Our Happy Mind and Healthy Body Program, which improves your health, was recently reviewed by a member of The Connected Mom. The Connected Mom is a natural parenting site that focuses on fostering positive connections with our children, our communities, our planet, and each other. We are happy to share this review with you.

Circle+Bloom’s Happy Mind and Healthy Body Program

I’m writing the final in the trilogy of our reviews of our sponsor, Circle + Bloom’s, programs. Like Kayce and Mandi before me, I was excited by the opportunity to try out the meditation program. However, this was not my first experience with meditation programs. When I was pregnant with my son, I took hypnobirthing classes. I knew from that personal experience the potential for longevity the ideas of meditation programs have. (I STILL find the affirmations about birth and motherhood I heard during those sessions bubbling up in my head from time to time!) So, I was eager to experience what circle + bloom had to offer with their Happy Mind and Healthy Body program and I was not disappointed.

I have briefly mentioned that I do have depression. The truth is that I have been struggling with it a lot since my move. The rough part of depression is that it often becomes harder to fight in times of transition . . .no matter how happy the transition. So, I struggled with it when I finished college, I struggled with it when we got married, I struggled with it after my son is born, and now that we have moved cross country, I’ve been struggling with it again. It feels like you are treading a powerful current that keeps trying to suck you down. One morning, I found myself crying five times before lunch and it can be difficult to explain to others exactly what is wrong when it literally is all in your head! It can be especially difficult when cognitively, you know that your life is good, but emotionally, you still feel depressed. This has been my life for the last month or so since we moved, although many people I know will be surprised to read this as I have kept my struggle fairly private. So, when offered a chance to review a product that gave a chance at a “Happy mind.” I thought, “Yes!”

Happy Mind and Healthy body is a called a “21 day program,” but with four “weeks” of sessions and a bonus session, it could be used for a much longer period if you wanted to (and I intend to). Like the programs Kayce and Mandi reviewed, this one tackles a different aspect of health every week and you listen to the same session everyday for a few days or a week period.

Honestly, my favorite sessions were the first and the last of the regular sessions. These were the sessions that dealt directly with the “Happy Mind” portion of the program. The sessions in the middle were focused on the healthy body and involved very, very deep physical relaxation exercises that were difficult for me to completely participate in given that my son (much like his fetal self during my hypnobirthing sessions who used to kick me incessantly and do flips) seemed to have a sixth sense for when I would be attempting to do the program with my headphones and would nearly always wake up/cry/ask to nurse at some point during the session no matter how asleep he should have been during nap or after bedtime.

The first session was an overview that emphasized the power of the mind over the body and what one can accomplish when one engages oneself fully. It also laid the basis for how to adapt the program to whatever health goals you want it to accomplish. The last week was entitled “Positive Thinking/Mindfulness” and I found that after just two days of listening to the program, I felt less like crying and more in charge of my emotions again. It was a little like being able to come home to myself once more instead of constantly fighting with the crazy person who sometimes tries to take charge of my body. I’ve tried journaling for my depression, going to counseling for my depression, listening to uplifting music for my depression, and changing my diet for my depression, but this is the first time that it’s only taken two days for something to make me feel better. It was awesome. I can’t say it would work this way for everyone, but it certainly did for me and since I finished that week, I’ve found I have more energy and am struggling significantly less with my depression!

The mp3 program can be downloaded from their website here and only costs $24.00 with a 100% money-back guarantee. Isn’t it worth a try?

Welcome our guest blogger A Birth Within. “The journey to becoming a parent is a different road for every woman. Fertility by Hypnosis® relieves stress and empowers women to fulfill their dreams and prepare their mind, body and spirit to conceive a child.”

Due to its unique ability to address the body, mind, and spirit, hypnosis has been used for many decades to treat a variety of health conditions. Today more than ever, physicians and their patients are taking the need for holistic care to heart, and those struggling with infertility are looking for ways to maximize its treatment and minimize the stress and pain it can cause.

Fertility challenges often result from a constellation of factors, and a diagnosis of “unexplained infertility” can be especially confusing and discouraging. Chronic stress, anxiety, or depression can result in a suppression of the reproductive system. The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS)—a network of nerves connecting the organs of the body to the spinal cord—is responsible for maintaining the body’s internal equilibrium. The sympathetic nervous system is a component of the ANS that is responsible for the infamous “fight or flight” response to stressors. Intense or repeated emotional responses to personal, social, and work-related stressors can cause a physical reaction in the body, throwing it into a state of emergency. Since the reproductive system is unnecessary for immediate survival, its function is suppressed and the body’s energy is directed elsewhere in preparation to fight or flee. This response is our body’s way of protecting us from harm; however, modern-day stressors can be constant and all-consuming, leaving us suspended in survival mode.

Common stressors that may affect fertility (to name only a few) include the strain of “trying” to conceive and being unsuccessful; worry that you’ve “waited too long” to try to conceive; anxiety caused by invasive infertility-related medical procedures; unresolved grief from a previous miscarriage or abortion; memories or current experiences of abuse; and persistent beliefs that you will be a bad parent or be unable to conceive.

Negative messages that we receive from the media, family, friends, co-workers, and healthcare providers can manifest themselves as subconscious blocks, preventing the body from regaining the equilibrium lost in fight or flight. As long as the negative thoughts or feelings generated in response to these messages are internalized, or stored in the subconscious, they can possibly alter ovulation patterns, disrupt hormonal balance, and lead to any number of other barriers to conception.

Hypnosis is the most direct and effective way of tapping into the subconscious mind. Far from the strange, amusing, (sometimes even frightening!) portrayals of stage hypnosis that we see on TV, the hypnotic trance is as natural as a daydream and entirely self-controlled. Skilled hypnotherapists can ease you into a relaxed state where you will become acquainted with your subconscious and begin to reverse the negative thoughts and feelings that are potentially damaging to fertility.

Fertility hypnosis programs are not only designed to aid relaxation and enhance the efficacy of medical treatments, they are designed to help you get your life back and look forward to all its possibilities. You will become empowered to stop waiting for the other shoe to drop, stop preparing for the “worst case scenario,” and instead look forward to experiencing a healthy pregnancy and appreciating the natural healing powers of your mind and body.

About A Birth Within

Jacqui Pilla is the founder of A Birth Within, and Meg DeSanta, certified fertility and Birth by Hypnosis® consultant. A Birth Within offers both fertility (Fertility by Hypnosis®) and pre-conception hypnosis programs at its North Andover practice in person and by phone. For more information, visit its Website at www.abirthwithin.com.

We are pleased to be working with The Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness – NYC on offering a complimentary mind-body seminar.

Join Joanne Verkuilen from Circle+Bloom in a special meditation and mind-body series to help you learn powerful visualization techniques for not only your fertility, but your overall health and well-being.

Learn stress reduction techniques that you can use on your own to help your body detox from excess cortisol and other harmful stress-related hormones. Free your body for fertility. Free your soul from stress. 45 minutes per session.

• Learn progressive body scanning techniques to relax all major muscles groups as well as to calm and center your heart, mind and spirit
• Quiet the mind to improve feelings of control
• Learn creative visualization and stress reduction techniques to awaken the beauty and peace within and to help you improve your fertility quotient

When
Every Second Thursday of Each Month
7:00pm to 7:45pm
Next Group Meets March 10th, 2011

Where
The Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness – NYC
16 East 40th Street, 2nd Fl, New York, NY 10016
www.newyorkfertilityacupuncture.com

Registration Required
There is no charge for this event, but you must register as space is limited.
Please register via phone or email: 212.685.0985 / patientservices@berkleycenter.com

“The truth is: love heals.” – Bernie Siegel, M.D.

Welcome to week 4 of our new How Einstein Would Get Pregnant blog series to learn more about how we can proactively use our brains to influence our bodies and reproductive health.

This week, we are positively thrilled to have our own “Einstein” – Dr. Bernie Seigel for a special Q&A. We spent a half-hour with him discussing the role of the mind and how it influences our health and fertility. In fact, he discusses one story in particular with one of his nurses who was having trouble getting pregnant and how he helped her change that around through visualization.

Bernie (as he likes to be called) was an early supporter for Circle+Bloom, and we are so proud that he endorses our programs, is on our Advisory Board and has us listed on his website.

Watch this video introduction to learn more and check back tomorrow!

This incredible email was waiting for me on this Monday morning and I thought I would share it with you in all its glory. Thank YOU Jennifer for writing this, for using our programs and promising to shout from the rooftops when you hit your second trimester! She is a patient of Mike Berkley of the Berkley Center for Reproductive Wellness in NYC, who offers our programs to every patient while they are being treated. We love that!

Subject: Just wanted to say thanks!!

Hi–

I’ve been trying to get pregnant via IUI with donor sperm for the last year. It’s been an incredibly stressful and disappointing process, not to mention expensive! At the beginning of September my doctor told me we would have to do a natural cycle this month, because there was a cyst in my ovary that hadn’t quite resolved. I was so upset I actually cried on the phone to the nurse who gave me the news. It felt like this month was going to be a total waste of time, money, and emotional energy.

I had done acupuncture intermittently during this past year, but figured it couldn’t hurt to focus on it this month when we weren’t doing any other medical interventions. The acupuncturist recommended the Circle & Bloom meditation series. I have meditated in the past, but never regularly or consistently. But I started doing the meditations in the morning and at night, every day. I found they made me so much calmer in every area of my life, and kept my thinking much more positive. I didn’t get trapped in negative ruminations and sink into depression like I had other months.

I was recommending the meditations to my friends, just based on how much better I felt when I was doing them, and how much easier they made this whole process. But then this morning I took a pregnancy test, and I was pregnant! And given that this was a “natural” cycle, I have to give full credit to the meditations.

Thank you so much, and I promise that, assuming all goes well, in three months when I tell people I am pregnant, I will also become one of your most ardent promoters.

Regards,
Jennifer

With this study published definitely linking stress and trying to conceive, we are one giant step closer to understanding more about our female bodies.

Three years ago when I had my “a-ha” moment, standing in my kitchen holding a cup of coffee, with the idea of Circle+Bloom banging me on the top of the head, the stress-fertility connection was only a theory. Over and over we heard friends who “gave up trying” and either adopted or decided to go childless, and they ended up naturally pregnant.

Even my own experience seemed to show the connection: our first baby came with us “trying but not trying,” – we weren’t using birth control, nor were we expecting anything to happen. Our second child was a completely different story. With my biological clock ticking like Big Ben, our work to get pregnant a second time was just that: work. Four years of work.

Now, we have 284 women to thank for shedding light on the subject. With the study published in the Journal of Fertility and Sterility, we can now conclusively say that there is a most definite connection between the length of trying to get pregnant and levels of stress.

Of course there are a multitude of other factors that may be impeding your fertility: PCOS, endometriosis, premature ovarian failure, cysts, etc., etc. This doesn’t mean, however, that you should ignore the stress component if you do have a diagnosed condition. Working through your stress issues will give you peace of mind and having a better feeling of control over your fertility and may give you the strength to carry on.

So let’s celebrate this new-found knowledge! Use it to our advantage! Say NO to stress!

I can hear you yelling at me right now though. Is this easier said than done? This raises questions for ourselves such as how much stress do we really experience in our lives? How can I really reduce stress and relax? How do I know if it is working?

Here are five tips to begin to think differently about your life, your stress and your ability to become pregnant:

1. View the stress-infertility link with a sense of optimism and take control of your fertility. Knowledge is power, and this study brings us closer to making our pregnancy dreams a reality. Think about this as a way to restart your fertility journey.

2. Assess what brings you peace, joy and fulfillment. Every single day, find the simple things in life and find gratitude for them. For me, it could be the sun light filtering through the curtains that makes me stop and enjoy the moment. What else brings you happiness throughout your day? Try to become more aware of your inner state of being, and really make a commitment to yourself to manifest more of the good stuff in your life.

3. Deep breath every single day. The wonderful book by Meir Schneider who taught his eyes to see after being born completely blind convinced me of the value of deep breathing exercises. The fact that most of the time we take in only enough oxygen for our lungs when the entire body needs oxygen convinces me that we need to take time to restore all parts of our body with deep breathing exercises. Not only will you feel more awake and alive after deep breathing, but the process of focusing on your breathing is step one in any kind of meditation or relaxation work. Focusing only on your breath allows you to become centered and more fully present.

4. Wherever you go, there you are. The wonderful books by both Jon Kabat-Zinn and Ekhart Tolle have been so life-changing for me on a personal level. For most of my life, my thoughts have always been on the next thing in my life, the future, and the “what-ifs” that could either help or hurt me. I was known in my family as the “klutz” and I truly believe I have accidents when I am not focusing on what it is I am doing in the present moment. What these books have taught me is that all we have is right now. All that truly exists is right now. By focusing on the “now,” I begin to see the true value of my existence. (Note – I still have klutzy moments as my sisters will surely point out – but I realize it immediately where my thoughts were and therefore feel more in control.)

5. Integrate relaxation techniques into your schedule. Just like you exercise for health, just like you take vitamins and eat healthy foods, you should also take time to consciously reduce your heart rate in relaxation and focused attention. Slowing your brain chatter, becoming more aware of your thoughts each and every day – and scheduling something in your daily schedule like meditation, using our Circle+Bloom programs, yoga, journaling, or simply taking a long slow walk to savor the day.

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.

When creating our Energy for Empowerment Program, I did a lot of research on the effects of lack of sleep on our body.  Turns out, lack of sleep can be the first domino in a chain of events that can wreak havoc on all aspects of your well-being.  When you do not get enough sleep, your body does not operate the way it should, and the net result is increased stress levels and cortisol, which we all know is harmful to all facets of our well-being and fertility.

I have always been one that “needs” 7 – 8 hours of sleep per night, or else I never leave zombie-land throughout the day.  Not only that, but even with 7 – 8 hours sleep per night, I still would rarely wake up feeling refreshed, energetic and feeling positive for the day. I used to need something like the “clocky” alarm clock that jumps off your nightstand when you don’t get up on time!

I am proud to say that I have changed that.

I now wake up without the alarm.  I now wake up feeling positive and excited for the day.  I start by planning my day while I still have my eyes closed and then spring out of bed.  How did I accomplish this?

By reprogramming my subconscious to allow for deeper sleep, and re-thinking about how I awake.

One of the sessions in our energy program focuses on your sleep:  Helping to fall asleep, and more importantly, programming your mind and body to sleep as deep as possible

It’s your subconscious mind in the wee-hours of the morning that dictate your behavior.  If you have always woken up feeling lethargic and tired, I believe the only way to change that is to change your thinking.  How can you change the thinking?  By using your brain to guide your body and direct it to change how it feels and reacts to waking up.

It’s hard for me to listen to my own voice, so I have created programs that I know can help people, but I have been the last one to actually use them.  My sister urged me to get over that and I am glad to say that and now I actually enjoy listening to myself (I sound pretty good, BTW!).  Anyway, I have really started to integrate the sleep and other aspects of the Energy program into my routine and the difference is profound and life-changing.

I am so passionate about what you can do with our programs and thank you for following along!

Just to show you how truly easy it is to use our programs and integrate it into your daily life – take a minute and watch…We had fun making it!

And it might just get you to make a similar one and enter to win an Apple iPad!

We all have a superpower and it is called the internal communication between mind and body.

The fancy and scientific name for it is Psychoneuroimmunology, which means your thoughts and feelings (psycho) affect the chemicals in your brain (neuro), which affects the hormones that fight disease or replicate viruses (immunology). Research centers have sprung up at Harvard, Ohio State, The University of Rochester, and the University of Miami, and UCLA to continue to expand the understanding around the mind-body connection.

The revolution of the acceptance of the mind-body connection can be partly traced back to Norman Cousins, according to Anne Harrington, a professor of the history of science at Harvard University. In the 1970s, Cousins, the editor in chief of Saturday Review, was hospitalized with a mysterious, crippling disease. Doctors diagnosed degenerative bone disease that would eventually kill him. Cousins, facing a death sentence, decided to take matters in his own hands. Checking himself out of the hospital and into a hotel room, and he decided to wage war against his disease by flooding his body and cells with laughter and good cheer.

Knowing that research at the time proved that negative effects and emotion were bad for you, he decided to do an experiment and see whether or not good emotions could have a positive effect on your health. He felt he had nothing to lose and began his treatment regimen by constantly watching funny and uplifting shows and movies. Non-stop. He found that 10 minutes of belly laugh gave him 20 minutes of pain-free sleep. Slowly but surely, he laughed himself back to health. His experience was published in the New England Journal of Medicine and thus began the movement towards scientists and researchers under the field of Psychoneuroimmunology.

It’s my understanding, however, that even though Psyconeuroimmunology is as widely accepted today by scientists, it’s still not taught in medical school. Thinking back on my own experience with infertility, it was a “neck-down” problem treated with fertility drugs and procedures.

We know the tools we can employ to unlock this connection, so for us, it is very exciting to share this treatment approach where YOU take control and YOU can wage your own war with laughter, good cheer – and other tools such as relaxation and guided visualizations.

Our goal is educate and promote the concept of using simple and easy-to-use mind-body programs that are effective and allow women to feel in greater control over their health, fertility, mind and bodies.

This is an edited post that was first published on our special blog on Fertility Authority. If you haven’t done so already, you should really explore the wonderful resources that website has to offer.