As our good friend Keiko recently wrote, I’m “gonna get my dork on” and show you the awesome books that I am bringing on vacation. I can’t wait to eat them up. I don’t think I am over emphasizing when I say that reading has changed my life.  It has opened my brain to new ways of thinking and approaching life. I wasn’t always a huge reader – it kind of grew into a passion while I was commuting into New York every day and had a good 3 hours to kill.

Fiction is not for me. I love a good book filled with real stories, real people, and real circumstances. And then I apply them to my situation and it feeds my brain and gives me new ideas.

I just got back from Barnes & Noble and my local library. Here are the books that I intend to gobble up while I lay like a vegetable on the beach.

I even like the way they LOOK.  Don’t judge a book by its cover?  Yeah right – I do it all the time!  Aren’t these covers gorgeous?  Look at the Proust Was a Neuroscience by Jonah Leher (who also write an awesome blog called The Frontal Cortex on the Wired Magazine website).

If any of them warrant more attention after I read them, we will add them to our Books We Love category.

Do you share a similar passion for books? What do you like?

Just a quick note to say that we are beyond thrilled with the unbelievable response we have received from the launch of our new IVF/IUI Mind-Body Program!  If you haven’t done so yet, click on over and see all the details.

In our effort to pass along great books related to empowerment and fertility, we are happy to let you know about Healing Mind, Healthy Woman by Alice Domar, M.D.

Dr. Alice Domar, who has been described as the “Queen of Fertility,” is the author of this resource that should be on every woman’s bookshelf. My copy is full of dog-eared pages and sticky notes jutting out this way and that because so much of it is poignant to our research and product development. Healing Mind, Healthy Woman explains how to use our mind-body connection to better manage stress and take better care of ourselves.

Not only does it cover the basics of the mind-body connection and methods we can employ immediately to improve our outlook and health, but it also is full of wonderful stories – examples of real woman overcoming odds and changing their lives. A large portion of the book is dedicated to infertility and the “hidden relationship between fertility and stress,” which is her professional focus through her work with Boston IVF.

I love that the focus sits squarely on excessive, negative thought-patterns. I’ve always held the notion that stress is definitely cause by our daily environment, but I’ve wondered how much of our stress is actually caused by hurtful inner commentary – all those old “records” that play in our minds that we unconsciously take as truth. Awareness of these thoughts allow us to begin to change them and is the first step towards a more optimistic outlook and increased control over our lives.

Here is a video where Alice speaks directly about stress and relaxation:

I highly recommend this book! We also invite Ms. Domar to review our fertility programs. We’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback.

Lately I have been learning the art of meditation for extended periods of time in solitude.  We sometimes refer to our mind-body programs as a fertility meditation – but I think of the study of meditation as more an umbrella term for any exercise when we quiet our mind for a certain uninterrupted period of time.  Our mind-body programs can be classified as meditation, I suppose, but it is much more directed to help you visualize and think in a certain fashion for optimum health and well-being.  What I have been trying is to simply quiet my mind on my own…harder than it sounds!

For the past few years I have been reading and studying Ekhart Tolle’s philosophy about staying in the present moment and using meditation as a catalyst to strengthen this “muscle” to stay rooted all day. It’s powerful, and can be life-changing.

In his book, Power of Now, he gives instructions about how to meditate and become closer to the underlying energy behind everyone and everything.  Rather than try to summarize his philosophy – which would be redundant since his books are readily available, I thought I would share what I learned from him on meditating.

In summary, here are the steps I take to meditate:

1.  In solitude, find a comfortable sitting position and close my eyes.  I like to face a window and feel the sun on my face;

2.  Take three deep breaths, while focusing on the inhale and exhale, imaging the flow of positive energy into my body;

3.  Visualize a circular mesh or screen that passes through my body and catches anything that shouldn’t be there – whether the beginnings of illness, errant cell development, excess stress;

4.  Keep my attention focused on my body and feel the subtle flow of energy, also known as Qi (pronounced “chee”), throughout my entire being.  Just sensing it and feeling it without judgment or wanting to change it;

5.  Moving deeper with my awareness into my body to the quiet place inside that I feel is the provider of this energy. If you are religious or spiritual, then it might be helpful to think of God, or a universal power behind everything.  I try to then fell the presence and that it fills my being.  I try to sit with this sense or feeling for as long as possible – but the longest has only been a few short minutes, which will hopefully lengthen as I work to strengthen my ability to stay focused.

What happens as a result?  A glimpse and honest true feeling of what is behind my soul. I feel an incredible sense of deep peace that stays with me after I open my eyes and bring my awareness to the moment. It doesn’t happen all the time, but I truly feel blessed when it does.

Feeling and sensing this energy while I meditate allows me to stay rooted in the present moment throughout the rest of the day. If I feel anger, impatience, or just a negative or melancholy feeling, I bring my attention back into my body and find my peace again.  I have been also finding that answers to problems arise much more fluently.

Do you meditate?  Will you share your regimen and how you go about it?

Cindy, at 40 years of age, was told by her fertility doctor that she had a two percent chance of conceiving on her own. In that moment, her heart “turned to lead and dropped to the floor.” She knew going into the trying-to-conceive process that she would have a difficult time being in her early forties, but she was not expected to be given such a grim prognosis. During that same day, however, Cindy had another reaction. She simply decided to refuse the prognosis. She decided right then and there that she was not going to live by the statistic. She took matters in her own hands and begun researching natural, holistic methods of aiding fertility. She refused to believe that she was not going to have her own child. She started to make changes.

Bolstered by research, she put herself on a strict fertility friendly diet, among other natural healing regimens, such as yoga, visualization and meditation. Four months later, to the astonishment of her doctor and to her own breathless amazement, she got pregnant naturally and later delivered a healthy baby boy. What that experience taught her was a lot about trusting her instincts, which is something that I try to instill into each and every visualization program that we do. As she says “conception holds an element of wondrous mystery, and over that mystery we have little control. We can meet it halfway, though, because we do have control over our bodies, minds and emotions – even if it doesn’t feel like it sometimes.” I loved these general tips she offered in the introduction section of her book, which are applicable to anyone going through this heart-wrenching experience:

1. Believe in yourself without doubt. See the end in mind and don’t let go. Your future child needs you to believe in him or her.
2. Do all you can. You have more power than you think.
3. Nurture yourself along the way, give yourself breaks.
4. Surrender. This might be the hardest step of all. After you’ve done all you can, you need to let go and allow the mystery to unfold.

Motivated by this life-changing experience, she set out to write about her fertility diet research and, along with her husband, crafted this beautiful book that is both filled with interesting recipes and well-researched facts about what to put into our bodies to optimize our fertility. The basic methodology behind her dietary recommendations are all based upon reducing the physical stress on our bodies. She writes “of all the systems in the body (digestive, immune, respiratory and so on), the reproductive system is the most expendable. You don’t need it to survive. So when the body is stressed, it’s one of the first systems to be neglected or shut down. The body redirects energy elsewhere.”

She continues, “stress comes in many forms, though. Eating the wrong foods also stresses the body. Reducing stress on the body in order to make more energy available to support your endocrine function and general reproductive system.” So easing the energy requirements needed to process our diets helps energy to be directed in other areas of our body; most importantly, the reproductive system. She provides a plethora of dietary guidelines and ideas that support these goals, along with easy-to-make recipes using wholesome ingredients that are all meant to be digested easily.

Susan, who loves to cook and to try new recipes, was excited about this review and wanted to try one of the dishes featured. She decided on the Vietnamese Chicken Noodle Soup that has rice noodles, vegetable broth, broccoli and a huge bunch of cilantro and basil (although they suggest to have those on the side to add if you like). She said it was a snap to make and so delicious. The book is chuck-full of recipes like this that look interesting, easy-to-make and delicious and each recipe is very well explained with full color photographs. I may have my chef (and husband) try the Lamb Curry in Coconut Milk and Chicken en Papillotes, which look absolutely delicious. The recipes also include very simple every day type ideas such as Garlic Pasta, Fluffy Rice, and Omelets.

So what are you waiting for?  Run over to her site and buy her book! Learn from Cindy what she did to help herself and benefit directly from her mounds of dietary research, cook some wonderful meals and take greater control over your life. Let the “mystery to unfold” like it did for Cindy and find inner resolve to keep on your fertility journey.

The true story of a little boy named Garrett has to be one of the most inspiring examples on the power of a vivid imagination and the mind body intelligence to self-heal. Garrett had an inoperable brain tumor and after intense radiation treatments the tumor sat basically untouched. His doctors said to his parents “we have done everything we can do, so take him home and make him as comfortable as you can. It is terminal.”

His parents decided to not give up on their boy and they took him to the Biofeedback Center at the Menninger Clinic, where he was taught self-regulation techniques, which is how to control his body with his mind through imagery exercises. He went home with the imagery audio tape the clinic gave him to continue his self-regulation techniques at home. Garrett quickly decided the tape was very boring and created his own new imagery to use.

He made it exciting and fun, setting it up like a video game with rocket ships soaring through his head and shooting his tumor. He imaged the cancer as “a big round dumb-looking thing” and blasted at it regularly. He kept up his game, many times with out adults knowing, and one day, months later, he woke up and realized he could no longer find the “big round dumb-looking thing.” When he told his father the news, his farther was concerned that Garrett had given up. His father tried to help him concentrate and find the tumor, but Garrett just kept telling his Dad that there was only a “normal brain in his head.”

It took a fall down the a set of stairs until Garrett received another CAT scan to check for a skull fracture. The scan showed results that were truly unbelievable to the doctors who had treated Garrett: The tumor was entirely gone.

In his groundbreaking New York Times best-selling book Love Medicine & Miracles, Bernie Siegel MD writes about Garrett and the power of his imagination that “blasted” the tumor away, resulting in an incredible display of the mind body connection that can heal even the terminally ill. Bernie explains, at its core, Mind + Body medicine is the interconnectedness of our thoughts and emotions with our health.

Mind Body Medicine, or Psychoneuroimmunology, is a topic that encompass such a wide expanse of research – ranging from advanced medical studies currently being done at most of the top colleges and universities, to eastern-based highly spiritual philosophies and everything in-between.

The Mind Body approach to healing also spans an enormous amount of human history – very much predating modern medicine with some pointing to Descartes as the turning point of how humans thought of their brain, soul, and body. It holds the keys to our emotions, our immune system, our levels of stress, our health conditions, diseases and life-span. Some professionals call it the future of medicine, even though it is centuries old. We believe it is being brought back to life due to a variety of reasons, one of which is the disastrous state of our healthcare system. More importantly, however, is the fact that there is a growing body of scientific evidence that proves its existence.

Mind body science is essentially learning how we can use the other 90% of our brain in an effort to heal ourselves, and to have executive power over our own health. We no longer have to give the keys over to an expensive and over-stressed healthcare system. We can start now – even though we may be relatively healthy – and take control over our bodies. Using the other 90% of our brain on one hand is very easy – at the basic level all it takes is an understanding at a high level of how our bodies work, and an understanding of how we can listen to our bodies. On the other hand, it can be difficult because of the way our culture has come to rely on drugs and medicine, as well as our inherent reliance on others to fix our own health. Diagnosed with severe health-related problems, most people take their doctor’s prescriptions as “gospel” and usually don’t look inside and listen to their own intuition and bodily needs.

We interviewed Bernie Siegel, M.D. to explore how we can use this “new way” of thinking about our bodies to improve overall wellness, heal ourselves, and improve our emotional outlook.

In summary, how does the mind/body connection work?

“Through consciousness. One can create images and then program the body which acts like the event is truly happening. Like rehearsing for a performance, when you act as if you are happy or sad your chemistry changes and the body believes you are. The body communicates to the mind via images and feelings so dreams and drawings can reveal one’s anatomy and state of health. The feelings relate to the chemistry caused by emotions. so laughter enhances one’s health and well being while fear does the opposite.”

How can we use it to bring our bodies back to a healthy and natural state?

“Just like actors and athletes, rehearse and practice becoming the person you want to be. As AA says, fake it till you make it. Ask people to guide and coach you and help you become who you want to be. It also means abandoning the messages from destructive authority figures. I call it re-parenting yourself.”

How long does it take to work?

“It can happen in a moment. Learn you have a short time to live and you start doing what makes you happy and prolong your life. Your body loves you and when it knows you love your life it does all it can to keep you alive. Monday mornings have more heart attacks, strokes, suicides, etc. because your body is responding to the lack of joy in your life.”

Here are our three simple tips to begin now to integrate mind body wellness into your daily routine.

1. Become curious about how your body works.

The knowledge – and therefore the ability to visualize – either the wellness of your body, or your health problem is absolutely key. A central theme in our fertility visualization program works everyday to provide the correct visualization of what the monthly cycle is accomplishing during that time of the month. The little boy had the imagination to go inside his brain, visualize his cancer and subsequently kill it. Once you have that knowledge, you can essentially leave it up to your intuition to tell you how to go about the most effective visualization and getting as granular as possible.

2. Become the observer of your thoughts.

Our minds work tirelessly. It’s almost impossible for most of us to stop our brain from its chatter. What can happen when we start to become the observer of our thoughts, something inside begins to shift. One of the things to remember when doing this, however, is not be judgmental of your thoughts. Don’t try to change them, just be curious about them. Observe the emotions that bubble to the surface, how your body feels when you have such thoughts. This could be an entire article in and of itself, and many people have written spectacular books on the subject…most notably, Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Wherever You Go There You Are and Ekhart Tolle’s A New Earth.

3. Practice Deep Breathing Exercises, Meditate, and/or Practice Yoga

In combination with becoming aware of your thoughts and having the knowledge of how your body operates, you can begin to integrate deep breathing, meditation and movement into your everyday life. By simply taking a moment during the day to take a very deep and slow breath, open your senses to take clues as to what you are feeling, and then visualize the inward balancing of your physical state. Letting your intuition be your guide. Don’t judge yourself; just accept what your body is telling you. Again, it’s amazing that this little boy was able to heal himself intentionally, but what’s just as amazing is that his body spoke back to him. He saw no more cancer. He didn’t need his doctor to tell him that it was gone. As you begin this practice, you will build trust within to strengthen these inward connections.

Another great idea by a fellow TTCer: The IVF Companion. Stephanie Fry, who has gone through multiple ART treatments, created the IVF Companion as a personal coping mechanism and decided to publish it so others can experience its benefits.

Her hope is that it will be a positive tool that will help to reduce stress and empower women to advocate for themselves while preparing for and going through In Vitro and other ART treatments.

Having a review copy, I quickly saw the numerous benefits of the book. The IVF Companion is great way to keep track of not only your treatments, finances and cycle dates but of your feelings, thoughts and overall state-of-mind.

Feel in greater control over this very stressful process and as a result, reduce stress and improve your probably of success.

Like Bernie Siegel M.D., Candace Pert Ph.D. is a medical professional who has gone against the grain of traditional science to explore – and ultimately prove – the connection between the mind and the body. Dedicating her life to researching the molecular interconnectedness between our brains and the rest of our body, Ms. Pert is widely respected for her meticulous research and uncovering the truth.

In her book, “Molecules of Emotion,” Ms. Pert has proved that the body is not a mindless machine; the body and mind are one. According to Deepak Chopra:

“Candace provides us with a vivid scientific picture of these truths. She shows us that our biochemical messengers act with intelligence by communicating information, orchestrating a vast complex of conscious and unconscious activities at any one moment. There is a revolution taking form that is significantly influencing how the Western medical community views health and disease.“

The book reads like a detective novel, following Candace through every turn during her career and the challenges she overcame. It starts off with a very good description of the basic biology of these “molecules of emotion,” demonstrating that the surface of each molecule has a series of receptor sites that accept proteins, or methods of communication – and, like a key that fits squarely in lock, opens the door and changes the cell. Happening both within the body and brain, our cells are constantly talking to each other back and forth, and our feelings and emotions literally leave physical imprints of this detailed and complex inner communication.

Pert believes that the nervous, endocrine, and immune systems are interlocked in a body-wide system where each part can communicate with every other part. This concept challenges the prevailing idea that the mind has power over the body. Instead, according to Pert, bodily emotions are the key. “Emotions are the nexus between mind and matter, going back and forth between the two and influencing both.”

She spends the majority of the latter part of the book explaining how we can proactively use this information for the sake of our own health. It is Candace’s position that letting ourselves express our emotions – both positive and negative – is tantamount to health. Thoughts have energy that literally change our bodies.

Dr. Candace Pert is an internationally recognized pharmacologist who has published over 250 scientific articles on peptides and their receptors and the role of these neuropeptides in the immune system. Dr. Candace Pert received her Ph.D. in pharmacology from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, served as Chief of the Section on Brain Biochemistry of the Clinical Neuroscience Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), held a Research Professorship in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at Georgetown University School of Medicine in Washington, DC, and is currently the Scientific Director of RAPID Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

If not obvious throughout the post, I highly suggest to pick up this book and educate yourself regarding your own body. Knowledge is power!