We are setting our sights on you, PCOS!  We are in our labs right now mixing up a deadly concoction of brain-body therapy to rid you forever!

When we sent out our questionnaire a few months ago as to what next product you would like us to develop, PCOS was high up on the list. We’ve heard you and are working very hard to help you help yourself heal from PCOS.

By way of quick background, Polycystic Ovarian Syndrome (PCOS) is a hormone dysfunction. It effects approximately 1 in 10 women, and is most often never diagnosed unless there is a specific problem pertaining to trying to get pregnant. We don’t know the cause, nor do we have a pharmaceutical cure. PCOS symptoms vary to a large degree, but include not so fun things such as menstruation irregularity and anovulation, insulin-resistance and being overweight, male-pattern excess hair growth or loss (depending on location), depression and a few other wonderful traits.

Essentially, PCOS is a hormone inbalance. From my tons of research, I’ve uncovered the fact that we really don’t know which is the first “domino” to fall, but our cycles are completely out of whack. In a normal cycle, we have a hormonal feedback loop that starts with the Hypothalamus sending GnRH to the Pituitary which sends out LH and FSH in increasing amounts to the ovaries which in turn send estrogen back to the pituitary in increasing amounts to reduce the LH and FSH (and surge LH around ovulation)…and then progesterone enters the picture. Everything works in order to effect the menstrual cycle. With PCOS, there is either not enough estrogen (or too much andogens/testorone in relative figures), not enough LH or FSH (or too much of either of them) or not enough or too much progesterone. The cycle breaks down and can’t recover itself.

I was diagnosed with PCOS as a late teen – probably because I had a great OBGYN and a few symptoms such as irregular cycles. I had trouble with conception not so much with our first, but most definitely with our second child.

All this research has been bouncing around like a tennis balls in my head.  I am now convinced that we need to get our cycles back on track. Simple as that. If at some point the cycle broke down at one point AND our natural state is balance, then we can find the right feedback loop again. Our brain-body communication can do this, I’m convinced of it.  How?  A daily guided visualization to get the body back on track.

I think anyone with PCOS trying to get pregnant can benefit from our daily Natural Cycle program to help the hormones find balance, and then we are set out to create supplemental programs to be listened to every other day – one for insulin and weight loss, one for male-patterned issues, one for depression.  Anovulation and cycle irregularity will fix itself by virtue of the Natural Cycle program which focuses on hormonal changes and balance as you proceed through the cycle.

We sent out a tweet about 5 days ago asking for beta testers, and was overwhelmed with the response. As a fellow “cyster,” I know the frustration and contradictory information and the fact that there is no cure at this point. We are set to change that. Stay tuned.

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?

When people talk about Circle + Bloom they use different ways to describe our programs and how it works. We hear our programs referred to as meditation, mind-body therapy, relaxation exercises, etc.

To a certain extent our programs incorporate parts of all of these descriptive terms, but our programs are also different from all of these as well. As one customer said, “five years ago when I was doing fertility treatments I used a different meditation program and it did not even compare. I think the fact that the meditations change with the cycle really makes it much easier to get in touch with your mind and body”.

Stumbling across this great book called Made to Stick, I had an ephiphany. The book talks about the importance of using stories to help people remember and understand your message. Among many reasons, the book states stories resonate because they cause mental stimulation. The listener begins to imagine the events that are being told to them.

And here is the shocker. When we imagine an event unfolding in detail, the same modules in the brain are activated as when we are actually part of the event. The body and mind do not differentiate from the imagination and the actual event. The listener physically and emotionally connects to your story.

And there’s more. The authors shared the results of an experiment conducted by UCLA students. In the study, there were three groups, one group stimulated their brain in general terms. So for example, we might be thinking “I am not getting pregnant, and I want my body to get pregnant, I want my body to do what it needs to do to get pregnant.” The second group stimulated their brain in process terms. For example, “This is day ten of my cycle, and my body is doing what it should do to gear up for ovulation.” And then the third group’s thought in outcome terms – or – “I will get pregnant, and it will be so great when I get pregnant. I can visualize being pregnant.”

Which group do you think had better results of achieving what they were mentally thinking about achieving? Group Two! Thinking in process terms was much, much more effective.

What does all this have to do with what makes Circle + Bloom different? Absolutely everything!

Our programs are fundamentally built on the process terms foundation. We make the mental stimulation easy for you to apply this to the way you think about and go about conceiving. Our programs follow specifically what your body should be doing for optimal reproductive health during the conception and pregnancy phase. We know of no other meditation, mind-body or relaxation program that takes this approach. They will use either the general term approach or the outcome approach – both are good, but we do not feel as effective us the process approach.

There are a few other differences to other typical mind-body activities such as yoga, acupuncture, on site mind-body programs. Circle + Bloom can be done in the privacy of your own home, when you want, on your own time. No need to drive anywhere, no need to sit in waiting rooms. And yes the cost is much lower as well.

We hope this helps to explain what makes Circle + Bloom different. If you are using our programs and doing other things like yoga, meditation or “alternative therapies”, we would love to hear other differences that you see as well! Comment below!

We are constantly on the hunt here at Circle+Bloom to ensure that our product descriptions and overall company messaging gets to the point and the maximum number of people understand what we are all about.

Among other things, we’ve been focusing lately on the “cliff-notes” or short-hand way of describing our programs.

Historically we have been using “Mind-Body Programs.” Given feedback and various discussions we have had we feel that this description might be causing more confusion and not helping people understand our programs:

Enter the brain.

What is the true difference between the mind and the brain?  Our mind is our emotional-being, our existence beyond the physical make-up of our bodies – or better described as our souls.  On the other hand, we have our brains. Where we think. Where we analyze and make decisions. Where we direct our bodies (BOTH consciously and unconsciously) to do things. The brain works in complete harmony and in tandem with our bodies on a constant basis. Our thoughts and images communicates with and instructs the body – and then the body communicates back with our brain. When we think of our brains, we think of a specific area of our body, where our intelligence resides.

What it boils down to is the perceived value or the words that best describe and convey our program descriptions. We are using our BRAINS to visualize and think and therefore enable our BODIES to improve our own reproductive ability.  Hence we have been using such descriptions as the Brain-Fertility Connection, the Brain-Body, and Brain-Health.  Our programs use our brains in a new way to make our bodies do what we want it to do.

What do you think of when you hear “Mind-Body” or the difference between the Brain and Mind?  How would you go about describing our programs?

Having a list of intentions – or some people like to call affirmations – can be life changing. Here are mine. I would love to hear yours.

We would LOVE for this to be a “wiki” list of intentions. Please add your own in the comments section.

I have a love affair with interior design. Since launching Circle+Bloom, however, I have had no time to dedicate to it except to stumble across a few blogs here and there. Today I came across this image and it really struck a chord deep inside. Here is the image:

What I see is the most beautiful blurring of lines. The old mixed with the new. Seeing our world in new patterns and textures, and the possibilities are limitless.

This pattern of mixing-it-up – I believe is repeating itself everywhere. At a societal level, I see it happening with increased sensitivity and awareness of race (look at the growth and acceptance of multi-racial adoption, for example). On an economic level, old mindsets of working for a living is falling away to the Four Hour Work Week and thinking creatively on how to make a living. From a healthcare perspective, we see professionals embracing mind-body therapies, which are as old as Hippocrates, as the “third leg of the healthcare stool.”

I think it is such an exciting time to be alive. The possibilities of mixing disparate elements to create something new….what do you mix?

I have had an amazing couple of weeks, a beginning of a life style change that I know will help me live my life to the fullest. I joined Joanne at Circle + Bloom because I wanted to make more of a difference in the world. That might seem odd, but something stirred within me as I thought about helping women struggling with infertility, an incredibly painful health issue, with an approach that might not only help with fertility but could also positively change how they approach their health and well-being. About a month ago, Joanne and I started to think about our next program and this desire to make a larger impact was front and center. How great would it be if our next program could offer additional help to women TTC, but also anyone in the world…..and our Energy for Empowerment program was born.

In order to inspire you to take the first steps to take control of your health and well-being I decided it would be fun to share a few highlights from my experience of using the new program. I also hope you will have a few laughs at my expense.

• It will not surprise anyone who knows me that my initial reaction was 20 minutes per a session was way too long. I was nervous that I would get bored listening to each session, and that my “to-do” list would never get done if I took 20 minutes out of my day. But on the first day, I plopped myself down on the couch and started to listen and was very surprised when I heard Joanne’s voice say, “This concludes session A”.   I was downright pissed…what do you mean concludes, I am not ready to conclude, keep going!

• The first day I started to use the program my teenage son barged into the room looking for clean clothes. You would have thought he caught me having sex based on his initial reaction of seeing his mother looking all relaxed lying on a couch with an i-pod and headphones. He eventually recovered and said, “Mom you are so weird, get a life.”

• Completely exhausted one afternoon, all I could think about was taking a nap. I realized I should give C+B a chance, if I was going to tell people to buy the program to help with energy then I should use it when I needed energy. To be honest I was also thinking I could still sneak in a nap after I listened. After I finished listening to TWO sessions I told my husband “I feel light, refreshed, and my unmade bed will be ready for me tonight at 11:30 after I watch the last episode of Lost.” BTW I loved the ending of Lost.

• In one of the sessions Joanne asks you to think about any emotions that might be zapping your energy and finding a way to let them go. I immediately had a vision of juggling and all these balls were falling towards me from every direction – each of those balls represented a different responsibility; buying a house, selling a house, mother to a 4 and 15 year old, wife, disciplining my kids so they are not spoiled brats, giving everything I have to my kids so they feel my love…… Joanne then said to let go and I visualized catching each ball and throwing them into a lake. I am not sure why a lake, but that is where they went, and that is where they stayed. It was very liberating.

• Over the course of the last two weeks I found my mind wondered less while I listened and the visualization exercises became easier. One of my most bizarre visualizations was when my mind went to my “youthful, bar hoping days” when I felt like I could dance all night. I started to visualize my circulation system having a great time on the dance floor. I changed the image of “slobbering drunk dancer” – which I have to admit was me back in those days – to “sophisticated sexy dancer” – which I will never be, but hey that is the beauty of this mind-body thing, you can create what ever you want!

One night my husband and I listened to the sleep session together right before bed, it was a fun thing to do together, and the note he left me as he slipped out the door at 6:00 AM says it all.

Over the last couple of weeks I have seen positive changes. I have been able to get through the day with just one ice coffee, not my typical two. Yoga class seems to be easier, I am able to stay in the mediations a bit better and hold the poses slightly longer than normal. I have slept through the night much more often and that knot right below my shoulder blade – gone!

I know I am biased, but I absolutely love this program, it is the beginning of a life style change for me, incorporating the powerful mind-body connection daily. It makes me feel refreshed, energized and puts a smile on my face as I do the visualization exercises.

I hope you will give the program a try, make sure to try the different sessions, listen to them at different times of the day, and in different relaxed positions and you will begin to find what works best for you. Enjoy, and please share your experiences with us!

And we just released the program! Click here to get started…

Tired all the time? Check. Overworked and overstressed? Check. Can’t get a good night’s sleep? Check.

Don’t we all suffer from low energy levels? Does low energy impact your levels of fertility or other health related issues in your life? I have always struggled with energy levels – even since when I was a teenager. Sue and I brainstormed a few months ago and asked ourselves what health-related issue do a lot of women struggle with that we could address?  And when we stumbled across the energy for empowerment idea, our light-bulbs went off.

We initially set out to create a new free Mp3 program – something that all women could use (not just those who are in the trying to conceive stage) and when I started to do research around all of the ways the body uses, stores and supply energy, we determined that there is too much to cover and to do the program justice, it would need to be its own series of programs.

Each session covers a main topic, and they include: Metabolism, Endocrine Health, Circulation and Sleep. The total length of the program will be about 80 – 90 minutes and follows our same structure as our other programs: (i) progressive relaxation and deep breathing; (ii) physical visualizations to help correct and balance the body; and an (iii) emotional exercise designed to help you reach your goals of personal excellence in your life and in your body.

My sister Sue, who has not been as involved in our product development, has been one of our beta users and will be writing a post about her experience using the program and how it has been changing her life. Very exciting and we are in the final stages of launching the program! Check back in a few days…