Bedtime and Infertility
While everyone’s infertility journey is different and how they navigate it is personal, there are two things we all can relate to. One is that there are (many) days we just don’t want to get out of bed because the burden of wanting something so bad and not having it yet can be too much to bear. The other is that we often want to crawl back in the sack as early as the demands of our lives will allow us.
Battling infertility is emotionally and physically exhausting especially when the journey is taking a longer time than you expected. The lack of control over being able to have a baby when you want to—or possibly even ever--is beyond painful and frustrating. But it turns out there is a way you can exert some control. There’s something you can do that may positively impact getting pregnant.
And it involves going to bed. How great does that sound to you?
A recent study from Washington University researchers in St. Louis, Missouri, which was presented at the 2018 annual meeting of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) in Denver, found that women participants who maintained a regular bedtime conceived faster than those with erratic bedtimes. It didn’t matter what time they went to bed, so long as it was consistent.
While it’s been long recognized that hormonal regulation is dependent upon adequate sleep, neither the duration of sleep nor the participants’ wake up times were factors associated with conceiving faster according to this new study. It should be noted that IVF patients, understandably, were excluded from the study which focused on natural, unassisted conception.
So, if you’d like to potentially wield some additional control over your fertility-- while also shutting out the stressful world-- set a bedtime alarm (some phones offer this feature) and hit the sack as close to the same time as you can each night. Sweet dreams.