Many of us know of a couple that adopted a baby after a long struggle to become pregnant, then almost immediately afterwards conceived a child of their own. The familiar happenstance illustrates the explicit connection between the mind and the body and underscores emotional anxiety as a prime component in the process of becoming pregnant. Anxiety creates negative feedback between the frontal lobes of the brain, the logical mind where thoughts originate, and the hypothalamus, the part of the brain that translates thoughts to our hormonal system. The result is a negative loop that can generate nervous tension and produce unhealthy stress hormones that interact with the cells having a direct influence on fertility.

Hypnotherapy can interrupt this destructive cycle, replacing the negative feedback loop with a positive connection between the mind and the body.

The process works by guiding the client to an altered state of deep relaxation, making it possible to access the sub-conscious mind and tap into feelings that have been dormant or disavowed. Without realizing it, women may be reacting to repressed resistance to the idea of having a baby, such as fear of childbirth or ambivalence about becoming a mother. Hypnosis can reveal these unconscious issues and replace them with positive concepts to bolster self-esteem and level out roller coaster emotions about parenthood.

In my treatment of women having difficulty in conceiving I point to other restorative, natural activities as well, such as a healthy diet, mindfulness training, yoga and breath work, all aimed at reducing the stress that can block fertility. The evidence suggests that women finding it difficult to conceive may well benefit from hypnotherapy as a natural, non-invasive way to enhance fertility.

Return to Topics of Interest