As you can see from the image there is YOU in the middle, surrounded by 5 different groups.

‘YOU’ represents the physical and non-physical aspects of yourself, such as:

All your physical aspects:

• Body tissue
• Blood
• Hormones
• Body fluids
• For women – Reproductive organs – ovaries, follicles, eggs, fallopian tubes, uterus/womb
• For men – Reproductive organs – testes, semen, sperm
• And every other aspect that is physically measurable in your body

All your non-physical aspects:

• Energy and function
• Emotions – happiness, sadness, grief, anger, worry and anxiety
• Mind

The 5 groups surrounding YOU in the image are The 5 Fertility Foundations as follows:

•  Mindset – everything you think (positive, negative, or indifferent)
•  Diet – everything you eat and drink
•  Treatment – everything you use to alter your body or mind (Herbal Medicine, Supplements, Medication, IVF, Emotional Support, Massage, Acupuncture, Reflexology etc)
•  Lifestyle – everything you choose to do – sleep, exercise, work, social activities etc
•  Environment – everything around you – air, light, sound, people, relationships etc.

So How Does This Work?

You are placed in the centre of the circle because each of these foundations affects you and your wellbeing.

Every supplement (Treatment) you use has a positive or negative effect on the physical and non-physical aspects of you.

Everything you eat (Diet), has a positive or negative effect on the physical and non-physical aspects of you.

Everything you do (Lifestyle) has a positive or negative effect on the physical and non-physical aspects of you.

And so on with all 5 foundations.

So, what determines whether something is positive or negative for you?

It depends completely on whether it suits your body at the time that you are using it.

How do you know if it suits you?

By understanding your root health balance, and by understanding the thing you are using.

Let’s look at an example: 

Imagine you that you have been diagnosed with a low Progesterone level.

As this is a physical part of your body it makes up part of your diagnosis.

Let’s say that we’ve also assessed you more deeply and found that your root health balance is one of Qi/energy deficiency.

We know that Progesterone can only be produced when Qi/energy is strong. If energy is lacking then Progesterone will eventually become low.

This is what I refer to as understanding the root health balance. 

Now you have this root balance understanding, you can quickly establish what each of The 5 Foundations will do for you.

Qi/energy deficiency needs foods to help increase your energy.

Warm, cooked foods such as grains or root vegetables help support energy production – so this approach is positive and helps with the energy deficiency.

Salads, raw foods, or raw smoothies will take a lot of energy to digest. To properly digest them you need to use more energy than when eating cooked foods, Suddenly what seemed like the ‘healthy option’ actually became more negative for your energy deficiency and your situation gets worse.

Do you see how powerful this can be for you?

Obviously the example is a basic one and I’ve tried to keep it short for easier reading, but I hope you see the logic that’s involved behind this system.

The 5 Fertility Foundations are about:

1. Knowing what your health balance is, as it’s unique to you
2. Making sure that each foundation is applied for your unique health needs

This means that you will never again accidentally use or choose something that is not good for you.

The confusion that exists in the fertility world about treatment and what’s right and wrong for people, is all based on mixed principles and things that are usually concluded in a laboratory.

The 5 Fertility Foundations came about after 26 years of me using Classical Chinese Medicine – one of the oldest and most advanced existing natural healthcare systems in the world for understanding ‘You’ and the factors that interact with us that either help or hinder us!

More About The 5 Fertility Foundations

The foundations have no specific order of importance.

The level of importance is determined by what you need at any given time of assessing your health.

The idea is to start with the top 1-3 foundations of most importance to you, and then when you have them balanced you can work through the others.

MINDSET:   Everything You Think

This Foundation is about your thoughts. 

It’s been known for thousands of years, and shown many times in modern clinical trials, that what and how we think has the ability to change our physical internal balance.

Thought has the ability to help or hinder our health, depending on how and what we think.

And, if we can become more aware of what and how we think then we can try to reduce the negative thoughts and work on a more neutral or even positive mindset.

I’m sure you know that stress is one of the big anti-fertility factors – and it all stems from how we think. For one person, an everyday situation can be extremely stressful if they have a particular pattern of thought that is creating an internal stimulation or response.

To another person, the same situation is not stressful because they think differently and therefore feel differently physically because of it.

Stress starts with a thought, which then produces one or more emotions that trigger a physical response in your adrenal glands.

The Adrenals cause an increase in adrenaline, which helps you to think and act more clearly in a stressful/dangerous situation.

A prolonged (constant stress) increase in Adrenaline usually results in inflammation.

To calm inflammation, your body releases a natural steroid called Cortisol.

Cortisol calms down the Adrenaline reaction, and restores balance.

BUT – to make the Cortisol your body uses the building blocks from other vital hormones such as Progesterone, which is essential for helping encourage implantation of an embryo and for supporting pregnancy.

If this adrenaline reaction is triggered too frequently, it reduces your ability to produce Progesterone. You may over time start to experience cycle changes with short luteal phases, and a reduced chance of implantation and pregnancy.

Stress can only exist when we feel overwhelmed, anxious, worried, or fearful. It can’t exist easily if we feel happy, calm, relaxed, confident, clear, focused and strong.

They key with the Mindset foundation is to work at keeping yourself in a good place emotionally, to keep stress and adrenaline levels low.

There are lots of home use methods that can help keep your mind calm. Some examples are: meditation, relaxing types of exercise (Yoga and Qi Gong, or Tai Chi), breathing exercises, mindfulness, and some good old fashioned time out for yourself each day.

Structure and planning can also help you stay focused, which can calm stress levels down. Sleep and relaxation are also vital for stress reduction.

DIET:  Everything you eat and drink

This Foundation relates to: everything that you eat and drink, and the good and bad practices of your diet.

Diet has the ability to help or hinder your fertility health, depending on how and what you’re eating.

As I mentioned above, it’s all about your unique health balance.

That being said: I believe that there is a foundational human diet that most people can be well on, but for a stronger medicinal effect we need to find the root health balance and work on that.

Here are a few thoughts on general things to eat and avoid:

Some things to avoid:

• Dairy – milk, yoghurt and cheese
• Sugar – white, brown, raw, ‘natural’ syrups such as maple or agave
• Refined starches – bread, pasta, noodles, breakfast cereal, baked goods
• Alcohol – all types
• Caffeine – all types – tea, coffee and sweet drinks (cola)
• Raw foods – salads, vegetable and fruit smoothies, or juices

Some things to include:

• Eat Protein – eggs, fish and meat. Please ensure that all meat is grass-fed/pasture raised meat. If you are vegetarian, you’ll need to find an alternative to this group and be aware of the key deficiencies that can arise from a lack of these foods.
• Eat Fats – animal fats, oily fish (wild only), cold pressed vegetable oils
• Eat Healthy Starches – nuts, seeds, beans, pulses, grains, root vegetables and more
• Eat Fibre – green leafy vegetables

Eating correctly for your body type and your individual health needs is vital for your fertility journey.

TREATMENT:  Everything you use to alter your body

This Foundation relates to treatments that can support your fertility such as: Herbal Medicine, supplements, medication, IVF, fertility massage and more.

IVF is the main option in western medicine, and this involves using either your own eggs or those from a donor.

But IVF does not improve your fertility health, and so some health preparation with The 5 Fertility Foundations is key before doing IVF.

Natural medicine has many options to offer as fertility support, and I highly recommend using Classical Chinese Herbal Medicine that is prescribed for your unique health balance.

Important note: there are 2 main forms of Chinese medicine.

The first form: is called Classical Chinese Medicine, which is the original form of medicine in China. When you hear about the historical tried and tested natural medicine from China, it’s this form that people are referring to. It has a written history dating back more than 2300 years, which also includes an understanding of resolving fertility issues.

This system works on the concept of finding the root balance of your health to create a unique diagnosis that becomes the foundation for creating personalised effective natural treatment.

The second form: is called Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM). The name is misleading as this is not “traditional” to China, or anywhere else. TCM was created in the 1950’s under the orders of Mao-Tse Tung, with the first university teaching it in 1957. It has little connection to its predecessor Classical Chinese Medicine, and is a new form of ‘medicine’ that is trying to align itself to western medicine. The problem is that Classical Chinese medicine doesn’t work in the same way as western medicine, so you can’t mix them together into one system. They can however work wonderfully alongside each other, but this is not what TCM is trying to do.

Based on this I do not recommend using TCM for fertility treatment – as it does not have the ability to properly get to the root of your health balance.

LIFESTYLE:  Everything you choose to do

This Foundation relates to the actions you take: sleep patterns, work, exercise, work life balance, energy creation vs. energy expenditure.

Most people recognise that their sleep habits could greatly improve by going to bed earlier. A lack of sleep is the quickest way to deplete your energy levels and stores, and increase your stress level and cause hormonal imbalance.

A work life balance is also important for maintaining health, both of your mind and your body. I’d encourage you to make sure you have sufficient down time each day, along with work free evenings.

Exercise is another one of the big areas to talk about so I’ll just mention that it’s as easy to over exercise as it is to under exercise. Both cause issues for your fertility health.

Your body needs to have good circulation, and movement every few hours is important. Going for a 5km run every day or two is detrimental for most people’s health.

Above I talked about stress and the Adrenal glands, and this applies here too.

Exercise, if a constant movement such as running, will raise Adrenaline and Cortisol levels and decrease Progesterone production over time.

Look into interval training that allows you to run, but so that you do it in stop start segments, that don’t cause such a stress to your Adrenal glands.

ENVIRONMENT:  Everything around you

This Foundation relates to: air quality, home quality, relationships, toxins (chemical exposure – through cleaning products, cosmetics you use) and more.

The environment is not always something we can control particularly when we’re outside. However, the internal home or work environment and what we’re exposed to is more controllable to a degree.

That being said, a recent study commissioned by the environmental charity Global Action Plan, found that internal air quality is up to 3.5 times more polluted than external air quality.

Chemicals, mainly in the form of cleaning products and cosmetic products can cause us serious harm when inhaled or absorbed through our skin.

Try to find organic natural products that you can use instead.

Relationships are also an important part of our lives and can cause us to feel relaxed and supported, or lonely and stressed. If there are issues in family or close relationships, become aware of them and try to find a way to either solve them or have less exposure to them.

This area has the ability to increase your stress level dramatically as these types of issues often continue for extended time-frames.

That completes my 5 Fertility Foundations.

CLICK HERE to learn more about FINDING YOUR ROOT HEALTH BALANCE

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