Free The Headspace Guide To … A Mindful Pregnancy by Andy Puddicombe Page B

increasingly tense as we start marking up the calendar, glancing at our watches, scouring the internet for answers or dragging our partners out of work in the middle of the day to catch the optimum time for ovulation. While this is understandable in the circumstances, there is a vast difference between checking and doing things mindfully, with consideration, and doing them obsessively
    As the mother in her thirties told me:
    It’s a vicious circle. Once six months have passed, the worries start to build, to the point that it was all I could think about. The more time that goes on, the more you try to keep a lid on things, and a smile on your face, but the pressure is hard to escape. Sex became exhausting, not only because it became more of a hop-on, hop-off routine, but because it increasingly started to feel hopeless with each passing month. And then, to make matters worse, you see friends getting pregnant and you are so happy for them, but that joy is tinged with that horrible thought, Why you and not me?
    Mindfulness brings a perspective that allows us to dial things back a bit, meaning we’re not swept up in the ‘We need, we need, we need to get pregnant’. Anxious thoughts will always be there – how can they not be? – but we can get comfortable with them, releasing the tension in the very best interests of creating an environment conducive to getting pregnant.
LEARNING TO LET GO
    If you think back to Chapter 2 and that idea of how best to approach meditation, it could just as easily have been written about fertility. We cannot force a state of relaxation, so the harder we try to relax, the more tense we become. Such is the complicated mind.
    If we apply this to trying to get pregnant, we quickly see that excessive focus and effort can easily tip over into something more harmful, creating stress which actually further reduces our chances of conception. So, if we are going to do this, we need to know how best to go about it. The short answer is that it is less about ‘doing’ and more about ‘being’. The intention is to create the conditions for a calm and happy mind, and a relaxed and more receptive body. You’ll find a specific exercise that will help you with this on pp. 194–6.
    Any fertility expert will tell you that a woman is most likely to conceive when the body and mind are at ease. This is why couples are sometimes advised to take a holiday or to reduce the number of hours at work where possible, because high stress and anxiety form a barrier to conception, putting the body in a non-receptive state. Look at it this way: if you’re a zebra fleeing from a lion that wants to maul you, your body will be gripped by fear and stress and in no position to ovulate. Granted, as a couple yearning for a baby, you may not be able to fully identify with a zebra on the run across the savannah, but your anxiety and worries illicit the same biological responses. Hence, fertility experts will so often prescribe stress-reduction techniques – and none is more effective than mindfulness.
    Stress reduction improves blood flow to the reproductive organs and aids with regulating the menstrual cycle, helping to achieve optimal ovulation. Women tend to find their sensitivity to hormone production then increases, which leads to a more receptive environment for conception. With reduced cortisol and adrenaline levels, combined with a spike in the secretion of endorphins, the entire body becomes a healthier, more inviting place for human life to take form. The irony, of course, is that this state of relaxation so often occurs when couples have tried very hard for a period of time and have then given up. It is almost as though in the relief of no longer trying, the mind at last surrenders and the body is able to relax and conceive.
    This demonstrates very well the power of letting go. But that doesn’t mean letting go of your intention to have a child and becoming passive. Not at all. It means letting go of the attachment