<span style="color: #808080;">In speaking with women trying to get pregnant, more times than anything else it became clear that the words "trying to relax" were the last words that they would want to hear.  Typically, the reason had fundamentally to do with the idea that the fertility problems stemmed from their head, sometimes with blame and guilt attached to it. </span>

<span style="color: #808080;">However - and of course the whole premise behind Circle &amp; Bloom - is that there is truth in those words. Simply put, our bodies are not a disconnected vessel cut off from the outside world. Our minds are constantly reacting to the environment that we are engaging in, and our bodies react accordingly. Deepak Chopra says that our bodies are constantly eavesdropping on our thoughts and being changed by them – for the better and the worse.</span>

<span style="color: #808080;">Not only that, but it is known that depression and stress levels in woman trying to conceive are as high as those experiencing life threatening diseases such as heart disease or cancer.   Why does trying cause so much anxiety?  What can we then do about it?  What can we do to reverse the effects of “trying?”  With my first pregnancy, we were “trying but not trying” and I was pregnant within six months.  With the second one, however, TTC became my daily mantra, and every month was like a judge and jury finding out whether or not the defendant was guilty or not.</span>

<span style="color: #808080;">So how do our thoughts translate into the physical realm?  How do these fleeting bits of non-matter affect on our bodies? This question taunted me for almost two and half years. I dove headfirst into dozens of books on subjects ranging from fertility, mind/body, psychology and hypnotherapy.  There is still a lot to learn, and it is a bit like connecting the dots.</span>

<span style="color: #808080;">We know the following:
•    Stress has a real and measurable impact on the body;
•    Infertility, or trying to become pregnant, creates lots of stress;
•    Fertility is reduced by stress;
•    Constant worry, depression or anxiety creates chronic stress; and
•    Stress causes numerous other health-related ailments.</span>

<span style="color: #808080;">Please come back from future installments as we will cover numerous ideas along these lines, including:
•    The negative effects of “trying” on our bodies
•    The mind/body connection and how it relates back to fertility
•    Law of reversed effort
•    Stress reduction techniques (yoga, visualization, deep-breathing, etc.)
•    The hypothalamus-pituitary-ovary connection
•    Chronic stress and the effect on our hormone circulation
•    Research being completed by fertility specialists currently</span>