption offers the opportunity to have children for many couples who may never be able to have biological children. For more information on adoption, consult the organizations listed on page 179.
Practice Stress Relief Techniques
No matter how much stress you’re under, you can learn to relax and reverse the stress response by using various mind-body techniques. Studies have shown that well-trained individuals have the ability to use mind-body techniques to voluntarily lower their blood pressure and heart rate, alter their brainwave activity, reduce blood sugar levels, and ease muscle tension. With practice you, too, can put mind over stress and use the following techniques to relax and improve your chances of conceiving a child.
BIOFEEDBACK Biofeedback involves training yourself to use your mind to voluntarily control your body’s internal systems. Almost anyone can learn biofeedback, but it takes practice. It’s easy to get stressed out, but much more difficult to learn to relax and control the precise effect of mind over body.
To learn the skill, you must be able to measure your physical state. To do this, you attach electrodes to various parts of your body to measure your heart rate, breathing, perspiration, pulse, blood pressure, temperature, muscle tension, and brainwave patterns. A small machine on the other end of the wires displays the data, usually in the form of pictures, graphic lines, or audible beeps. Using this information, you can literally watch yourself relax or grow more tense.
You can actually learn to control your body’s internal processes by carefully studying the measurable changes in your body as you relax and change your thought patterns. Once you learn to adjust your physical state to promote relaxation, you can do it without all the equipment.
If you’d like to try biofeedback, ask your physician for a referral to an outpatient clinic or look for biofeedback centers listed in the phone book. Before making an appointment, ask about fees and whether the training will be covered by your health insurance plan. For a referral, you can also contact the Association for Applied Psychophysiology and Biofeedback, 10200 West 44th Avenue, Suite 304, Wheat Ridge, CO 80033; (303) 422-8436; or the Biofeedback Certification Institute of America, 10200 West 44th Avenue, Suite 310, Wheat Ridge, CO 80033; (303) 420-2902.
BREATHING Deep breathing helps to relax the body and quiet the mind. Unfortunately, when stressed most people don’t breathe right: Instead of inhaling deeply and drawing in plenty of oxygen, they take shallow, rapid, weak breaths, filling only the top part of the lungs. This so-called chest breathing, or thoracic breathing, fails to adequately oxygenate the blood, making it more difficult to manage stress. A better way of breathing is abdominal breathing, or diaphragmatic breathing. Abdominal breathing draws air deeply into the lungs, allowing the chest to fill with air and the belly to rise and fall. Newborn babies and sleeping adults practice abdominal breathing, though most adults lapse into chest breathing during their waking hours.
To relieve stress, become aware of your breathing and inhale more fully. You will immediately be able to feel the muscle tension and stress melt away in response to the improved oxygenation in your tissues.