Name: Regulating Your Nervous System: Holistic Approaches to Managing Stress During Fertility Treatments
Uploaded: 2025-03-27T21:16:04.758Z
Duration: 50 min 32 s
Description: Regulating Your Nervous System: Holistic Approaches to Managing Stress During Fertility Treatments

Transcript for "Regulating Your Nervous System: Holistic Approaches to Managing Stress During Fertility Treatments": Hi, everybody. Thank you for your patience, and, welcome to regulating your nervous system, where we'll be talking about holistic approaches to manage stress during fertility treatment. I'm so excited to be joined with doctor Janelle Luke, who is a cofounder and the medical director at Generation Next Fertility, and doctor Angela Lee, who is the founder of Fifth Ave Fertility and Wellness. If you guys would like to take a second to introduce yourselves. Angela, go ahead. And doctor Lee. Sorry. I should call you doctor Lee. Please introduce yourself, and, and I will say my piece. Go ahead. Okay. I am Angela Lee, and I am an acupuncturist. I've been practicing for twenty four and a half years, and, I specialize in reproductive health. It's pretty much, the only patients that I see. And, yeah, I'm a somatic experiencing practitioner. I, yeah, really specialize in stress, and I'm really looking forward to being with everyone here today. Thanks. Thank you so much, Angela. And, yes, I'm doctor Janelle Luke. I'm the, finding partner here at Generation X as well as the medical director. It is very exciting because I was there with, all of you this morning at the session, talking about mild natural IVF and, doing the opening remarks, which I'm going to later on in an hour, we're doing closing remarks. But I hope everyone has been having a joyous and informative time, empowering time today. And I heard there were lots of great questions being asked throughout the day today, and, and some of you who may have missed the earlier sessions, everything is taped and recorded so you guys can go back to the webinar. Correct, Sydney? You will tell us later about that. Yeah. Everything's recorded and will be available on demand. So we'll be sending out a link, sometime with Friday, Monday with, the link to all the sessions. I am extremely excited to be with Angela today. Angela is not just a colleague of mine. She's become my friend. I will I would not spill too much information, but she's I haven't gone through her for acupuncture, but she has been amazing, as a sounding board for me all these years as, my life and her life both progresses in the last decade. We were calculating, I know now, Angela, more than a decade. I think twelve to since 02/2012. So okay. Thirteen years. And it has been a it's been amazing because, Angela and I have gone through, I think, lots of women gone through through their career, with their spouse or family, upbringing. So it has been a very enlightening, with Angela in our relationship. And, obviously, how do we know Angela? How doctor Luke randomly walk in New York City and got to Angel? No. It's patients. It's you guys who who say, you know what, Janelle? Doctor Luke they don't call me Janelle. Some of them do. But, Janelle, doctor Luke, you didn't meet this lady. I said, who? What? Her name is Angela. And I still remember our first phone call, was right before I go to a bathtub. So it was, obviously, it was cold by the time we ended our phone call because it was suddenly, we connected for an hour on on the on the phone, an hour and a half or two hours. We just keep on talking about women and their needs and wellness, and that was the beginning of our my career. Angela Wardee was practicing, and it was my career coming to New York City, get to know, you know, fertility patients and really the the different aspect of fertility patients because, obviously, through my training is the western medicine, learning how to stimulate the ovaries, how to read FSH, how to read estradiol, how to do a egg retrieval. But what about the stress aspect? What about the emotional aspect of the treatment? What about, something that I slowly coined the statement, which is a quality deterioration is asymptomatic, which makes this in some ways, yes, there's no pain, but it's making it so much more vulnerable. And then not knowing that you have serum because what brings to you to a doctor is symptoms. If If you don't have symptoms, how would you know your equality is going deteriorated? And is there any blood work for equality? And, yes, before you guys all run to me for blood work, there's no blood work for equality, only for equanimity. I know. It's very dissatisfying. And there's only two numbers I always tell my patient, know about your equality. So, nothing would change during the whole appointment about your equality because I just told you the two numbers. Two numbers majorly is, your age and also how long have you tried. To give me I mean, this is kind of simplified statement. Obviously, there are many other factors, variables that affect equality. But, again, because of the limitations of science, it is very stressful to learn about infertility. And infertility, yes, there can no no one can predict infertility. It means I cannot just do a blood test in the street to every woman 18 years old. And, yes, who is going to get infertility? Infertility is a journey where you will stumble into it. Means, when you don't get pregnant for a year so how stressful that is. There's no one can predict. Yes, there are patient who are acute cases where they're perimenopause, already in your twenties. Obviously, there are some, extreme cases where you can predict and may have issue. But majority of time, there's no blood work to predict. So and that's why we are here today to talk about acupuncture and fertility stress, with Angela. And I know Sydney is going to moderate this session. I can't wait to share, some of Angela's insight with the audience. Go ahead, Sydney. No. I was gonna say I'm I'm so thrilled. You guys are just such a fertility dynamic duo. It's it's a great match up for this session, so we've been looking forward to it all day. So I know we've learned a lot about the science of the fertility journey today, but I'm glad to go over some of the emotional aspects. So I wanted to open up and ask you both, what are the best holistic methods for managing stress during fertility treatments? What would you recommend people do? Angela. So I could start I mean, acupuncture would be a great start. I think that, it's it's probably the most popular, modality for, adjunct modality for fertility and stress. Somatic experiencing, I'm excited to get more into that. I think that is a really powerful modality. Mindfulness, breathing, nutrition, lifestyle, movement, nature, sleep. You know, one of the things that's gonna be really important at least with the patients that I work with, when you think about stress, you think cortisol. And it you know, the counter to that is melatonin, which is what we want to have more of that helps us sleep, that helps us to to really repair from stress or when we're going through a lot of difficulties. So I'm sure we'll get more into that, but, I think overall, the best holistic method is, like, what you resonate with. Because I definitely have had people come and do acupuncture and, like, they had really difficult time with needles and it was too stressful for them. I mean that doesn't happen very often but over the years it certainly has so I don't really recommend doing something that you absolutely dislike just because everyone says you should. And I get that a lot with meditation where women really struggle to they have so many intrusive thoughts and it's like really difficult and they kind of force themselves to do it. So I'm not really into that, but I think those are some of the things that people can do to help, manage stress. Angela, can we dissect that a little bit? I love it. What do you mean by in I so I know we're gonna go into somatic experience a little bit more, but I do want to understand, what do you mean by intrusive thoughts? Intrusive thoughts? I guess the the the catastrophic thinking. The thinking that, like, your mind can't shut off, you're perseverating, you're going over the, you know, the cycle not working, it's never gonna work, and you can't shut them out. So it's and it becomes quite stressful and painful. So that's what I mean by intrusive thoughts. Angela, I know, one time I asked you, I thought you do acupuncture from hour first minute to sixtieth minute. And he's like, no, Janelle. I don't. I actually took a full history in a patient's, and I only really do the therapy depending on the patient, fifteen to twenty minutes. And I I want to hear some of your theory. How because I remember one of my patient was like, oh my god. She knows everything about me. So insightful. And I was like, what? What what what did you know, it's like it's experience with you. So can you tell me a little bit, what you're watching for and why is that affecting fertility, and how do you regulate the thoughts? I mean, is it breathing? I know there's mindfulness. I'm, you know, reading some of the books you sent me. But what what are the things that you you're really honing on, and what are the skill sets or techniques that you are, sharing with your patients? Yeah. So I do so the our sessions, at my practice are an hour long, and I spend a half hour with the patient before I put the needles in. And during that time, I'm looking for a lot of things. I mean, mostly, I'm looking for patterns. What's coming up over and over and over again? Because when stress is not modulated right? So I wanna just say that stress is not bad. Stress is actually important and needed. What we're really talking about is chronic stress. So when you're when you mentioned, like, the intrusive thought, if that kind of the thoughts in your head are so negative and, the opposite of loving yourself. Right? Like, just if this these intrusive thoughts were a person, like, if you can externalize it and it would be a person, you would never wanna be around that person. Right? But now it's inside of you. I'm looking at how so what are the patterns and how can we modulate the stress? So we I care that the the stress comes up and then it comes down. Right? So we have stress, but we we need resources and ways to, regulate our nervous system so we don't stay in the chronic stress state. And many of the fertility patients, by the time they come to me, there's a lot of stress that has not been regulated, modulated. They keep talking about it, and every time they talk about it, they get activated again, and they don't know how to help themselves. And a lot of people will say to them, you know, just go on vacation or stop stressing and you'll get pregnant. That's very unhelpful to someone who's stuck in that pattern. So when I'm looking at patterns, I'm trying to see what's happening over and over again, and can we disrupt can we pattern disrupt, you know, habits, lifestyle, different things that they're doing that's actually harming them, and they they don't they they can't stop. You know? And and it's like a, we say, vicious cycle because now I'm here helping her, giving her no meds, to stimulate her, like and but that was not taking taking care of because that cycle will keep on going even with me doing IVF. Well, hormones obviously can dysregulate this the body. Right? So if they're coming in with intrusive thoughts, they have the hormones, they're not sleeping, they're overworking, they're eating bad food. You know, it's like all of these things start to add up, and then it just becomes overwhelming. And that's usually a time she comes to me. And so I'm just like, how do we stop or disrupt or change or install new habits that would be more beneficial and caring for her as she is going through this. And what are the habits that you usually suggest? I know you and I wanna go about diet and yeah. Go ahead, Angela. Diet is a a big one. Sleep is a big one that is so underestimated. Just having learning how to sleep properly is super powerful. If people want, they can email me and I can send and I'll I'll we'll leave our email, and I can send everyone my sleep resource guide. It's wonderful. It just it breaks it's like 10 pages of how to sleep. Diet, I was talking Angela. Okay. That's Angela. You had why is it 10 pages? I thought it was gonna be 10 lines. So you need to tell me let let's give me a summary. Give me the goal of a 10 pages. Talk about you said you just shut off your phone, at eight and then go sleep. I thought that's it. So why talk to me, Angela. I I want dissect you. Yes. Well, circadian rhythm is really important. So going to bed at the same time, waking up at the same time. When we were children, we had regular sleep times. Right? And, like, our parents, like, held true to that. Our bodies don't change that much. We might not need twelve hours of sleep every day, but we need eight hours minimum. I think women need between eight and nine hours of sleep. So if she's coming in, like, I'm sleeping for six hours, you know, then we have to, you know, build in that, yeah, the the the the habit of going to bed at the same time and staying sleep. Obviously, getting off phones, blue light is terrible because blue light stresses, it creates a cortisol response and we want melatonin. So you can put red light lockers on. You know, you wanna sleep in a very dark room, colder room if possible. Yeah. There's a lot. We could spend this whole session on sleep. I mean, it's it's There was. I was at Cornell. There was a course. Like, I didn't understand. I didn't take it, but it was all about sleep. Like, the entire six months is talking the semester is talking about sleep. But I I have one of the biggest complaints. So if I do a survey right now, one is sleep. It's one it's number one on my pay fertility patients. I know. I know. That's why it's so important, and it gets overlooked in the medical system. It even gets looked under you know, it doesn't get looked at in in the holistic world. And so I think, like, the more experience I have in, like, again, almost twenty five years now of practice, I go back to the basics. Right? Because I can give you herbs and I can give you sayings, but if you're sleeping five and a half hours a night, like, you know, I can't override that because your deep sleep is probably not good. Your REM sleep is probably not good. Probably waking up to go to the bathroom and then you can't go back to sleep and you're up for two hours, that's not good. You're waking up tired. You know? So it's it's really just looking at lifestyle habits and, like, where those lifestyle habits lead you. Right? So I'm a biohacker. You know this. I'm like a serious health nut. And, you know, I keep coming back to the basics. It's it is the most important thing and they're free. It's free. You can sleep for free. It doesn't cost a ton of money, because health is expensive. There's a lot of things that are really expensive. And I tend to focus on the free things. I think they're the most important or the things that we have to do like eat and sleep and, but, yeah, sleep is very important. And I I went to do a sleep study and just, you know, if women slept better and we can look at their biometrics, would that improve their fertility? I mean, that one study that came out on melatonin in Japan showed that women who took melatonin got better, like improved egg quality or helped their fertility. I can't remember, it was like twenty years ago or fifteen years ago. But it's like, was it just like they slept or was it the melatonin? Like what was it? So, yeah, sleep is something I'm very passionate about. I'm I'm good to keep on going with the sleep. What about diet, like caffeine? Talk talk to me. Coffee is a big culture. Yes. Everyone is bringing a cup. Even today, I went to lecture. I felt so embarrassed. I was bringing a cup of, you know, tea and coffee. So how and I know I know Coke. You know, I know my soda drink. Angela is like, doctor Luke, that's based on when we're going having a little lunch. And so talk to you about the sugar rush because I was just talking to a patient with endometriosis pain. And it's so funny because this in I've seen patients, I come back to lecture, and I'm like, oh, we were just talking about it, you know. And she's like, horrible sleep, very stressed out, project coordinator. And, she was telling me how the pain is and she's in a very young twenties. She's trying to ache freeze. I'm like, you know, her AMH is low, which is that worry about fertility. And I and she was telling me how she has really regulate because no doctors helping her. She didn't want surgery. No one want to be on birth control. She didn't want any of that. She wanted it with birth control. So she doesn't want the regulation over regulation, make her feel more sick, which is what Angela thinks like more drugs, You know? Right. So so I I want to and then so she cut gluten. She told me how her naturopath doc was trying to work with her. So I want to and and and I do have some, we have some insights and agreement on it with prostaglandins and the release of the uterus and the premenstrual syndrome, really affect huge population of our patients. Mhmm. Like, if I really take a, NICE history to every woman who have a period pain, you can like, the sleep is there. The diet okay. Yeah. Angela, you go. You you tell us. Yeah. No. I think caffeine is great. I mean, it's one of the a lot of the patients that come to me, I put them on elimination diet, and caffeine is something that come is off the list. And part of it is because caffeine doesn't give you energy. It just stimulates your your adrenals, so it just produces cortisol. And again, if the the system is already stressed, it's chronically stressed, and now you're adding more stress, you know, that becomes a problem over time. And so a lot of times I mean, we live in a culture that's, like, producing and if you're not producing, you're lazy. And in New York City, it's like it's like, woah. You know? I'm I come from California and I moved here and it was shocking actually. And so what happens is we drink caffeine. So so we we all have the natural capacity for how much we can do. Our bodies will tell us. Right? So like doctor Luke, if I'm like, okay. I want you to go run a marathon right now. You might like the idea of it, but, like, you probably would have a hard time because you your body doesn't have the capacity to do that. And so what caffeine does is it it sort of, like, allows us to break our capacity and kind of go over, right, stay up later, do more work, right, by stressing our cortisol, sleeping less. And so one of the things that I try to help women do is really listen to their bodies because most of the women that come to see me are at war with themselves. They're at war with their bodies. Right? They perceive their body as a threat to them. And so the more they are stressed out and they don't realize, like, they can actually disrupt that and change those habits. You know, the more it increases and the more kind of divide they have and the more, you know, displeasure or hatred or whatever they have with their bodies. So, you know, in many ways, I'm trying to end the war between her and her body and herself. You know? So it's, like, deep, but we like coffee is kind of out. Now if she needs to do it, then do it early. Definitely don't do it after twelve. Don't do it later in the afternoon because it's probably gonna disrupt her sleep. There's a great book called Caffeine Blues. It's my favorite book on caffeine. It's so it's like a layperson can read it, although, you know, he gives a lot of science behind, you know, why caffeine is not great, for you. And caffeine is not just coffee, it's tea, it's chocolate, it's it's, you know, cacao, a lot of other ways to get caffeine. So it's it's like I wanna get to the core issue. And if it's really exhaustion, then let's let's let's work on that, not, you know, rev you up. And and and and it actually is not nourishing your body, but like taking from your body. So caffeine is is something I I really prefer women who are on this I prefer all women not to drink it. Okay? But if you're going through this and it's so stressful, you know the Harvard studies that show that fertility treatments is as stressful as cancer going through cancer treatment. And so we need to do our parts to not pile it on. Right? And to see what we're doing that could be contributing to this exasperation of chronic stress. I know. I feel like I I should be taking some notes on caffeine here, maybe cut that out of my diet. But I thought I I actually I want to talk about the wall of your body. Actually, I never thought endometriosis, so I personally have endometriosis. I I've shared this with Angela and all the audience and some of my patients who struggle with it. I went through medical school, residency, tremendous pain during periods, stress. I'm one of those category of Angela says productive. So I'm very productive, but I don't care. I'm in pain. But you bear that GI motion and you drink more caffeine to get yourself on top of the class, to get into, you know, medical school, to get into residency. But in the mutual sense in some ways is a war that you is a immune system, that you have some I know, whatever the Samsung three is. Sorry. I I know I love my little uterus like doll, because I want to love it. I try to love my body. It was just causing me so much pain, but loving it. Loving it. The backflow of the, blood to the body, inflammation. So you say is it it's just the immune system dysregulation. Means they cannot clear the blood in the belly, so now you have remaining tissue, and now the body's attacking it and causing tremendous pain. That's what and the it's a inflammation disorder. And inflammation is, yeah, attacking yourself, like people arthritis, whatever pain at the immune system's autoimmune. You are having reactive immune system creating a war against your own body. That's how people have, you know, whatever it is you have, it's like, wait. I thought your immune system worked for me. It's supposed to protect bacteria, you know, protect me from other things. So it's interesting that you said that. And then the medius is not is is a horrible thing because, you can paint during sex or paint during, bowel movement, but the worst is paint during every month. You're going through a very natural woman menstruation. But somehow you can't walk, you can't go to work, you can't why would nature create something? Then you're like, is it nature's fault, or is this something happening with our own body that is creating this kind of vicious cycle that, you know, now we take more Motrin. You know, that's why patient the OB GYN he has birth control pill. Just shut down your system. You would not have pain. I I want to hear, Angela, what do you do? And I do I know the infertility patient do have endometriosis. I, what do you how do you help these patients? And Mhmm. Yeah. I mean, that's such a it's such a deep question. Right? Because it almost feels that maybe every woman is programmed to be at war with her body. You know? Have you met a woman who isn't? Whether she has endo or not. She doesn't like how it looks. She doesn't like how it it's too big, it's too small, it's too old, it's too young, it's too, you know, pain or whatever it is. And so one of the things that I love about somatics that's really, transformed my life is getting more curious and slowing down. And, you know, the war reflects this sort of anti relational relationship you have with your body. And I don't think we learn how to have a loving relationship with ourselves. You know? Like, who are our models? Who's showing that, you know, in our families or on television? And so a lot of it is, you know, I, you know, I suffered from chronic pain for a long time. I've had a lot of health issues that I've healed, you know, by getting curious, slowing down, and listening to my body. You know, maybe the messages that it's giving isn't wrong or bad, even if it's so painful. And I really speak from someone who, like, wanted to die from my chronic pain, you know? It just is so unbearable when you have it. But I think it starts with, can we slow down? Can we get curious? Can we listen? You know, can we trust our bodies? That even if it's causing so much pain that maybe there's it's it's a messenger and there's something that you need to learn about you. Right? Maybe you're in a job you hate. You know? Maybe you're and you keep doing it and, like, again, it's so deep. It would be better if we had, like, a person and then we can I'm trying to speak so vaguely about how do we actually self mother ourselves. Right? Because I we're working with women who want to be mothers so desperately, and I'm like, you can practice on you. Right? So instead of like, ugh, I can't believe my body is doing this, it's like, what do you need? What can I give you? How can I and it was really through me shifting my relationship with myself that my symptoms went away because as stopped, you know, then it was just like, oh, I need to sleep more? Okay. Oh, I need to exercise more. Okay. Right? And it's it's really changed my I would say my pain changed my life. I would not be doing this work if my body didn't betray me or, whatever, you know, story I had about my body. And so one of the things that I love to do in my healing work is just model what it would be like for a woman to be with another woman, and the woman who's holding space for the, you know, the fertility patient, you know, I love my body, you know, I have healed my body. And just having the like opening that permission field that that's possible. I've seen a lot of people with endometriosis heal their endometriosis. Polycystic ovaries heal their polycystic ovaries. I mean, it is possible, you know, just like the four minute mile. Once you know someone can do it, it means that you can do it. And so no. And and sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off. I I just want you to know you did give me comments, let you know why you you know, I I'm taking care of endometriosis patient, and I, myself, I my obviously, my job is not very you know? Well, how do you interpret, when patients say, hey, you know, you don't have to get me pregnant, Luke. It's all new, you know? And how do you I mean, you can be honored or you'll be feeling lots of stress. It's all how I interpret it, but I did change my mindset a lot in the last couple years. And I know when I complained to you when my own when she was this active, it's like, you know, that may be a blessing about your bowel movement, about your, sugarish intake because I was sharing with Angela. I love candies since I was a little girl, and she knows I love Coca Cola too. And so, the all those stimuli and and how does regulate my my my my career or my job. So I I do have to say, but I I just want to tell the audience because I know every audience here just like, doctor Lee, just tell oh, and doctor Lee, tell me five steps what I need to do. But I think, Andrew, I'm trying to translate that you once you're curious, once once you're really listening to your body, you would know how to reach out to books or Internet or things that you was trying to say, you know what? I need to pay attention to this. Yes. And Yeah. That and things will be modified accordingly. Yes. Like, if you want to drive from New York City to LA in the dark, right, you only need to see 20 feet in front of you. You don't have to know the whole distance. And so if you can just get curious and slow down, right, and you're just and then again, breath work, meditation, all of these things can kind of help with that process, then your body will tell you. And so I think what I do, you know, that I that has really created the success in my practice is I really listen to women. And then I can hear what, you know, sometimes they can't or and then kind of reflect it back to them. And, you know, self care is sort of a nonnegotiable in my practice. It's like, if you don't if you can't do that, then you can't make the changes. And I think people who come to me are looking to to to, like, what can they do? Right? Because when you go to fertility doctors, it's kinda like the power is in their hands. And a lot of women, you know, some women want that. It's like, here's my body, you handle it Doctor. Luke, right? But there's many more women who feel so out of control, they need a focus. And so self care, self mothering, listening. And so that's what we really do together. And when that happens, it's like it's a coherence or it's an alignment that happens that then the the patient feels heard and seen, and that's very healing to the nervous system. No. Angela, I I I have so much I want to talk about. I, which is somatic experiencing, which I want to die dissect that a little bit more. I don't know if we have time, but I I know audience have some couple questions. Yeah. So we have to attend to that. But I, also very amazed. I we we talk about this maybe create a dynamic of villain, hero, and victim that in the room right now, who's the hero, who's the villain, who's the victim. There's all you know, how our mind thinks. Very susceptible to that. That was also I I there's so much I want to get into. And and finally, a elimination diet. Yeah. What is a elimination diet? Why sugar is not good or good you know, where do you start, when you see all six things? Because, it's a lot, you know, on the stress on the patient. They're like, why depend on eating candies or eating chocolates right before my period? Why you meaning you want me to stop chocolate? Or what does that mean and what does mainly with antioxidant diet? I I want to hear a little bit from you and and about that because that is very applicable. And, yes, we're going to leave, ten minutes for all the questions. Great. So an elimination diet is taking out inflammatory foods for three weeks. So it's not forever. It's three weeks, and then we can reintroduce the foods to see how your body feels. You know, there's so many diets out there and it's like, what diet do I do? What do I do? Do I go on a paleo? Do I go on a vegan? Right? So elimination is basically a Mediterranean diet. You're taking out all the processed foods. Processed foods are not good for your body. They cause inflammation. It causes stress. So it's, you know, three weeks, and then you reintroduce the foods, and then you don't need me to tell you if something I just had a patient. I put her on elimination, actually, diet patient of yours, and she reintroduced dairy, and she was so sick all day. She does not need me to ever tell her not to eat that. You know? It's like throwing up and whatever happened to her body, right, was, like, enough for her to learn. Like, that doesn't it's not good for her. So and it's also me seeing how much a woman is willing to take care of herself. Right? Because we are conditioned to take care of other people and to self sacrifice, and I'd like to, like, again, pattern disrupt that kind of, pattern in our culture. Right? So so I put her on this diet, no caffeine, no sugar, dairy, gluten, and then we reintroduce everything, and we see how it feels. A lot of women feel so amazing, they don't go back to the food, or they eat it once in a while. So what I'm really trying to assess is helping her to connect with her body and let her body teach her what she should eat and what she shouldn't eat. Not an expert telling her what to do, But I have to create some sort of container because she doesn't know, and it's confusing online. And then together, we figure out, you know, what is more of a sustainable diet where she see, once you kind of get addicted to the, like, the natural feeling and feeling healthy and energized, you don't wanna eat those foods. It doesn't it would I don't I I used to call it treats, now I call it a mistreat. I I don't even touch I there's no desire there anymore because I know how it's gonna make me feel, and it's not worth it's not worth it. But we have been our bodies have been so kind of it's like talks a lot of toxins. You know? And and so we get addicted to them, and it just takes some time to kinda go back to, the point where before you were addicted. These lifestyle habits take time. And so I utilize the fertility time very wisely. Like, you know, you can grin and bear it until you conceive and deliver your baby, but as you know, fertility is a process. We do not work with women who get pregnant by their third try. You know, we're working with women who've been in this for years. And so I don't want them to waste five years grinning and bearing it till the kid comes, you know? Like, let's utilize that time to get healthy and and to take care of yourself in the way you know you need to, but you're not. You know, your attention is diverted. So so elimination diet is such a beautiful portal, right, to self care. And if you guys go onto my website and look at all the testimonials, everyone talks about the diet. So it to me, it's a stepping stone. And then we go we we move on, right? We go into somatics, we go into different other areas of their life that can benefit from So you go for the basics first. Sleep Very basic. And then final and and then so many yeah. Angela, I know, we have, in the moment, I I'm looking at the clock because I know we have some questions I want to attend to. But, talk to me about the somatic experience and how did that change you? What is it? What's somatic experience? So somatic experience was developed by doctor Peter Levine, and he was studying animals in the wild and noticing how, you know, these are, you know, prey let's say a prey animal. They just they almost died. You know, a tiger had them in their mouth and then let them go. Right? How come are they not in psych wards? Right? How do they discharge? I mean, if I don't know. A tiger grabbed my throat. I don't know if I can, like, shake it off in five seconds and, you know, I might need a lot of therapy. I might right? So he studied how animals would discharge stress and developed a whole system and modality around how to help humans who have been, so I think we can say that stress that doesn't get metabolized becomes trauma in the body. Kinda, it just like gets stuck there. So we tend to think of trauma as like veterans and, but I would say that the fertility experience is inherently traumatizing. And so I studied the modality because I felt like women needed more support, not talking, but like their bodies. And so you're measuring sensation or you're looking at sensation, you're bringing comfort to the body. It's a really beautiful way to heal stress and trauma in the body. And so once the diet's there and and the now she's sleeping and the safety is there, then we might do some somatic experiencing, therapy. And it really has helped so many women's nervous systems, like, heal. So it's probably my favorite modality for nervous system healing. I I don't even more than acupuncture. Because acupuncture, I'm doing it to you. Right? I'm sort of regulating it. But somatic experiencing is you learning how to do that for yourself. And I think that's really important, really. I wanna teach women how to fish, you know, not give them fish and make them dependent on me to to feel relaxed. I mean, that's not what I'm about, you know. So I do think that somatic experiencing therapy with acupuncture is really powerful. Do you do you get the thought? So, so I'm I'm I'm just want to know, like, if you can give us an example, like, is it a you try to train their way of thinking? Like, you give them a scenario and then, like, tweak the interpretation? Like, how does the or you you actually touches certain like, how does somatic experience entail? Like, what does it entail? Let me ask you something. Is there are you can you imagine something stressful, doctor Lee? Yes. Okay. And where do you notice that in your body? My heart. Okay. And you just put your hand there. I definitely have tightness. Okay. Okay. So you put your hand here. And what do you notice? Does the tightness get better or worse? Actually, a little bit better. I mean, I don't I mean, I feel someone touching is always good, like massage. They Oh, yeah. So that's a somatic practice right there. Oh. Right? I didn't have to hear the content. I don't have to know what you're stressed about. It's not important. I'm just tending to that part of you that's constricting, that's feeling stressed. So that's one way you can for the audience, you can get a pillow that can, like why don't you take that doll that you have, the your uterus? Yes. I actually felt good when I did that. Yeah. So put that there. And does that even bring more comfort? Perfect. And one last thing, when you notice that stress, so think about the stress again. Got it? Okay. Is there a place in your body that doesn't feel stressed? Sorry. You said your heart. Maybe my feet. Great. So another exercise is you can do something called pendulation. This is probably my favorite somatic practice. So you could take your attention. You could put it in your heart and just take a couple breaths, and then put your attention on your feet And then back to your heart. I'm going a little quickly, but just that pendulation going it's so fascinating, right, that that you can feel stress in one area of your body and not another. Right? And what happens when we're stressed, our attention usually goes to the part that's the most activated. And the the parts that aren't activated don't get any attention. Right? So that's a somatic practice that, like, literally that practice, I would say, number one, practice that healed my nervous system. Well, Angela, I may have to personally come to your sessions. Yes. It does work. Why would love to hear that? Two minutes. Notice and maybe Sydney, like, as you were doing that, like, we all got calmer. Honestly, yeah. Yeah. Because that's coregulation. When someone gets more regulated, it actually impacts the people around. So a lot of what my work is is I'm kind of lending my nervous system to women. So I'm providing that, like, regulation in the room for them, and it's powerful. Oh, this is really powerful because you know what? You make me listen to my body just now. But you're asking all, like, what? I have to listen to someone who who you're asking. Oh, me. Okay. Let me feel. Because how would you know? You wouldn't. You're you're you're working my skill set to listen. Right. And that's where, like I said, there's so much content, you know. Someone comes in, oh my god, endo, and I hate my body, and she she's saying this, she's getting activated. So if I keep listening to her do that for session after session after session, she's gonna leave feeling like why am I not feeling better? But if I can ask, like, well, where are you noticing that stress in your body? And bringing her back to her body, we start to repair and heal our nervous system. And, you know, I can't recommend it highly enough. And I think for women who are inspired to be mothers or have children and want more children, I don't think there's a greater gift you can give a child than a regulated nervous system because children don't know how to regulate their nervous systems, you know, and many of us grew up in homes where our parents were not regulated. So we had to figure out how to do it on our own. And we, you know, didn't do you know, we became workaholics. We became people pleasers. You know? We did all of these things to, help ourselves when we didn't have that. So, yeah, it's it's really beautiful. It it's such a wonderful addition to to Chinese medicine and, yeah, thank you so much. No problem. I'm sorry. Sydney is, Sydney, I know that couple quick question. Sorry. I think it's like a yeah. Can we do it in one minute? I think she can answer it. Yeah. I can I can listen to you guys talk all day? We might have to do one of these webinars with just the two of you. But I I really love, like, hearing about the somatic practices, and I think these are some really good exercises that everyone can take home and, like, do for themselves as they go throughout the fertility journey. So I think that's great. We I can maybe sneak a question in, but I do just wanna point out that if anyone has any questions that they don't have answered, please feel free to reach out to all of our speakers. You can find their information in the docs section right next to the chat. And if anyone else is in their speaker. Email me, and I will have my assistant send it to you. And you can sign up for my newsletter. All I talk about is health. So you can just go to my website. Okay. So that's a question here. Alright. Let's see if we can fill Would you recommend a room yeah. This is like a yes or no, like, less. Would you recommend aromatherapy for stress reduction? Yes. I do. My favorite company is called, Lotus Way. And what I like, their flower remedies, check them out. We have, like, codes to for it to it's it's they're they can be expensive, but I think she has the best, products that I have found. So absolutely. Because smell, it kind of interrupts a stress cycle. So when you smell You know what? We need that maybe yeah. We think about that at Genexx. Yeah. Okay. Okay? Sorry. Yeah. Do you see the question? This is is oh, here. Caffeine impact equality. It does, increase risk of, and when Angela talked about caffeine, it does increase risk of miscarriages. So that's why we do have, some study on but we kept Angela said something very interesting. Is it the stress or the caffeine or the stress and then the caffeine, that increases miscarriages. So, that is where it's hard to de define. Is the caffeinated teas and coffee a better they have a option for intake as well as pure cocoa or dark chocolate? Yeah. Cacao and dark chocolate have caffeine so I'm not a big fan. My favorite favorite tea on the planet for the nervous system and fertility is something called oat straw. You can find it online, email me if you want. We can send you the instructions on how to prepare it. But it's a nervine and so it's very good for the nervous system. It's an herb of immortality so it's one of my secrets. I drink this I drink this stuff for a long time. And, it's not contraindicated in pregnancy. So you can take it through your fertility journey and through pregnancy. So deep caff teas are much better, and herbal teas like, oatstraw is my favorite. So Wow. You guys are a perfect wrap up. You have nine seconds. So I think this is it. Thank you so much, Angela. Thank you, doctor Lee. Thank you. Thank you. See you the next day. Bye bye.