Tag Archives: Natural Health

The daily meditation practice for women with no time

You’re probably reading this now because you already know the benefits of having a daily meditation practice or have heard that meditation could help you manage your stress levels but feel like it’s an unattainable goal. Even the phrase “daily meditation practice” already seems time consuming and daunting to say the least, right?

But what if I said to you that implementing this special daily mediation practice is going to give you more time?

Yes, you read that right.

Often when we are time poor, we’re usually overwhelmed, over-stressed and over-worked. Our focus and productivity wanes. our modern busyness of life leads us to be completely unaware how much we are wasting because we’re committed to keep on moving, even if we’re dragging our feet by lunchtime.

Why meditation?

It’s free but also meditation can give you more time.

How? Meditation allows you to focus your attention inwards, cutting out the unnecessary clutter that could be causing confusion and indecision. When you have clarity and dominion over your thoughts, confusion dissipates and a call to action is visible.

If you have only a certain amount of time in the day and during these times you are more productive, you then create more time and have breathing space for the more important things in life like being present with family.

An effective way to incorporate meditation is to adopt what I like to call is the heart-full minute.

  • Put your hand on your heart and take 5 deep breathes. The goal is to focus on feeling the heart beat on the palm of your hands whilst noting your breath going in and out. Feeling your heart pulsate in itself bring your back to life force that is you.
  • You don’t need to think nothing, it’s perfectly normal to have thoughts especially judgmental thoughts about if you’re doing the heart-full minute correctly or what you need to be doing straight after the meditation.
  • To bring your focus back, start noting your breathe. So as you breathe in, say in your head you’re breathing in and so forth as you breathe out. Noting is a great tool to bring your attention back to stillness when you catch yourself carried away with your thoughts.

You might think a minute isn’t that long but you’d be surprised. The heart-full minute can be done anywhere and anytime, so many opportunities such as while you’re on the toilet, waiting at the grocery line, breastfeeding or having a shower.

Do this enough times and you get the compounding effect that meditation will get easier and easier the more you do it.

Finding practical ways to reduce stress in your life is a great foundation to help you balance your hormones and boost your fertility. For more tips to detox your mind and body, you can download my free 7 Day Hormone Cleanse here.

Natural solutions for infertility

Let’s talk about infertility and what that really means because there is likely a ton of people who think they are infertile, panicking and the reality they’re not. I remember clearly when we started our journey on starting a family, on the first month of trying I didn’t fall pregnant. I panicked as I was convinced I should have fallen pregnant, I mean how is this possible! So the next month, I decided to get an ovulation test kit so I knew exactly when I was ovulating as baby making had now become a science project. As much as I tried to be relaxed and be spontaneous about getting it on, underneath it all I was riddled with anxiety.

Every day I peed on a stick, waiting for the stick to say I was ovulating, as each week went by I grew ever so more anxious. It got so ridiculous that I even order hubby to get his sperm checked because clearly it was his fault! Poor guy, I was literally a train wreck. When his results returned as positive, I was dumbfounded, convinced there was something wrong with me. I booked us in to see a Fertility Specialist and next minute we were sitting in her office and discussing our problems. She asked us how long had we been trying, I said we’re in our second month but I wasn’t ovulating so something must be wrong. I remember her just looking at me strangely and although she was trying to be as diplomatic as possible, see said come back to her after 6 months of trying. Whether she felt sorry for me or I was very convincing about my concerns of my lack of ovulation, she sent me off for a round of tests.

Being impatient with the whole experience, it became all consuming me obsession and I couldn’t concentrate at work. I woke up one morning for a split moment I entertained the idea that I could be pregnant but of course that’s can’t be, cause I didn’t ovulate but I followed my intuition I did a pregnancy test. Now by this time my husband was getting quite frustrated at me at the amount of money I spent peeing on a sticks. One time he caught me with 3 pregnancy sticks stashed in the bin all in the same day. After being completely adamant I wasn’t pregnant, when I saw two faint lines on the pregnancy stick, I was convinced it was a mistake. So I suggested I should pee on another stick, he said Merly, relax just give it another week. But I couldn’t relax and the next day, I didn’t it again and was confirmed I was in fact pregnant with JohnnyMax.

So the reason why I was out of my mind bonkers, it was all hormonal, I had actually fallen pregnant in my first month of trying, my period in the first month was in fact implantation bleeding and explains why I didn’t ovulate in the second month. Now there was some cause to my insanity, I had always suffered from irregular, heavy and painful periods, a sign of disordered ovulation. Fortunately through balancing my hormones naturally to the point that it was clockwork every 30 days, my heavy 7 day period went down to 3 days light to medium and the pain was nearly non-existent. Better still, my mood swings weren’t swinging around like an adolescence Spiderman on a mission to save the world which is why I was so convinced I’d fall pregnant even if hubby just breathed on me. When I thought I didn’t and coupled with the fact my hormones were raging without me knowing, it just goes to show how stressful it is for couples who are able to fall pregnant, let alone couples who are struggling with infertility.

My point is that there is plenty of healthy couples going around thinking they have infertility issues because they don’t really know what that actually means.

Infertility is defined as being unable to fall pregnant after 12 months of unprotected sexual intercourse. In Australia, infertility affects about 15 of every 100 Australian couples of reproductive age. I know couples who have been trying a couple of months and worry that they are infertile.

One of the most common forms of infertility is ovulation disorders, which is an umbrella term that accounts for 1/4 to 1/3 of cases that include poly-cystic ovarian syndrome POCS and irregular ovulation. The second is male factors and the third tubal disease.

However there are many reasons a woman may have difficultly becoming pregnant and there is a number of things you can do to increase the likelihood of pregnancy. Things you can start today include making healthier lifestyle changes where a Health Coach can support you every step of your journey as well as simple ways to balance your hormones naturally.

Many people are unaware that diet can play a huge part in improving fertility, studies have shown making simple changes as follows can help:

  • Choosing whole grains and low GI over refined carbohydrates
  • Avoid trans fats and instead use monounsaturated fats like olive oil
  • Favouring vegetable sources of protein over animal protein sources
  • Eating adequate about of folate and iron from plant sources
  • Taking quality supplements to support the endocrine system
  • Aiming for a healthy weight
  • Engaging in vigorous exercise at least 30 minutes a day