Ep 340 A Functional Approach to PCOS, Autoimmunity, and Hormonal Healing with Hannah Davis

On today’s episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, I am joined by Hannah Davis (@rooted.with.hannah), a Registered Dietitian and certified meditation teacher who specialises in women’s health, hormones, and autoimmune conditions. After being diagnosed with Hashimoto’s while navigating early motherhood, Hannah shifted her clinical nutrition practice to focus on uncovering the deeper root causes of symptoms like fatigue, cycle irregularities, and PCOS.

We dive into how nervous system dysregulation often underlies hormonal imbalances and why functional testing, mineral status, and emotional safety are crucial for true healing. From decoding PCOS types to understanding thyroid antibodies and the connection between trauma and calcium retention, Hannah offers a deeply integrative and compassionate lens for supporting women on their fertility and healing journeys.

This conversation is packed with practical tools and fresh insights—don’t miss it!


Key Takeaways: 

• PCOS is not just about ovarian cysts—it's a metabolic and inflammatory condition with many root causes.

• Nervous system regulation is foundational for hormone balance, digestion, and fertility.

• Functional lab testing (like Dutch and HTMA) reveals hidden patterns traditional labs may miss.

• Excess calcium in tissues may indicate trauma or over-supplementation with Vitamin D.

• Diet, stress, sleep, and gut health all influence autoimmune and hormonal symptoms.

Guest Bio:
Hannah Davis, RD (@rooted.with.hannah) is a Registered Dietitian and certified meditation teacher with advanced training in functional nutrition, lab testing, and spiritual psychology. She specialises in supporting women with hormonal imbalances, autoimmune conditions like Hashimoto’s, and chronic fatigue through an integrative approach that blends clinical science with deep nourishment and nervous system healing.

After navigating her own health challenges postpartum, Hannah now helps women reclaim their energy, resilience, and sense of safety through 1:1 coaching and group programs at Pivot Nutrition Coaching. She’s especially passionate about working with mothers, self-healers, and cycle-breakers who are ready to feel like themselves again.

Links and Resources:

• Follow Hannah on Instagram

• Visit the Pivot Nutrition Coaching website

• Book Mentioned: The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk
  

For more information about Michelle, visit: www.michelleoravitz.com

Check out Michelle’s Latest Book: The Way of Fertility!

https://www.michelleoravitz.com/thewayoffertility

The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/

Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/

• Transcript

  # VIDEO-Hannah-Davis

  ​[00:00:00]

  Michelle: Welcome to the podcast, Hannah.

  Hannah: thanks for having me.

  Michelle: So I'm very excited to have you on. We're gonna be talking about a lot of really cool topics, but before we get started, I always like to start out with kind of like an origin story and learn how you got into the work that you're doing.

  Hannah: Yeah. I am a registered dietician. I've been mainly practicing medical nutrition therapy for the last 10 years in a more clinical setting. And you know, and then I became a mom. I have two. One's almost eight, you gotta say almost eight. And the other one's, and the other one's nine. So they're really, they're really young and I, you know, working at the hospital part-time and I started noticing.

  Hannah: My own symptoms of, of things that just felt like off. And simultaneously [00:01:00] I was also becoming more interested in learning about more integrative functional nutrition. And so that really led me down. It, it started off as, oh. A way for me to kind of figure out what was going on with me, because of course, like so many of my, the clients I work with now you know, you go to the doctors, you ask for some labs to be done and they just say, oh, you're absolutely fine.

  Hannah: You might just be stressed. You're stressed out, you're a young mom. Of course it's normal to feel exhausted all of the time and stuff like that. So, I just was like really interested in doing more digging and so I, we got some training in advanced lab testing and more like integrative functional nutrition.

  Hannah: And so. From there I was able to figure out what's going on with me, and I, I actually have an autoimmune condition. It's called Hashimotos. And so that really affects, you know, your, your [00:02:00] energy levels, your, your gut health, your immune system obviously is involved. So I, it was so incredibly validating and it really excited me.

  Hannah: I was like, I feel. If I can figure out a way to use advanced lab testing and combine that with my. More of my more clinical, you know, expertise and combine that together to really like, help women feel empowered about how to support their health and, and how they feel and their showing up in their lives every day.

  Hannah: And so it just really, really excited me. So that's kind of what got me started with that. And then I, I pivoted towards, towards that about three years ago started my own virtual practice working more in like the women's health space. So like hormones, gut health, autoimmune conditions.

  Hannah: And then I, as I was doing more of that work, I was like, okay, [00:03:00] there's. I'm seeing a common theme here. These women at their root, cause a lot of the time is nervous system dysregulation. And I got really. Tired of just saying over and over again. You know, you need to manage your stress a little bit better.

  Hannah: I wanted to be able to give them so much more than that. And obviously I knew that from my own journey. I really had to integrate that. And so, but I wanted to like, figure out how to help my, my clients integrate that. So then I became a certified meditation teacher. And spent a year studying spiritual psychology, which is like a blend of Eastern ritual and practices with western psychology.

  Hannah: That, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So now I really like to supplement my, programs with giving my clients tools on how to regulate their nervous systems as well. [00:04:00] And so, we'll, you know, you know, it's more of like life coaching almost. And then maybe we'll integrate some, some things like, meditation or breath work together.

  Hannah: It really just depends on what the, how the client wants to be supported. So

  Michelle: Awesome.

  Hannah: Yeah.

  Michelle: You know it's interesting 'cause I

  Hannah: Yeah.

  Michelle: an episode on. Nervous system. Really the vagal tone and

  Hannah: Yes.

  Michelle: there's a link with a weaker vagal tone and things like endometriosis or

  Michelle: PCOS, and I thought that was just fascinating.

  Michelle: So, yeah, I'd love to really kind of dig deep on all of these things. So just for people listening and they're kind of like hearing nervous system for the first time. 'cause well maybe they've listened to my podcast, maybe not when I talked about the nervous system. But what should people, like, explain the nervous system, explain how the nervous system ties into certain [00:05:00] conditions.

  Hannah: I mean, that's a very, like, that's pretty broad because it's like, you know, it really depends on what.

  Michelle: the nervous system like tie into certain conditions?

  Hannah: I don't know what condition it doesn't, honestly. Uh, the more, the more I get like deep in the weeds with this, so, you know, a lot of my clients we, you know, so I am typically working with people with autoimmune conditions and hormone. I balances gut health, that kind of stuff. And I, you know, I would say the nervous system impacts all of those areas because ideally, especially when we're talking about women's health and like hormones, things like that we really just want to create safety in the body, right?

  Hannah: So that we can. Manufacture hormones and ovulate naturally and things like that. So, and then, you know, inflammation's another, another piece of that. It really just, it's a great way to, [00:06:00] like, it just connects to everything right.

  Michelle: Yeah, well the vagus nerve is incredibly important when it comes to gut health. the stronger the vagal tone, the better the vagus nerve, the better. It's able to lower inflammation in the body.

  Hannah: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

  Michelle: fascinating and interesting. And so what are some of the things that you do suggest for people. they wanna regulate their nervous system and support that aspect.

  Hannah: So First of all, I think it's important to just figure out what are the systems for that client? What are the systems that are working for them and what's not? And really get really honest about that. And then, you know, it could be something like starting a.

  Hannah: Very doable meditation practice or some breath work like before, before meals, right? Getting into rest and digest me activating that vagus nerve so that we [00:07:00] can digest our food properly. So it really just depends on what is feels a lot most aligned for the client and, and is doable for them. But also I think another big piece of this, which is not really talked about often is eating for blood sugar balance.

  Hannah: Because even like blood sugar swings throughout the day can cause fluctuations in your mood and your anxiety and cravings and all, all of, and even inflammation as well. So

  Michelle: that

  Hannah: like a whole body approach. Mm-hmm.

  Michelle: It's such a good point. And I remember like looking into this and researching like just really the gut brain connection and. And it's interesting 'cause you can see it really go both ways. So if you have imbalanced gut microbiome that can ima impact your brain and your mood and your state and your emotions.

  Michelle: And it actually is linked with certain [00:08:00] emotional um, imbalances or like mental disorders. It's really fascinating. And then they found. On the flip side that people who meditated for many years, like Tibetan monks, they had a really vast microbiome that was a lot more enriched and had a lot more diversity.

  Michelle: So it's really fascinating how you really can literally get it at both ends or either end.

  Hannah: yeah. Like I tell my clients all the time, if you're breathing into your shoulders, the majority of the time it's gonna signal, or that's gonna signal to the brain that you're in fight or flight. So it's gonna send all the blood to your extremities. It's not gonna be sending the blood to, you know, your, your GI track and your, you know, your organs there.

  Hannah: And so. it's gonna be a lot harder to digest your foods, whereas if you are really taking these deep breaths into your belly, it's sending all the blood there. And that's, [00:09:00] that's a, and I mean, I often get skipped, you know, people are just like, no, just gimme a, just gimme a meal plan. I wanna feel better.

  Hannah: I wanna lose weight, or I wanna, you know, but it's like, you really gotta think about not just what you're eating, but how you're eating, like what your nervous system state is. You know, when you're, when you're eating food.

  Michelle: That's so true. It's

  Hannah: Mm-hmm.

  Michelle: true. And it was funny 'cause I was reading about that and it was one of the things to do is just stand. This is why they say like, don't drive and eat at the same time. Because when you're driving naturally, you're gonna be in a little bit more of a fight or flight or kind of ready for anything and. Also just to kind of throw it out there, it's not bad to be in that state, in that sympathetic state. It's part of life. It's just that sometimes you need that and then sometimes you need the other. But what you're saying is so true, like it's actually like becoming mindful of getting yourself into that state and maybe

  Michelle: doing those exercises to get yourself in more parasympathetic state, which is more of

  Michelle: the rest and digest, so that you're priming your [00:10:00] body when you do eat. To digest better. So I think

  Hannah: Yeah. Of course, and, you know, if you're digesting better, you're absorbing nutrients better, which is gonna impact your energy levels, your mood, your hormones, everything. So yeah, there really, I feel like the more I get into it, the, more I see that there really isn't an aspect of our health, our med, our metabolic health, everything that is not touched by, your nervous system.

  Michelle: Yeah, it's really fascinating. I like, the more I dig into this, the more I'm just like so amazed at how Willy, you know, it's the nervous system is kind of like this wiring of like. Information.

  Michelle: It's almost like information that kind of signals to your body, all kinds of different states, but especially that safety.

  Michelle: I agree with you. You know, when you, when you feel safe, you can be more creative. And what does that mean really in the body fertility and it also regeneration growth.

  Michelle: So yeah, it's pretty cool,

  Hannah: [00:11:00] Yeah. And I mean, hormones, that's how hormones work too. They're just chemical messengers in your body.

  Michelle: right? and so talk about PCOS, 'cause I know that you work with P-C-O-S-A lot just to cover. 'cause I think of people don't really understand it fully because it is you know, there's so many different types of PCOS and people get confused and sometimes people show PCOS symptoms, but then some doctors, and we don't know if they're just not like looking. Thoroughly into it. Dismiss it. Oh, that's not PCOS. So

  Hannah: Right.

  Michelle: that and just kind of,

  Hannah: Yeah.

  Michelle: it is,

  Hannah: Okay, well, we'll just start what, like, so what is PCOS? So PCOS stands for polycystic ovarian syndrome. So a lot of people get confused by that right off the bat. They think, oh, so that mean I have cysts on my ovaries. Does that mean that I have it? So it's actually not a physical ovarian condition, [00:12:00] like of the presence of cyst, but it's rather a hormonal condition and it's a, what I like to call a spectrum condition.

  Hannah: You know, 'cause there's different varieties and there's different root causes. It's important to understand, first of all what kind of PCOS you have and what the root causes are which is why we, we use functional lab testing in practice. But but yeah, I think a lot of women often it's like a long confusing road full of mixed messages of like just lose weight advice,

  Michelle: Yeah,

  Hannah: you know.

  Michelle: really thin. PCOS patients, so that's where it can get so confusing for

  Hannah: Right, right, right. And so, A-P-C-O-S isn't in an ovarian condition, you know, what exactly is going on? I mean, in a nutshell, it's basically, blood sugar issues plus inflammation, plus genetic susceptibility, which is going to lead [00:13:00] to the ovaries to begin to produce large amounts of androgens.

  Hannah: So, you know, and I say genetic susceptibility because, you know, just because you have like insulin sensi or insulin resistance or diabetes, that doesn't mean you automatically are gonna get PCOS. Some people just have really sensitive ovaries right. And so they're, they're going to develop the, the condition, so I like to talk to my clients about well first of all, we start by running some tests to find out, you know, what what their root causes are. And then we're gonna really go deep with, you know, working on the blood sugar issues with the inflammation, real food strategies lifestyle interventions, things like that.

  Michelle: One of the things that I find is pretty common just in my own practice, is that.

  Michelle: there's a huge link of gut [00:14:00] imbalance

  Michelle: or, you know, gut microbiome

  Michelle: imbalance and inflammation, you know, that is part of the contributor to the inflammation and can really impact PCOS conditions.

  Hannah: Yeah. Because you know, if we, if that inflammation in the gut is going unchecked you know, that's also gonna drive that insulin resistance even more.

  Michelle: Yeah.

  Michelle: what are some of the tests that you do for PCOS? Functional

  Hannah: Well, yeah. Well, first of all, I, I like to start with a Dutch test. It's a, have you heard of Dutch? The Uhhuh? Yeah. Oh, you do? Okay. Yeah. So I would run a Dutch you know, so that we,

  Michelle: out just for people

  Hannah: yeah. Yes,

  Michelle: I've never heard of it before. So it's dried urine testing for comprehensive, or I forget

  Hannah: it's a Dr. It's a. Yeah, yeah. Dried urine test for comprehensive hormones. I know I used to think, oh, it's [00:15:00] of Dutch, like it's from the Dutch, like, you know, but it's just an abbreviation.

  Michelle: right, right.

  Hannah: But yes, it's a very unique way to look at hormones. 'cause traditionally before this test was available, you would have to rely on blood work for hormones.

  Hannah: And, you know, saliva for cortisol, which is okay, but it's just not great. So this test really helps us get a lot more specific, a lot more personalized, and helps us get some answers that would probably. Be left unanswered if we were just, you know, looking at, at blood work alone. So, you know, it's gonna tell us, you know, give us a snapshot of all three sex hormones, estrogen, progesterone, testosterone.

  Hannah: It's gonna show us how they're being metabolized in the liver. And then what I really like is it looks at your cortisol awakening response. So someone is struggling with sleep, mood, energy levels. Things like that that could also be driving your symptoms and, and your inflammation as well. So I, mm-hmm.

  Michelle: cortisol is your friend in the morning. [00:16:00]

  Hannah: Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And then I like that it also has that organic acid test at the end there, which some of those other markers are gonna be important for looking at, for hormone production. So it's nice if they include that. So I, I like to do a Dutch, I also like to do HTMA testing, which stands for hair tissue mineral analysis.

  Hannah: Because, you know, you know, when we're looking at hormones it's, you know, we, we also wanna be, look thinking about minerals too because and not just like, our minerals through blood work, but more on a cellular level. Like what is the body doing with those minerals? And how is your body utilizing them?

  Hannah: Are they even getting up into the cell? So, and we can, you know, you know, minerals, they impact hormones, which means they're gonna impact PCOS. So I like that one too. And it's like a little, it's a, it's a nice way to, I like it 'cause it's, it shows your body's like, it's like a blueprint. It [00:17:00] shows you your stress pattern.

  Hannah: know how your body is using minerals after you've maybe gone through a season of. Really high stress and you know, the fertility journey too is so stressful on its own that I'm like, yeah, let's look at what your body does with all this stress and how we can really like, you know, deeply nourish your body and, you know, make it feel safe for ovulation.

  Michelle: Yeah, I know that there's a lot of minerals that you can't really test in blood and for example, magnesium. That's a

  Hannah: Mm-hmm.

  Michelle: one to test for. So does this test for magnesium as well, like all minerals or,

  Hannah: yeah, yeah. It looks at all of the minerals. Specifically the ones that I'm gonna be focusing on. The minerals that impact PCS would be magnesium, zinc, calcium, iron selenium iodine. So, you know, and in a nutshell, you know, these, these minerals. they can exacerbate insulin resistance, hormonal imbalances, oxidative stress, which is [00:18:00] important for like egg quality, sperm quality, things like that.

  Hannah: So women, get your men to your partner.

  Michelle: Yes.

  Michelle: So, so this is a hair test.

  Hannah: yeah, it's a hair. They're using just like a teaspoon amount of your hair to analyze the mineral content in your tissues.

  Michelle: Fascinating. I know they've done those for like heavy metals and, and just testing the

  Hannah: Yeah, yeah,

  Michelle: I haven't heard of the mineral testing yet.

  Hannah: yeah. And this, yeah. And this test does include heavy metals and we look at, mm-hmm.

  Michelle: heavy metals. Oh, okay.

  Hannah: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

  Michelle: it's really high. Just like for people that don't have symptoms sometimes I almost feel like it's like high for everybody.

  Hannah: The heavy metals. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and

  Michelle: somebody who's not, who doesn't have like,

  Hannah: yeah, and I mean, we we're exposed to heavy metals all of the time. It's, you know, it's, there's, it's kind of impossible [00:19:00] to get around it, you know? It's in our food, our water, the soil, you know. And so my approach is, you know, we might see like an acute.

  Hannah: Exposure to the heavy metals. But what we wanna see is that you, you're able to detox and excrete those heavy metals safely. You know, that's why, you know, we have our detox organs, our liver, right? And so if I ever see those metals like pushing into the tissues, it's just a really good indication that, hey, your liver needs some.

  Hannah: Some attention, like we need to work on supporting that. And also working on not just our detoxification organs, but our drainage pathways. So like our lymphatic system you know, making sure we're having daily bowel movements that we're sweating all of that. All of that stuff. Yeah.

  Michelle: Yeah.

  Michelle: for sure. I think that that's key is really detoxifying, and I think that it, you had a good point. You mentioned the word safely because

  Michelle: that can be an issue, like if you detoxify too [00:20:00] harshly. I'm really big on that, especially when you're trying to conceive and you're actively trying, you definitely don't wanna do something that's so strong that it actually circulates more toxins in your bloodstream.

  Hannah: That's right. Yeah.

  Michelle: So they have like binders, right? Or things

  Hannah: Yeah, That is one approach for me. I rarely will do like a heavy metal detox with somebody. I will just wanna work with them on, you know, first the foundational things of, are we optimizing the gut health, the, you know, the liver function are we getting those drainage pathways open?

  Hannah: Because your body should be able to do all that on its own if it's, you know, optimal. but I mean, if someone's already doing like a gut protocol or something with me, then yeah, they, they'll be taking like those types of supplements and then it'll, it'll still act on the heavy metals and things like that, as.

  Michelle: Interesting. So, what are some of the nutrient and lifestyle interventions specifically that you would do for PCOS? Or have you seen, because I, [00:21:00] I do know that

  Hannah: yeah.

  Michelle: different types, so that could

  Hannah: Yes.

  Michelle: the type,

  Hannah: Yes. Yeah.

  Michelle: the things that people should kind of like look out for, think about?

  Hannah: Yeah. Yeah. So the first step is, is gonna be improving the quality of your food choices. So, you know, removing inflammatory oils, added sugars a lot of like processed, like ultra processed carbohydrates and, you know, with chemical and artificial additives. Things like that, you wanna replace them with whole real foods.

  Hannah: It's really that simple.

  Michelle: Yeah. I know,

  Hannah: Yeah. Yeah. And then also, you know, the goal is to eat a sufficient amount of carbohydrates to promote ovulation, but while still focusing on those whole real. Food sources, like starchy veggies fruits and then unprocessed whole grains and legumes.

  Michelle: So really from natural sources, [00:22:00]

  Michelle: complex car carbs. So it's not like simple carbs, not white, you know, avoid those like.

  Hannah: Yeah. Right. So you, and you would want to make sure you're getting adequate amount of carbohydrates, but you know, if we're also dealing with insulin resistance, then we also need to be talking about you know, maintaining adequate calorie intake and just aiming for. Balance across all the macronutrients.

  Hannah: So, you know, we're pairing those carbohydrates with good quality sources of protein and healthy fats. And, if you're eating a more whole food carbs diet like. Your carbs are coming from fruits like, and like root vegetables and things like that, then those foods are naturally gonna have more fiber in them, which is also gonna help with things like insulin resistance.

  Hannah: And then I would also be focusing on gut nourishing foods, like, bone broth probiotics from fermented foods, cultured. Products. And then lots of prebiotic fibers. So it also just making sure you're eating a [00:23:00] wide range of, plant fibers. Like we're not just eating the same, spinach every day.

  Hannah: You know, let's really mix that up. Maybe like arugula, kale, you know. So that would be the where, where I would start with foods strategies. And then for lifestyle I would be really focusing on exercise. This is a really crucial tool in repairing insulin sensitivity and managing blood sugar levels.

  Hannah: So first I would just focus on increasing your daily movement. So, you know, maybe try tracking your steps. And then maybe you would wanna consider adding in some resistance training and some short hit style workouts. Since those really show the most metabolic improvements. In general I would avoid, I would avoid like, really long duration cardio on a regular baseball basis, since that's like very stressful on the body.

  Hannah: So exercise is number one. Stress management is key. I know we've already kind of touched on that a little bit. [00:24:00] You know, that's a big piece of hormonal. Balance balance since the, your adrenal health, you know, has the ability to impact the function of your sex hormones. I would just evaluate the sources of your stress.

  Hannah: You know, I like to think of it like a bucket, like a stress bucket, and we have all these different inputs pouring in. Some of those things we can't really remove, but some things we can, you can control your nutrition and your sleep quality. You know, you can maybe work on energetic boundaries, right?

  Hannah: Maybe you wanna include things like meditation or journaling, acupuncture, right? Those are all really nice ways to support yourself. And then sleep. Sleep is also like so major. That's when you know when you're, you can get good quality sleep at night. That's when your, your body's repairing tissue.

  Hannah: And it, it has a lot to do with your hormones, like in like your like your hunger hormones, those ones and then also like [00:25:00] cortisol, melatonin, things like that. Everything that just keeps all of the systems working together smoothly. So, yep. Do you.

  Michelle: of sleep. There's a, there like a lot of times we'll increase sugar cravings 'cause you want that quick energy. So

  Hannah: Yes,

  Michelle: that's one example of how that can impact

  Hannah: exactly. Yeah. Yeah. If you have like one poor night of sleep, it increases your hunger hormone levels pretty significantly. So we'll see that that issue popping up time and time again. Yeah, so.

  Michelle: yeah. And I also have heard, in some

  Michelle: of like go, literally pivot into autoimmune and how [00:26:00] you can address that in the case of Hashimoto's?

  Michelle: 'cause it is so prevalent and a lot of people have it. The first thing that I say is, cut out gluten, corn, and dairy and soy if you can. Now, I always say if you can't do all of them, at least cut out the gluten entirely and talk to us about like what you've done and what you've found to be helpful.

  Michelle: 'cause it is something that if you catch early, you really can sh shift a lot just from diet alone.

  Hannah: Oh, yes. Yeah, and I've helped. Hundreds of women with that. Exactly. Just you know, we see, I've seen different stages of, Hashimoto's. You know, so if it's like, you know, stage one where we're seeing the presence of antibodies and maybe they have symptoms, maybe they don't. A lot of those women typically will present with like subclinical hypothyroidism.

  Hannah: So like their thyroid labs look fine. But they're like, I, feel tired all the time. I'm constipated. [00:27:00] I can't lose weight, you know? So the first thing I would start with is kinda getting ahead of things with, 'cause the majority of your immune system is in your gut. So I would be doing a GI would run a stool sample, a GI map and see what's going on there.

  Hannah: Because there's different things that could be driving. That immune response. Yeah. It could be coming from things in the diet like gluten. And that test certainly will show us if you're having an immune response to gluten. So in those cases, I would have those clients cut, cut that out. And some people they, they don't, they don't run the test and they cut out gluten, but they just feel better without it.

  Michelle: See that a lot.

  Hannah: mm-hmm. I do too. Just kind of anecdotally. I was just gonna say that I think it is because of like, what, what they're spraying on our crops.

  Michelle: Yeah,

  Hannah: Yep. know that it can impact hormones like big time, that's

  Hannah: Mm-hmm.

  Michelle: one for sure.

  Hannah: Yeah. So, and then, you know, obviously if there's [00:28:00] a inflammation or like leaky gut.

  Hannah: You know, we're gonna wanna address that anyway because that could be driving that immune response and making your symptoms worse, making the antibodies levels worse, right? So I really wanna just get ahead of it with the gut number one.

  Hannah: And then I like to do mineral testing as well, since so many minerals, not only impact PCOS, but they impact your thyroid.

  Michelle: That's a huge

  Hannah: Yes, selenium. This is a common thing that I see. I'll see really high amounts of calcium in the tissues. And that's gonna block your thyroid hormone from getting up into the cell.

  Hannah: So like maybe their thyroid panel looks great, but that, or they're already taking a thyroid medication, but they're, they feel like it's not doing anything for them. I'm like, look, you have a lot of calcium in your tissues. And so like, that's your thyroid hormone's not even getting up into the cell. So of course you wouldn't feel an impact [00:29:00] there.

  Hannah: And that also is.

  Michelle: actually? What causes that? Calcification?

  Hannah: So, I typically see that from over supplementing with vitamin D. So, that will pull the calcium out of the bone and teeth. And put it into the tissues. Yeah. A lot of people get put on vitamin D by their doctor, like maybe they had low levels at one point, and then their doctor never talked to them about weaning off of the vitamin D.

  Hannah: They just kept taking it.

  Michelle: too high. Yeah.

  Hannah: Yeah. Or they'll start them off like a really high dose, like I've seen like 50,000 units of, of vitamin. Yeah. And they, and they just keep taking it like, then they're never told like, Hey, you're actually supposed to tapered off of that after a couple months. I've also seen an influx of people on vitamin D, zinc you know, ever since the pandemic.

  Hannah: So they just kept taking it and they don't know how that's impacted their. Mine. So, so yeah, that's one culprit. I, I'll see. The other thing that I notice, and this [00:30:00] is pretty prevalent in the autoimmune community is, and I don't think it's talked about a lot, is significant trauma and certain types of trauma.

  Hannah: It, it's like we call when we see this pattern on an htm. It, we call it a calcium shell where the calcium and the magnesium levels are really high in the tissues. And then we are like really depleted in things like potassium and sodium and other secondary minerals. And it's kind of like the body's way of shielding itself from feeling big, like feeling really big emotions.

  Hannah: So like a lot of these clients, I, I'll talk to them about this and they have such a flat effect, like with the then we start moving the calcium out of the tissues and then they become, they're, it's like they really need more emotional support throughout that process. It's very interesting. [00:31:00] I'm about to actually do an HTMA on myself.

  Hannah: It's been a couple of years, but I've just gone, I'm grieving my mom right now and I, yeah, and it's just been a really rough couple of months. I've just been just going through the motions and kind of in that, like taking care of her, taking care of my girls. Like just everything that we've gone through leading up to this point.

  Hannah: And I'm like, I am so curious to know what's going on with my minerals right now. I would not be surprised if I was having calcium going into my tissues. 'cause I believe that's what was my pattern last time I ran the test a few years ago. So.

  Michelle: Oh, that's interesting.

  Hannah: It's like, yeah, this is my, my unique pattern, you know, so I see that a lot with Hashimoto's and yeah, and, and it's interesting because that pattern, like the high calcium in the tissues and the low potassium, that's really really common with like thyroid stuff in general because, you know, first of all, that [00:32:00] calcium's blocking the thyroid.

  Hannah: Hormone from getting up into the cell. It's also gonna be blocking insulin signaling. So there is gonna be a lot of blood sugar swings, and that's gonna be driving the inflammation, making that worse. And then the low potassium, well, you know, potassium is needed for thyroid function as well. So, I see that pattern a lot with that population and it's so fascinating.

  Hannah: And I would just say like, I wouldn't say it's like. It's more like anecdotal, right? Like and you probably see that too in your practice. Yeah. Yeah.

  Michelle: For different things, not this specifically, but Yeah.

  Michelle: I mean, you see a lot of that and that's, that matters just because studies are very expensive to have and you can't

  Hannah: Mm-hmm.

  Michelle: rely just on studies. You have to really rely on data in general, like your own experience

  Hannah: Oh, absolutely.

  Michelle: there's so much information that you can get just from that. And then, couple of things. One of the things is, I know that Zyme has been shown to really [00:33:00] help, it's an enzyme, it's a pro oleic enzymes that break apart, like fibrous tissue. So I'm curious to

  Hannah: Oh

  Michelle: if it would help with excess calcium or, you know, deposits because it, it works to break down

  Hannah: yeah,

  Michelle: really needed in the body.

  Hannah: yeah. Yeah.

  Michelle: up.

  Hannah: Yeah. That is interesting. Yeah, because when we see, usually the calcium in the tissues is also associated with things like restless leg syndrome, kidney stones, gallstones, all that stuff, you know, because it's just calcification of the tissues. Right. What I do is I'll get, if that person is, has actually been on vitamin D what I'll do is I'll say, okay, let's just pause on the vitamin D and then I'll get them on, a form of vitamin K two that will target that calcium in the tissues and, and bring it, redirect it back to the bones. So we'll do that for several months. And if that person's still concerned about their, their vitamin D [00:34:00] levels and say, let's just get that checked, you know, and depending on where you're at with that, you, you either, you know, probably need supplementation time from time to time, or maybe just during the winter, right?

  Hannah: But it's not a long term. You know, supplement for you because of this pattern, this pattern that you typically have.

  Michelle: Another thing that I was gonna mention is, we were talking about like, antibodies.

  Michelle: I remember, One of my patients mentioning she had like a, 'cause I was talking to an REI and I was gonna have him, I had him on the podcast and so she had some questions and she had a very low amount of antibodies that are considered normal. And he said no, because the presence of any antibody, and that's what's crazy to me.

  Hannah: Mm-hmm.

  Michelle: normal in labs

  Hannah: Yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah. The reference ranges for conventional labs or like in more like conventional healthcare settings. They're not, they're designed to show like if you [00:35:00] have a chronic disease or not. Not necessarily if you're optimal. Right. Like thriving, you know?

  Michelle: have any, even if it's like minute, it means that there's an autoimmune, like

  Hannah: Right. And.

  Michelle: your thyroid.

  Hannah: Yeah, and I mean, my first thought is like, and just because I've worked in that arena for so long, is I think it's just because they need to have a diagnose, a diagnosis for a chronic disease, number one, so that they can build insurance and blah, blah, blah.

  Michelle: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

  Hannah: So they typically can't treat you. They can't, they technically can't treat you.

  Hannah: Like they don't really run on a, it's more of like a sick care model. It's not really, they can't really treat you for like prevention. Right. That's not like that that's not how insurance companies work. So, I think that that's, that's my theory on that. But, you know, but to, to answer your question, yes, I, I see, low levels that aren't considered Hashimoto's,

  Michelle: Right?

  Hannah: but I [00:36:00] would label that early stages or stage one, and I would say, let's work, let's, let's order GI Map.

  Hannah: Let's look at what your minerals are doing like that impact your thyroid. Let's just, just start helping you feel better right away so that we can go into remission. I would much rather my client like, just go ahead and work on those things instead of waiting until it's like, you know, now we're seeing tissue damage, you know, and there's a lot of practices.

  Hannah: I don't,

  Michelle: it if it's early enough, like, but if it's

  Hannah: yeah.

  Michelle: really like far gone,

  Hannah: Yeah. It can, and I don't know if you've run across this a lot in your practice or with your clients, but I've been told a lot of times that they weren't even able to request or see a specialist or an endocrinologist, I guess, until they were able to see tissue damage. And it's like, wouldn't you wanna just prevent the tissue damage?

  Michelle: crazy to me. Yeah.

  Hannah: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so I'm, you know, I just like to get on it like right away, [00:37:00] even if it's like, you know, your antibodies are like five, you know?

  Michelle: yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Really low, but still,

  Hannah: Yeah. Really low. Yeah. It's worth working on. Yeah.

  Michelle: I had actually just recently, I had a case where her TSH was like five and she's young, she's in her twenties. And I'm

  Hannah: Mm-hmm.

  Michelle: not normal.

  Hannah: Mm-hmm.

  Michelle: just a little abnormal.

  Michelle: But that's not a little abnormal for try somebody trying to conceive.

  Hannah: Yeah.

  Michelle: and under. So if you

  Hannah: Mm-hmm.

  Michelle: the thing. If you go to a general doctor or even an ob, they are a little more general in women's health.

  Hannah: Yeah.

  Michelle: they're not going to look at it the same way as an REI is gonna look at it, which is a reproductive endocrinologist and they're gonna

  Hannah: Right.

  Michelle: it a completely different perspective.

  Michelle: Yeah, so it's, so those things I think a lot of people just don't realize and they're going in and they get the wrong information or they don't get like the full information and many years go by and it's kind of like, you know, that's why it's so important to really get ahead of it.[00:38:00]

  Hannah: Yeah, absolutely. I think you're, you're worthy of feeling better, you know, if, does it have to be something that's chronic or.

  Michelle: Right.

  Hannah: Like full on disease state before just feeling better.

  Michelle: Yeah, for sure. So for people who, you know, are curious and wanna learn more about what you do,

  Michelle: um, what are some of the things that you offer online? Where can people find you? I.

  Hannah: So for people who are wanting to work one-on-one with me or maybe just start off with a consultation or some have some labs done you can find me at through Pivot Nutrition Coaching. So the website is pivot nutrition coaching com. And then if, for my social media, I'm on Instagram with Hannah.

  Michelle: Awesome. I'll have all the notes anyway. If anybody like is curious or wants to know exactly [00:39:00] how it's written out or find the link, you can find those on the episode notes. So Hannah, thank you so much for coming on today. It was a great conversation. I love really digging deep on just what goes on with these conditions that so many people hear about that are trying to conceive, but they don't really understand it.

  Michelle: And I think. There's so much power and knowledge and understanding and kind of like going beneath the surface. So I think this is one of the things that I like to do on the show is really to educate people on like really what's going on. So you've really shared some great, valuable information, so thank you so much, Hannah.

  Hannah: Thank you so much for having me and I, I think that this is such an important, important conversation to have and a valuable platform, so it's really an honor to be here. And hope we can chat again soon.

  Michelle: Thank you.

  [00:40:00]

Ep 339 Breathing to Conceive? It Sounds Crazy… Until You Try It

On today’s solo episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, I dive deep into the ancient practice of Pranayama, also known as yogic breathwork, and its profound impact on fertility. Breathwork may sound simple, or even unrelated to fertility, but the connection between your breath, nervous system, and reproductive health is incredibly powerful.

In this episode, I explain how specific breathing techniques can shift your body from a state of stress into one of rest and regeneration, promoting hormone balance, improved digestion, and pelvic blood flow all critical components of a healthy fertility journey. You’ll learn practical ways to integrate ancient breathing practices like Nadi Shodhana (alternate nostril breathing), Kapalabhati (breath of fire), Bhastrika (bellows breath), Bhramari (humming bee breath), and Ujjayi breathing into your daily routine.

If you’re feeling overwhelmed, stuck, or simply curious about new tools to support your body naturally, this episode is for you.

Key Takeaways: 

• Breathwork regulates the nervous system, supporting hormonal balance and reproductive function.

• Ancient yogic practices like Pranayama offer free, accessible tools for stress reduction and enhanced vitality.

• Techniques like alternate nostril breathing and humming bee breath can be easily integrated into your daily life.

• Breath can help release emotional tension and stimulate vagal tone, a key player in fertility health.

• Conscious breathing increases oxygenation, supports digestion, and boosts clarity.
  
  

For more information about Michelle, visit: www.michelleoravitz.com

Check out Michelle’s Latest Book: The Way of Fertility!

https://www.michelleoravitz.com/thewayoffertility

The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/

Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/

• Transcript

  Michelle: [00:00:00] Episode number 339 of the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. Welcome back to the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. I'm your host, Michelle Orbitz, and today we're diving into a deeply healing and powerful practice that has stood the test of time. It's called Pranayama or yogic Breath Work. You might be surprised to hear just how much breath work could influence your mind and your nervous system, and then in turn influence your reproductive health.

  Michelle: 'cause we know that the nervous system plays such an important role on reproductive health. So if you wanna find out more about powerful breathing exercises that you can do so easily and they're free, that can influence your nervous system and how you feel. Overall, this episode is for you.

  Michelle: Welcome to the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. I'm Michelle, a [00:01:00] fertility acupuncturist here to provide you with resources on how to create a wholesome approach to your fertility journey.

  Michelle: So, so today I'm going to cover a very interesting topic, which is Pranayama. so this is an ancient Indian or yogi or yo guine practice that has been done for thousands of years.

  Michelle: Pranayama or yogic breath work

  Michelle: is extremely powerful And can really impact the mind and the nervous system. So if you wanna find out more on how to hack your nervous system, and if you've watched some of my earlier videos, I talk a lot about how your nervous system really can influence your fertility health because it gets you into a more rest and digest state.

  Michelle: And it can also influence your inflammation and your digestion and even create more balance in your hormones. So if you are trying to conceive and you wanna [00:02:00] find out how you can really hack your body and mind through pranayama this amazing ancient tradition, this amazing ancient practice, then stay tuned.

  Michelle: So you might be asking yourself, what exactly is pranayama?

  Michelle: So in Sanskrit prana means life force vitality. So it's very similar to what chi in Chinese medicine means, and it's the life force vitality that goes through our body. a yma means control or expansion.

  Michelle: So Pranayama in essence, is the art of controlling your breath to influence the life force vitality in your body.

  Michelle: So it's not just about breathing more deeply though. That's part of it.

  Michelle: It is about becoming aware of how your breathing can influence your hormone balance and your nervous system,

  Michelle: as well as reducing stress. And these are all really important and impactful things when you're trying to conceive.

  Michelle: So, although this [00:03:00] is coming from ancient India, this is something that can control all bodies and all different cultures. and it's one of the many gifts that we get from the ancient Vedas, Which is really linked to Ayurveda and yoga. The yogic tradition is the aspect of the physical, and it's more of the physical therapy aspect of it, but this is all part of really the science of life and how they're perceiving that you're able to, and how they're giving you tools to really access this amazing, intelligent life force that resides in your body.

  Michelle: So just to kind of give you a little bit of an overview. So Prana is very similar to Q, which is Life Force Vitality, and this is basically the life force that we have that is intelligent and that keeps our body warm and that keeps our body functioning. So this is something that really is intelligent because that aspect of our bodies is [00:04:00] what tells ourselves what to do, and it also helps the self-healing mechanism of the body.

  Michelle: And when we're in fight or flight, and I always come back to the nervous system than our body is more worried about survival. And regeneration is not as much of a priority because survival is more important. But what happens when we're in survival is that everything moves towards that survival, and it's not worried about digestion.

  Michelle: It's not worried about inflammation. All the things that are running in the background. And it can also impact your sleep because when you're trying to survive, you can't rest, you can't sleep, you can't afford to, you wanna survive, you wanna be alive. So that's ultimately how the nervous system operates.

  Michelle: But when we're getting that free flow of energy and that we're able to really be enriched with the QI and the life force of Prana, and we're able to get also in a more rest and digest mode, things will flow more easily and they're not gonna be as constricted as it does, as things [00:05:00] do happen with stress.

  Michelle: And ultimately as an acupuncturist, one of the biggest things that I do is I work a lot on pelvic energy flow and blood flow. So when there's more flow in your body, there's more blood flow, there's less constriction. And as we know, many times when people have high blood pressure, you know, your blood vessels are actually.

  Michelle: Muscle and those muscles tighten and it causes more constriction and more pressure. And we know that stress can even impact blood pressure. So that tightening is what happens when we're stressed, and ultimately that tightening is going to block. Impact, as I mentioned with the liberty, which is really its role, is to get that energy to flow.

  Michelle: So one of the ways that we can hack really our minds and our bodies is through pranayama. And today I'm gonna talk about a couple of different. Techniques of breathing that you can do that will [00:06:00] immediately have an impact on how you feel and how the energy and the prana in your body is able to flow, which ultimately will be beneficial not just for your body and your reproduction, but also your mind.

  Michelle: And I'm sure you know that if you are on the fertility journey, it can be very stressful. And when you're stressed, there's been studies that show that when you're stressed, you can't really make a clear minded decision. And as we know, when you're on the fertility journey, you need that decision making aspect of your mind because you are going through a lot of different choices and options that are being thrown at you.

  Michelle: So the first breath that I am going to be sharing with you is called Nadi Shaana, and that is alternate nostril breath. I like to call it the yin and yang pranayama, although that's not really the name, because it balances the yin and the yang in our brain. So both hemispheres of the brain start to function and come [00:07:00] together.

  Michelle: And this is one of the most immediate calming exercises that you can do. And what it does is it basically you alternate sides and you will block one nostril and breathe in, and you can breathe into like the count of four or the count of eight, whatever feels right. But if you slow it also, you'll start to feel a little more peace so you can actually breathe into the count of eight.

  Michelle: Then close both nostrils. So breathe in one nostril, close the right, and breathe in from the left. Breathe in to eight, and then hold both nostrils closed to the count of eight, and then exhale from the right to the count of eight. And then breathe back in from the same one, the right to the count of eight, close both nostrils, and then breathe out from the left and then breathe back in for the count of eight out, eight in hold it.[00:08:00] 

  Michelle: So basically just remember one specific count and you're gonna keep doing that and then alternate your nose. Now you're gonna notice that one nostril is going to be a little more clear than the other. And that is actually very normal. Our bodies tend to go more yin and yang throughout the day, so one side will feel one way and the other side will not feel that same way, and you'll find that that will alternate throughout the day.

  Michelle: And that's kind of an interesting thing, but our bodies do alternate and we're constantly getting to this place of homeostasis so that our body can find balance. But through that, we do have those two sides, those dualities, which is why doing something like this can be so powerful.

  Michelle: So by balancing, because our nose is directly opened, you know, the olfactory nerve, which is also the sense is directly linked or connected to the brain. So by alternating those two sides, of [00:09:00] breathing, you are creating that balance from the left and right hemispheres of the brain, and that also can create more clear thinking if you are feeling anxious and it's hard for you to really make a decision.

  Michelle: This is a great exercise to do, and what this also does is activate the parasympathetic nervous system, which is the more rest and digest nervous system. So if you're feeling extra stressed and you wanna slow down your mind, this is amazing. It also improves oxygenation and it also creates more mindfulness.

  Michelle: 'cause as you're doing it, you're being very conscious of how you're breathing and how you're feeling because it is a practice that you have to pay attention while you're doing it.

  Michelle: So you could do this in the beginning of your day and then you can do this at the end of the day. And it could be literally two minutes, two minutes in the morning and two minutes at night. And I think that it is really nice to actually do it in the beginning and end of the day. 'cause you're literally doing it at yin and yang times of your 24 hour cycle.

  Michelle: So it can help you when you [00:10:00] first start to wake up, and then you can help you end the day really nicely and support your nervous system as you go to sleep. So another one that is one of my favorites is called Kati, and that is skull shining breath. Or you may have heard this, called breath of fire. And so ultimately what it is, is working through your diaphragm and after you do it for a while, you literally feel like you are breathing fire.

  Michelle: 'cause you can feel a lot of fire in your diaphragm area. So the area that I'm talking about is really the soft area of your belly that's right underneath your ribs. So you start to feel this, it's kind of like right above, it's between the bottom of your ribs and your belly button, right in that solar plexus in that area.

  Michelle: So you can put your hands there Before I actually go into the description of how to do it, I wanna talk about what it does. Breath of fire is incredible for [00:11:00] digestion and it is one of the more stimulating breaths, and I remember one of my teachers mentioning That there was like a saying that as many breaths as you breathe, that we only have a certain amount of breaths for our life.

  Michelle: And that is why it's important to breathe slow. And the slower we breathe, the longer we can live. And I asked about this one because it's actually a very rapid type of breath, and they said, well, it's considered one breath because it's, you're not fully exhaling.

  Michelle: You're kind of like pumping throughout the whole time that you're doing it. So it's actually considered one breath. It's not considered, many different breaths.

  Michelle: so another thing, the reason why it's called Breath of Fire is because in Ayurvedic medicine, a lot of times they refer to something called Agni, which is our digestif fire. And that justifier, I guess you can say correlates to really our ability to break down foods And really the acid that we have in our stomach that can cook the [00:12:00] food and ultimately the breath of fire. And Agni is very, very important. And sometimes people will have diminished Agni from drinking too much cold or not really eating correctly. And so we don't want that. We wanna actually kindle that fire because when you kindle that fire, it will protect your body, increase your immune system, and also break down foods so that the rest of the digestive system, is able to really assimilate the nutrition from the food.

  Michelle: Another thing that it can do is clear, stagnant energy. And then when stagnant energy gets cleared, then you're getting more flow in the body and Prana is able to really move. So. This is one of the most powerful breaths to really get things moving. And the only thing that I would say with this, and really everything that I'm saying is not medical advice.

  Michelle: And I would also say be cautious. If you are about to do a retrieval, I would not do this breath because they are afraid [00:13:00] of ovarian torsion and this is something that you don't wanna mess with. So, and it is a very powerful and moving type of breath.

  Michelle: But I'd like to compare it to when the Native Americans used fire for brushes, you know, for, to get rid of like old weeds before they created new or planted new seeds. And this is one of those things, you're getting things outta the way, you're burning out the stagnation with this breath in order to get more flow and more new energy coming into the body.

  Michelle: so here's how you do it. So in between the bottom of your ribs and your belly button, so put your hand there and you could put both hands, one on top of the other. And what you do is you forcefully exhale, and you will find that when you do that, you're naturally going to bounce back almost like a rubber band where it just inhales.

  Michelle: By nature. And then you don't worry about the inhale 'cause it's gonna happen automatically and you just keep exhaling and you just [00:14:00] pump with the exhale. So you go and you'll feel that bounce when you have your hand there. And over time you'll find that it can get longer and longer as you practice.

  Michelle: In the beginning, you might get tired sooner and sometimes you might even find that it makes you cough. It is so purifying, it will actually make you cough up old mucus in your lungs. So it is pretty wild how it works.

  Michelle: So the next type of breath is called baa, and that is also called the bellows breath. And this is a little bit more active and I'll describe it so that you understand how to do it.

  Michelle: But first let me explain what it does.

  Michelle: So Bas Rica, very similar to the breath of fire, is also a breath that is very active and it can stoke the internal fire in our bodies.

  Michelle: It also involves very, forceful inhales and exhales. But in this case, you're gonna be [00:15:00] using the arms.

  Michelle: It is considered to activate the Kundalini energy in the body. This is the energy that runs up and down our spine and feeds really all of our organs and body

  Michelle: and supports our body's energetic flow. and it also is considered to have a balancing effect on the doshas. If you've watched my Ayurvedic video, I talk about the different doshas, which are really elements in your body, and this is considered to be a good breath that balances all of that.

  Michelle: It can also boost oxygenation and mental clarity. And how you do it is you raise your arms up and you have your hands out. So your hands are completely open and your arms are just raised up, and you inhale as you do that, And as you exhale, you close your hands and you bring your elbows to the side, so you bring your hands down so you inhale with your hands up. [00:16:00] stretch hands, and then you exhale forcefully as you bring it down, as if you're bringing something down or pulling something towards you from the top to the bottom.

  Michelle: So your elbows basically end up by your side and completely folded with your hands next to your shoulders in a fist. So inhale, bring your hands up. Wide open, exhale really forcefully as your hands go down into a fist next to your shoulders.

  Michelle: So this is kind of related to the breath of fire. There's definitely a lot of heat that will be coming out from it, It is a very good practice to really get that energy moving. If you feel like it's stuck. This is great. If you feel a lot of stress and you feel a lot going on. If you wanna come home and you feel like you've had a very stressful day, this is a great way to break that up.

  Michelle: So lastly, I'm going to cover something called Ari, or. Humming bee breath.

  Michelle: [00:17:00] So actually this breath and the way you're supposed to do it is one thing that we know for sure is a technique that stimulates the vagus nerve. And as we know, the vagus nerve is extremely important when it comes to reproductive health That's because it has so many different functions, and one of them, which is really key, is promoting really good digestive health, lowering inflammation, improving sleep, and on and on.

  Michelle: And it basically helps the body get into a parasympathetic mode. And one of the ways that is known to stimulate your vagus nerve is by humming. So this breath And another thing is that when you do hum on an exhale, you are actually by nature because you're using your voice, you slow down your breath.

  Michelle: So this is a great way to slow down your breath as you are exhaling.

  Michelle: So this can also reduce any emotional tension And it could also reduce heart rate and blood pressure.

  Michelle: so what you do for [00:18:00] this breath is inhale, fully hold it at the top, and then exhale with a humming sound. So.

  Michelle: And then you just breathe all the way out. So as you'll notice when you're humming, you actually slow down your breath, so it naturally slows down your breath, which has an immediate impact on any kind of state of anxiety. It will really calm your mind. So this is an amazing thing to do, and you can really do this while you're driving.

  Michelle: Just keep your eyes open for obvious reasons, But you could do this even while you're driving. If you're driving to a doctor's office and you're feeling really nervous, you can do that. a lot of times, om in my car, and this is just kind of one of the things that I do, and I find that it really, it, it feels like I'm singing a song, but I'm just oing.

  Michelle: So it feels really calming on my nervous system. It feels like an internal massage, having that vibration. So that can help a lot. And again, you could do this also at the end of the day if you had a lot of. Things [00:19:00] going on if it was a very intense day, and you can get yourself ready and your nervous system ready for more rest.

  Michelle: And actually that was not my last one. I have one more. and this is something that you can do at all times, and it's called UJA breathing. So if you practice yoga, you may have heard of UJA breathing because it's something that a lot of yogis will teach you to do during your yoga practice, and that is something that you can take with you really throughout the day. And what it is, is causing a little bit of constriction in your throat as you're breathing So that your breath could be a little louder. So it's kind of like this constriction where you're able to feel the breath going through your throat. so it's like making a little bit of a, a humming or a sound while your mouth is closed and you could practice. I'm sure you've done this naturally, even when you were little, And it's a very calming and very grounding breath.

  Michelle: It is thought to increase the lung capacity, and it's [00:20:00] also thought to balance out the heat in the body, and it's also thought to balance out the temperature in the body. So it's kind of like a yin and yang balance.

  Michelle: And it can also, since it's so grounding, promote a meditative state. So it's something that you can do, and this is one of the reasons why a lot of yogis use this during yoga, because ultimately yoga was a, was a practice that prepared yogis to meditate. It got the body into a state where it was able to meditate more deeply.

  Michelle: So just to reiterate, none of this is medical advice. It's not something that should ever take the place of what doctors tell you It should not be something that ever takes the place of medical.

  Michelle: Protocols that you've been given, and also to be aware or talk to your doctor if you are going through IVF, to talk to them about different breathing exercises and perhaps to pause on any of them during the IVF process. [00:21:00] If you have any questions or ideas for future episodes, I would love to hear from you.

  Michelle: I'm very active on Instagram and my handle is at the wholesome lotus fertility. I don't always respond right away, but I always eventually get to all of them. So thank you so much for tuning in today, and I hope you have a beautiful day.

  [00:22:00] 

Ep 338 Eggs, Estrogen & Empowerment: Navigating Fertility with Dr. Nirali Jain

 On this episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, I am joined by Dr. Nirali Jain (@eggspert_md), a board-certified OB/GYN and reproductive endocrinologist at Reproductive Medical Associates (RMA). Dr. Jain shares her expert insights on fertility preservation for individuals undergoing cancer treatment, a crucial yet often overlooked aspect of reproductive care.

We explore what options are available for fertility preservation, including egg and sperm freezing, and why it’s so important to initiate these discussions before starting chemotherapy or radiation. Dr. Jain also explains the difference between Letrozole and Clomid, the impact of estrogen-sensitive cancers on IVF treatments, and innovative approaches like random-start cycles and DuoStim protocols. Whether you're facing a cancer diagnosis or simply thinking proactively about your reproductive future, this conversation is filled with knowledge and reassurance.

Guest Bio:

Dr. Nirali Jain (@eggspert_md) is a board-certified OB/GYN and fertility specialist at Reproductive Medicine Associates (RMA) in Basking Ridge, New Jersey. She earned both her undergraduate degree in neurobiology (with a minor in dance!) and her medical degree from Northwestern University, before completing her residency at Weill Cornell/NYP, where she served as co-Chief Resident, and her fellowship in reproductive endocrinology and infertility at NYU Langone.

Deeply passionate about women’s health and fertility preservation, Dr. Jain blends the latest research and cutting-edge treatments with compassionate, patient-centered care. Her interests include third-party reproduction and oncofertility, and she is especially passionate about supporting patients navigating fertility preservation through a cancer diagnosis.

Outside of the clinic, Dr. Jain is a trained dancer, a dedicated global traveler, and an adventurer working toward hiking all seven continents with her husband. Her diverse experiences, from international medical rotations to personal connections with friends and family navigating infertility, have shaped her into a warm, resourceful, and determined advocate for her patients.

Websites/Social Media Links:

Visit RMA website
Follow Dr. Nirali Jain on Instagram


 

For more information about Michelle, visit: www.michelleoravitz.com

Check out Michelle’s Latest Book: The Way of Fertility!

https://www.michelleoravitz.com/thewayoffertility

The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/

Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/

• Transcript

  ​[00:00:00] 

  Michelle Oravitz: Welcome to the podcast Jain. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Thanks so much for having me

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah, so.

  Michelle Oravitz: I'm very excited to talk about this topic, which, um, actually you don't really hear a lot of people talking about, which is how to preserve your fertility if you're going through a cancer diagnosis and if you have to go through treatments. 'cause obviously that can impact a lot on fertility.

  Michelle Oravitz: I have, um, seen actually like a colleague of mine go through. And she also preserved her fertility and, and now she has a baby boy. so it's really nice.

  Michelle Oravitz: to

  riverside_nirali_jain_raw-video-cfr_michelle_oravitz's _0181: so nice.

  Michelle Oravitz: So I'd love for you first to introduce yourself and kind Of give us a background on how you got into this work.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Of course. Um, so I am Dr. Narly Jane. I am, um, an OB GYN by training, and then I did an additional, after completing four years of residency in OB GYN and getting board certified in that, I did an additional training in reproductive endocrinology and [00:01:00] infertility or otherwise known as REI. So now I'm a fertility specialist.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Um, I trained at Northwestern in Chicago, so I went to undergrad and medical school there. And then, um, home has always been New Jersey for me, so I moved back out east to New Jersey. Um, I did all my training actually in New York City at Cornell for residency and NYU for fellowship. Um, and then moved to the suburbs.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Um, and now I'm a fertility specialist in, in Basking Ridge at Reproductive Medical Associates. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Very impressive background. That's awesome. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah.

  Michelle Oravitz: I'd love to hear just really. About what your process is. If a person has been diagnosed with cancer, like what is the process? What are some of the things that you address if they are trying to preserve fertility, and what are some of the concerns going 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: yeah, yeah. All great questions. So, you know, there's a lot of us, uh, the Reis. Are a very small, [00:02:00] there's a very small number of us. So in terms of specializing in fertility preservation, technically we all are certified to treat patients with cancer and kind of move them through fertility preservation before starting chemotherapy.

  Michelle Oravitz: Mm-hmm. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Um, luckily we've been working closely with oncologists in the past several years just to establish some type of streamlined system because having a diagnosis of cancer and hearing all that information. Especially when you're young is so hard. So I think that's, that's where my interest started in terms of being able to speak to and counsel cancer patients.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: I think it is a very specific niche that you really have to be comfortable with in our field. Um, I. So I'll kind of walk you through, you know, what it, what does it look like, right? Um, you go into your oncologist's office suspecting that you have this, this lump. I'll take breast cancer, for example. It could really be any kind of cancer.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Um, but breast cancer in a reproductive age patient or someone that's in those years where you're starting [00:03:00] to think about building a family, planning a family, um, or if you have kids at home, that's usually the type of patient that we see come in with a breast cancer diagnosis. So. Kinda just taking that, for example, um, the minute that you're diagnosed, it's really your oncologist's responsibility to counsel you on what treatment options are going to be offered to you.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: And then based off of the treatment options, it's important to know how that affects your reproduction. So how does it affect your ovaries in the short term, in the long term, um, in any way possible. So. Once a patient is initially referred from their oncologist to myself or any other fertility specialist, they come into my office and we just have a 30 minute conversation really talking about family planning goals.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Any kids that they've had in the past either naturally conceived or through um, IVF, and then we talk about where they're at in their relationship. Are they married, are they not? Are they with a partner, [00:04:00] a male partner, a female partner, whatever it might be. It's important to know the social standpoint, um, especially in this sensitive phase of life.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: So patient patients usually spend anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour. Um, just kind of talking through where they're at, how they're feeling, what their ultimate childbearing goals are. And then from there we do an ultrasound and that's when I'm really able to see, you know, the, the reproductive status.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: So what do the ovaries look like? What does the uterus look like? Is there something that I need to be concerned about from a baseline GYN standpoint? Um, and all of those conversations are happening in real time. So. I think one of the things is patients come in and they're like, I'm already so overwhelmed with all this information from my oncologist, and now my fertility specialist is throwing all this information at me.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Luckily, the way I like to frame it is you come in and you just let go. Like you let us do the work because in the background we're the ones talking to your oncologist. We're the [00:05:00] ones giving that feedback and creating a timeline with your oncologist. Um, and really I think just getting in the door is the hardest part.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: So once patients are here to see us, we go through the whole workup. We do anything that we would do for a normal patient that came in for fertility preservation. And then based off of where they're at in their journey, we talk about what makes sense for them, whether that means freezing embryos, freezing eggs, they're very similar in terms of the, the few weeks leading up to the egg retrievals.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: So I have that whole conversation just at the initial visit. And then from there we talk about the timeline behind the scenes and make sure that it works with their lives before moving forward.

  Michelle Oravitz: So for people listening to this, why, and this might be an obvious question, but to some it might not be, 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Mm-hmm.

  Michelle Oravitz: why would somebody want to preserve. eggs or sperm. 'cause I've had actually some couples 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yep.

  Michelle Oravitz: come to me where the husband preserved the sperm and they had to go through IVF just because he was going [00:06:00] through cancer treatments. So he had to preserve the sperm ahead of time. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Mm-hmm.

  Michelle Oravitz: people need to consider doing that before doing cancer treatments? 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: So there are certain cancer treatments that do affect the ovaries and the sperm health, and you know, for men and women, it affects your reproductive organs. In a similar way, um, depending on the type of chemotherapeutic agent, there are some that are more dangerous in terms of, um, being toxic to your ovaries or toxic to your sperm.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: And those are the instances where we are really thinking about what's the long-term impact because there's medications that oncologists do give patients, and our oncologists are amazing, the ones that we work with, Memorial Sloan Kettering from Reproductive Medical Associates through RMA, um, and.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: They're just so good at what they do and are so well-trained, so they know in the back of their mind, is this going to impact your ovaries or your sperm health or not? Um, and I [00:07:00] think that any chemotherapy, you know, your ovaries are these, these small organs that are constantly turning over follicles every month.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: So every month we're losing those eggs, and if they don't become. If an egg isn't ovulated, it doesn't become a baby, it's just gonna die off. So I counsel even patients that don't have cancer, I counsel them on fertility preservation as young as possible. You know, between the ages of 28 and 35, that's like the best time to preserve your fertility.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: So in cancer patients, there's an extra level added to that where even if they are a little bit younger, a little bit older. Your eggs are not gonna be the same quality. There's gonna be higher level of chromosomal errors, more DNA breakage, um, and, and bigger issues that lead to issues with conceiving naturally afterwards.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: So I think that it's important to consider how that chemotherapy is going to affect them or how surgery would affect them if it was, for example, a GYN cancer where [00:08:00] we're removing a whole ovary, you know, what, what do we have to do to preserve your fertility in that case? And those are important conversations to have.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah. for sure. I know that a lot of people are also concerned, you know, with going through the IVF process, you're taking in a lot of estrogen, a lot of hormones, and many cancers are actually estrogen sensitive. So I wanted to talk to you about that. 'cause I know that the data shows that it's. It's been fine, which some people might find surprising, but I wanted you to address that and just kind of

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah.

  Michelle Oravitz: from your perspective. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: That's so interesting that you asked that question because I actually, my whole I I graduated fellowship last year and my entire, like passion project in fellowship was looking at one of the drugs that we use to suppress the estrogen levels specifically in cancer patients. Um, and I had presented this at a few of our reproductive meetings.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Um, A SRM is one of our annual meetings where all of the reiss get together. A lot of male fertility [00:09:00] specialists come and we kinda just talk about. Specific things and fertility preservation for cancer patients is, has been an ongoing topic of interest for all of us. Um, and it's important to know that there are different medications that we can offer.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Letrozole is the one that I, um, have a particular love for and I, uh, you know, I use all the time for my patients, um, for different reasons, but it suppresses the exposure that your body has to estrogen. And there's mixed data, um, out there in terms of, you know, does Letrozole suppression actually impact, you know, does it help or.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Or does it have no impact on your future risk of cancer after treatment? Um, and that honestly is still up for debate. But what we do know is that there's no increased risk of cancer recurrence in patients that have undergone fertility preservation with or without Letrozole. Um, Letrozole is one of those things that we can give, and the way it works is basically.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: It masks that [00:10:00] conversion. It, it doesn't allow for conversion from those androgens in the male hormones over to estrogen. Um, and so your body doesn't really see that estrogen exposure. It stays nice and low throughout your cycle, and it does help with actually ovarian maturation and getting mature eggs harvested and, um, helps a little bit with, with quality too.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: So I think that it's really nice in terms of having that available to us, but know that. It's not, it's not essential that you have it, really, the data showing plus minus. Um, but there are certain things that we can do to protect the ovaries, protect your exposure to estrogen. Um, and so that shouldn't be top of mind of concern when we're going through fertility preservation, even with an estrogen sensitive cancer.

  Michelle Oravitz: Actually, so, uh, on a different topic, kind of going back to that, so Letrozole versus Clomid, I, it's like a, the questions I personally feel just based on what I've heard and like my own research that Letrozole would be kind of like the more. [00:11:00] Um, the, it's, it's a little better, but I know that it really depends on the person as well. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah,

  Michelle Oravitz: they might do better with Clom, but I'd love to hear your perspective and kind of pick your brain on this. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: totally. You're choosing all the, all the right questions because these are all of my, my specific interests and niches. So 

  Michelle Oravitz: Oh, 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Letrozole is basically, you know, we use Letrozole and Clomid in. Patients that don't have cancer and patients that come in for an intrauterine insemination, that's kind of the most common scenario where we're thinking about, you know, which medication is better?

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Letrozole or Clomid and Clomid used to be the, the most common medication that we use, we dose patients, you know, have 50 milligrams of Clomid, give them five days of the medication. It's an oral pill. Feels really easy and. The way it works is really, it recruits more than one follicle, so it really helps with the release of, um, more than one follicle growing more than one follicle in the ovary.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Um, but it has a little bit [00:12:00] higher of a risk of twins because that's exactly what it's good at. Um, Clomid, not so much in the cancer. In the cancer front, it's not really used there because it's considered, from a scientific perspective, it's considered like a selective estrogen receptor modulator. So it doesn't necessarily suppress your estrogen levels in the same way that Letrozole does versus.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Letrozole is an aromatase inhibitor, so it really blocks the chemical conversion of one drug or one hormone to the other hormone. Um, the reason we love Letrozole so much, and I don't mean to like gush over Letrozole, but um, it's a mono follicular agent, so it works really well at recruiting one follicle 

  Michelle Oravitz: Mm-hmm. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: you know, every OB-GYN's nightmare in a way is having multiples when you didn't intend on having multiples at all.

  Michelle Oravitz: so 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Um.

  Michelle Oravitz: were saying that, um, there's more of a chance of twins, it's Clomid, not letrozole. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yes, there's a higher chance with Clomid versus Letrozole. And I mean, don't get me wrong, there's a chance of twins with [00:13:00] any type of assisted reproductive technology. Even when we're doing single embryo transfers, there's a chance that it's gonna split. So, um, the chance is always there just like it is in the natural world.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: But we know for a fact that. CLO is really good at recruiting many follicles. It's good for certain patients that don't respond well to Letrozole. Um, but Letrozole is kind of our, our go-to drug these days just because of all the benefits that we've seen. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Awesome. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah,

  Michelle Oravitz: These are all fun things to ask because I, I love talking to our eis 'cause there's so much information that I'm always 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: totally.

  Michelle Oravitz: learn a lot from my patients in my own research, but it's really cool. Picking your guys' brains. So another question I have, and I have actually talked to Dr. Andrea Elli, he's been on, 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Mm-hmm.

  Michelle Oravitz: and he does a lot of endometriosis and, and immune related work as well, 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah.

  Michelle Oravitz: so. I'd love to know just from your perspective. One thing that I do know from, based on what I've heard is that the, [00:14:00] guess like you were just saying, that breast cancer or estrogen sensitive breast cancer doesn't seem to be affected by IVF cycles, however, and endometriosis lesions do get affected. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: that's a great question. So, you know, every, there are so many complex G mind diagnoses that the, that our patients come in with. Um, and endometriosis is a big one because there is clear data that endometriosis is linked to infertility. So we think about, you know, when a patient comes in with endometriosis, we really do think about the different treatment options and what are the short-term and long-term impacts of the hormones that we're giving 'em.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Um, these days, again, kind of going back to Letrozole, we, letrozole is something that I give all of my endometriosis patients because it helps suppress their estrogen because we know. 

  Michelle Oravitz: interesting. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: is very responsive to estrogen and leads to this dysfunctional regulation of all the endometrial tissue that can really flare in a, [00:15:00] in a cycle, or shortly after a cycle.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: I. So we really, for endometriosis patients, the, the best treatment is being on birth control because we don't see that hormonal fluctuation. The up and down of the estrogen and the progesterone, that's what leads to those flares. Um, so I really, I watch patients closely after their cycles too, because you definitely can have an endometriosis flare and we say the best treatment for endometriosis is pregnancy, right?

  Dr. Nirali Jain: That's when you're suppressed, that's when you're at your lowest. Um, and patients, my endo patients feel so good in pregnancy because they have. Hormones that are nice in that baseline, they're not getting periods of course. Um, and that's truly, truly the best treatment. 

  Michelle Oravitz: That's interesting. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: But it is important to consider when you're going through infertility treatments.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: How does my endometriosis affect the short and long-term effects of the fertility medications? And really not to, not to say that they're bad in any way. I think a lot of endometriosis patients go through IVF and have success and do really, really well, and that's kind of the push that they need. [00:16:00] Um, but it's important to be mindful of the bigger picture here.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: It's not just, you're not just a number of. A patient with endo coming in, getting the same protocol. It's really individualized to the extent of your lesions, what symptoms you're having, what grade of endometriosis, where your lesions are. So we're the RAs are thinking about everything before we actually start your protocol.

  Michelle Oravitz: It's crazy how in depth it is, and it's, it, there's just so, it's so multifaceted, 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah, 

  Michelle Oravitz: when it's females 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: totally.

  Michelle Oravitz: are a little, I mean, they can, you know, there, there's definitely a number of things, but it's not as complicated and interconnected 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Exactly. Exactly. That's so true.

  Michelle Oravitz: And so one question I actually have, this is kind of really off topic, but something that I was curious about.

  Michelle Oravitz: 'cause I heard about a while 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah.

  Michelle Oravitz: a, a type of cancer treatment that was used. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but for some reason it actually caused follicles to grow, [00:17:00] or to multiply. And they were

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Interesting.

  Michelle Oravitz: this definitely. Puts, um, the whole idea of like a woman being born with all the follicles she'll ever have on its head, I thought that was really Interesting.

  Michelle Oravitz: Now I learned a little bit about it. I don't think it really went further than that, 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Mm-hmm.

  Michelle Oravitz: one of those things that they're like, Hmm, this is interesting. I don't know, it was kind of a random side effect of this chemo drug. I dunno if it was a chemo drug or a cancer drug. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah. 

  Michelle Oravitz: ever heard of that.

  Michelle Oravitz: So I was just

  Dr. Nirali Jain: I haven't, I mean, that's interesting. I feel like I'd have to look into that because that would be definitely a point of interest for a lot of Reis. But it kind of does go back to the point of, you know, women are really born with all the eggs we're ever gonna have. So it's about a million, and then it just goes down from there.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: And the, by the time you start having periods, I like to kind of show my patients a chart, but you have a couple hundred thousand eggs and you ovulate one egg a month. That's, you know. Able to [00:18:00] progress into a fertilized egg and then into a, an embryo into a baby, um, if that's your goal. But otherwise, patients that are having periods and not trying to actually get pregnant, we're losing hundreds of eggs a month.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: So. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Mm. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: It's important to kind of think about that decline, and it's important to know that that rate can be faster in patients with cancer, patients with low ovarian reserve. And sometimes when you have the two compounded, that's when a fertility specialist is definitely, you know, in the queue to, to have a discussion with you in terms of what that means and how you can reach your family building goals despite being faced with that, with that challenge.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah.

  Michelle Oravitz: I mean, 'cause we know oxidative stress is one of the things that can cause, uh, 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah,

  Michelle Oravitz: quality eggs, but it's also can cause cancer.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah,

  Michelle Oravitz: um, similar, you know, like things that really deplete the body could definitely impact. Um, and then what are your thoughts? I know I'm asking you all kinds of random questions,

  Dr. Nirali Jain: I love it.

  Michelle Oravitz: are your thoughts about doing low simulation in certain [00:19:00] circumstances versus high stem?

  Michelle Oravitz: Sometimes people don't respond as well to higher stems. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah, that's a great point. I think that it kind of all goes back to creating an individualized protocol. If. A patient's going to a practice and basically just getting a protocol saying, this is our standard. We start with our standard of, you know, I, I think about the standard, which is 300 of the FSH or that pen that you dial up, and then 150 units of that powder vial.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: And we have patients mixing powders all the time, and that's kind of our blanket protocol that we give patients. But that's not really what's happening behind the scenes. And if you're given a protocol that's, and being told, you know, this is kind of what we give to everyone, it's probably not the right fit for you.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah, I 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Um, there are certain patients that respond to a much lower dose and do really, really well, and then some patients that need a much higher dose. Um, and I think it's, that's kind of like the fun part of being an REI of being able to individualize the [00:20:00] protocol to the patient. Um, and I know for a fact there are so many, luckily, you know, we have so many leaders in REI that have been.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Have dedicated their entire careers to researching these different protocols and how they can help different patients. Um, patients with lower a MH, you know, might benefit from a duo stim protocol, for example. That's kind of the first one that comes to mind, but a protocol where we're using those follicles from the second half of a cycle.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: I would've never thought that those were the follicles that 

  Michelle Oravitz: Oh, 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: would be better than the first half of the cycle, 

  Michelle Oravitz: Wait, 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: but,

  Michelle Oravitz: that. Explain that. Um, because I think that that's kind of a unique 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: mm-hmm. 

  Michelle Oravitz: that I haven't heard of. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah, so there's this new day. It's still kind of developing, but um, kind of going back to, you know, what's an individualized protocol? Duo STEM is one of the newer protocols that we've started using. I, I've used it once or twice in patients. Um, but it goes back to the research that shows that you might actually have two different periods of time in a menstrual cycle where you could potentially recruit [00:21:00] follicles.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: You could have a follicular phase where there's a certain cohort of follicles recruited, and then you have a follicle that forms creates a corpus glut. 

  Michelle Oravitz: um, protocols 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yep. And then you basically go through the follicular protocol and then a few days after a retrieval, instead of waiting for a new follicular cohort or follicular recruitment from the first half of your menstrual cycle, you actually use the luteal phase and you recruit those follicles that would've actually died off or have been prematurely recruited in a prior cycle.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: So

  Michelle Oravitz: that's So 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: yeah,

  Michelle Oravitz: you just do a similar, I guess, um, medicine, 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: go right back into it. 

  Michelle Oravitz: do the same exact thing, but right after ovulation. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Fascinating. That's really interesting. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah, 

  Michelle Oravitz: has been your experience with that? 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: I think it's, honestly, it's mixed. Um, so far, you know, our data from fertility and sterility and A SRM, it, it shows support for these DUO STEM [00:22:00] protocols, saying that if patients don't have that great quality of eggs or if they have a very low number, maybe they'd benefit from starting the meds earlier and recruiting follicles.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: A little bit earlier. Um, so we've seen positive results so far. A lot of work to be done in terms of really understanding it. Um, and of course, as a new attending, I have a lot more experience to kind of build on. Um, but I, I have seen success from it.

  Michelle Oravitz: That's fascinating. Are there any other new technologies, like new add-ons, um, that you've seen, that you've found to be really cool or interesting? 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: I think the biggest thing, actually, kind of going back to our whole topic for today is fertility preservation cancer patients. One of the biggest things that I've learned recently is that we used to start fertility, um, patients. You know, only in the beginning of the cycle days, two or three is technically like when most.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Most clinics, um, start patients, but for our cancer patients, sometimes you don't have that time. You don't wanna wait a full month to [00:23:00] restart, um, your, you know, your menstrual cycle and then do the fertility preservation and then delay chemotherapy a full month. So we started doing what we call random starts.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: So you basically start a patient whenever they come in. You know, it could be the day after your consultation, the day of your consultation. I've kind of seen all of the above. Um, and we've seen really good success with random starts, per se. Um, and we've been doing a lot more of that, where it's not as dependent on where you're at in your cycle.

  Michelle Oravitz: Mm-hmm. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Um, obviously there's a difference in outcomes. You might not be a great candidate for it, so definitely it's worth talking to your doctor about it. But it kind of gives relief to our cancer patients where if you have a new cancer diagnosis and you're like, oh, I just finished my period, like, I can't even start a cycle until next month.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: That's not always true. Um, so it's always worth it to go into see a fertility specialist and just get, you know, get the data that you need right away, and then you can make a decision later on.

  Michelle Oravitz: For sure. Um, Yeah.

  Michelle Oravitz: and I wanted to kind of cover a lot of different topics 'cause I know that [00:24:00] some people are gonna wanna hear what you have to say that don't necessarily, or, uh, have cancer. But it is important. I, I think that, you know, if you get to thirties and you haven't gotten married or you don't have a partner, I think it's really important to preserve your fertility in general. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah,

  Michelle Oravitz: important thing. And then if you were going through a cancer diagnosis and you decided to preserve your fertility, um, guess more for women because they're eventually going to be thinking about transfers after they go through treatment. So what are some of the things that they would need to consider as far as that goes?

  Michelle Oravitz: Like after the 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: yeah,

  Michelle Oravitz: then they go through the cancer treatments. Um, and then what, how long should they 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: yeah. Like what does it look like? So I've had patients that come back, you know, in my fellowship training I did a, a couple research projects on patients that came back to pursue an embryo transfer, um, after chemotherapy agent. And basically compared them to how they did, um, [00:25:00] compared to patients that didn't have cancer and just froze their embryos or froze their eggs and then came back to pursue a transfer and.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: I think the, the most reassuring thing from the preliminary data that we have is saying that there's no difference in pregnancy rates and no difference in life birth, 

  Michelle Oravitz: Awesome. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: of whether they had chemotherapy or not. After freezing those eggs and going through fertility preservation. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Amazing. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Um, in terms of where your body needs to be, I think the oncologist, we, we wait for their green light.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: We wait for their signal to say, you know, she's safe to carry a pregnancy. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Mm-hmm. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: And then once we do that, we basically treat you like any other patient. So if you're coming in for a cycle, if you're having periods, then it's reasonable to try a natural cycle protocol, wait for your body to naturally ovulate an egg.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: And instead of obviously hoping that egg will fertilize, we, um, use a corpus luteum. We use the progesterone from the corpus luteum to really support this embryo being implanted into the uterus. Um. Yeah. [00:26:00] And then there's also another side. I mean, some patients don't get their periods back and they always ask like, what if I never get my period back?

  Dr. Nirali Jain: What if I'm just like in menopause because of the chemotherapy agents? And for that, we can start you on a synthetic protocol or basically an estrogen dependent protocol where you take an estrogen pill for a certain number of days. We monitor your lining, then we start progesterone, um, to support your hormones from that perspective instead of relying on your ovaries to release the progesterone that they need, um, and then doing the embryo transfer a few, few days after progesterone starts.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: So there's definitely different protocols depending on where your menstrual health is at after the chemotherapy or after the cancer treatment. Um, but it's important to kind of just know that. That there's options. It doesn't mean that it's the end of the road if you all of a sudden stop getting your period.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah, for sure. I mean, 'cause you, technically speaking, you can really control a lot of that. More so for transfers 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yep.

  Michelle Oravitz: Retrievals really is kind of like what [00:27:00] eggs you have, what the quality is. But people can be in complete menopause and you guys can still control their cycles for transfer, which is kind of. A huge difference 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah, 

  Michelle Oravitz: in the 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: exactly. That's exactly right. Yeah.

  Michelle Oravitz: interesting. Any other, um, new, new things that you're, you guys are excited about? I always like to hear about like the new and upcoming things 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Of course. 

  Michelle Oravitz: actually before, which I thought was fascinating. Yeah. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: I feel like there's always like updates and, and new data and things like that coming out, but just know, I think it's important for patients to know, like we're constantly, we're, the reason I chose to even pursue this field was because it's new. Right. There's something that we are discovering every day, every year, and that's what makes our, our conferences so important to attend, um, to really just stay up to date.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Um, but we are, uh, constantly updating our embryology standards, the way we thaw our eggs, and the success rate associated with a thaw and [00:28:00] how we treat our embryos and the media that we use, right? Like, so we're really thinking about the basic science perspective every single day, and that's what makes this field so unique.

  Michelle Oravitz: It is really awesome. And so do you guys specialize specifically on, um. Egg freezing and, and I mean specific fertility preservation in patients that do that have cancer that are going through treatments, do you guys specialize specifically in that? I mean, I know you do range 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah. Yeah, because it's such a small community, we all have our own niches and we all kind of have our own interests and 

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: no like specific training. There are a couple courses that you take that I took in in training as well, just to kind of understand what it sounds like to, I. Council of fertility preservation, patient with and without cancer.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Um, and then, you know, you kind of just learn by experience and you form a niche for something that you're passionate about. 'cause that's what makes you, you know, really thorough in, in your treatment. [00:29:00] So that's one of my interests. Um, and, but I would say, 

  Michelle Oravitz: training for that. It's just like 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: yeah,

  Michelle Oravitz: just know how to treat that in 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: exactly. 

  Michelle Oravitz: especially if you're interested in doing that. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Exactly. That's exactly right. It's kind of, it just comes with the experience comes with your mentors and who you're surrounded by, and everyone kind of helps each other get to that point. But there are several specialists in our practice at RMA that specialize specifically in fertility preservation in cancer patients.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: So we have a close communication with our oncologist and they know who to refer to within the practice because everyone has their own little interests. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Amazing. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah.

  Michelle Oravitz: Um, definitely. I, like I said, I really enjoy picking your brain because it's a lot of fun for me. I, I do 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Totally. 

  Michelle Oravitz: acupuncture, so 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah,

  Michelle Oravitz: and I, I think that it's just so crazy that our fields don't work together. I mean, we kind of do, but I think, I just feel like it would be so great 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: exactly.[00:30:00] 

  Michelle Oravitz: the expertise because you guys have immense. Benefits like in, in, uh, technology and incredible innovations and, and then the natural aspect of really understanding the, the body. And I, I just think that it would work so amazing together if it was more of like a thing. 'cause it, I know in China they actually combine the two 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah. 

  Michelle Oravitz: eastern. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah, I mean I think that that's so important and there is data that shows, you know, there's actually a recent study that came out just a few weeks ago on the benefits of acupuncture for fertility patients. And we know that, I mean, I recommend it to all of my patients, specifically the day of the embryo transfer.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: We, luckily, we offer it on site at RMA and we have acupuncturists that come in and, and do a session before and after the embryo transfer, and I think. A lot of that is targeted towards stress relief. But I also think that holistically it's important to feel at your best when we're doing something that's so crucial to your, to your health.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: So to really focus on the diet, focus on stress relief, [00:31:00] focus on meditation, yoga, whatever it takes to get to your best wellbeing when you're going through fertility treatments, um, is so important. So I appreciate 

  Michelle Oravitz: Mm-hmm. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: like you that really specialize in the other side of. Of this, because I do consider it still part of the holistic medicine that we need to really maximize success for our patients.

  Michelle Oravitz: Awesome. Well, 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah,

  Michelle Oravitz: Jane, this is such a pleasure Of talking to you. You've given us some, so much great information and we've definitely dived into a, do a topic that I don't typically, I haven't yet spoken about. But, um, that being said, it's such an important topic to talk about. And thank you so much for coming on today.

  Michelle Oravitz: Oh, 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: course.

  Michelle Oravitz: I get off, how can people find you? 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: That's a great question. So I have, um, a social media page. I, it's called Expert nc. So like EGG, 

  Michelle Oravitz: I 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: um, expert nc. Try, tried to make it a little bit humorous. Um, but I'm all over social [00:32:00] media and would love to hear from anyone that is listening. I, you know, every, every day I get different, um, dms and I'm happy to respond.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: I love hearing about everyone else's. Stories and things like that. Um, so that is kind of my main, main social media platform. Um, and then through like RMA and Reproductive Medical Associates, we also have a YouTube channel. We have an Instagram page, um, of our office available, um, as well that is public.

  Dr. Nirali Jain: So you can find us pretty easily if you just kind of hit Google. But um, yeah, I'm kind of developing my social media platform as the expert and I hope it grows. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Love it. Great. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Yeah. 

  Michelle Oravitz: was such a pleasure talking to you. Thank you. so much

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Thank you.

  Michelle Oravitz: today. 

  Dr. Nirali Jain: Of course. Thank you so much for having me. 

  [00:33:00] 

Ep 337 You’ve Tried Everything for Endo… But Have You Tried This?

On this solo episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, I dive into a powerful and often overlooked connection in reproductive health, the link between endometriosis and vagal tone.

While many approaches to managing endometriosis focus on supplements, surgery, or hormonal therapies, few consider the role of the vagus nerve in regulating inflammation, digestion, and nervous system balance. In this episode, I break down how vagal tone directly influences endo symptoms, and why it could be the missing piece in your healing journey.

I also share practical and accessible tools to stimulate vagal tone, from breathwork and cold exposure to acupuncture and mindfulness techniques. Whether you have endometriosis or are simply looking to support your fertility naturally, this episode offers actionable insights to help you regulate your body’s stress response and boost overall well-being.

Key Takeaways: 

• Endometriosis is not just a hormonal issue—it’s also tied to inflammation, gut health, and nervous system function.

• Research shows women with endometriosis often have lower vagal tone, which can worsen symptoms.

• Improving vagal tone can reduce inflammation and support digestion, egg quality, and hormonal balance.

• Simple practices like belly breathing, humming, and ear massage can stimulate the vagus nerve.

• Heart rate variability (HRV) is a useful tool for tracking nervous system health and vagal tone.
  
  

For more information about Michelle, visit: www.michelleoravitz.com

Check out Michelle’s Latest Book: The Way of Fertility!

https://www.michelleoravitz.com/thewayoffertility

The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/

Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/

• Transcript

  Michelle Oravitz: [00:00:00] Episode number 337 of the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. Welcome back to the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. I'm your host, Michelle Orbitz, and today we're diving into a powerful and often overlooked connection when it comes to reproductive health and specifically with endometriosis. And this is the link between endometriosis and vagal tone.

  So that is definitely something that I haven't heard of originally when I first got into this work, and it's definitely something that you don't really see much out there. So endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory condition where tissues similar to the lining of the uterus called the endometrium grow outside of the uterus.

  The tissue can be found on ovaries, fallopian tubes, and outer surfaces of the uterus, and even at times. On the bladder or the intestines, if it's really, really severe each month, just like normal, you shed the [00:01:00] uterine lining and misplaced tissue responds to those hormonal changes. So this can cause a lot of pain and it can also lead to inflammation scarring and the formation of adhesions, which are bands of scar tissues that can cause organs to stick together.

  So some of the common symptoms include chronic pelvic pain, painful periods, so you can really feel severe pain where it's to the point where you can't really function when you're getting your period. It can also happen to increase pain during sex, and many times it is linked to a lot of digestive imbalances and microbiome imbalances as well.

  This can often cause issues. Also trying to conceive, in many cases people might need surgery. There are many different things that people can do. Of course there are supplements that people can take. And today I'm gonna talk more about the connection between the [00:02:00] vagal tone and endometriosis. So it's really fascinating.

  It's not something that you'll find often, but I'm very excited to share this. And if you wanna find out more, stay tuned.

  Welcome to the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. I'm Michelle, a fertility acupuncturist here to provide you with resources on how to create a wholesome approach to your fertility journey.

  /

  Michelle Oravitz: Episode number 337 of the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. Welcome back to the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. I'm your host, Michelle Orbitz, and today we're diving into a powerful and often overlooked connection when it comes to reproductive health and specifically with endometriosis. And this is the link between endometriosis and vagal tone.

  So that is definitely something that I haven't heard of originally when I first got into this work, and it's definitely something that you don't really see much out there. So endometriosis is a chronic inflammatory condition where tissues similar to the lining of the uterus. Called the endometrium grow outside of the uterus.

  The tissue can be found on ovaries, fallopian tubes, and outer surfaces of the uterus, and even at times on the bladder or the intestines if it's really, really severe. Each month, just like normal, you shed the [00:01:00] uterine lining and misplaced tissue responds to those hormonal changes. So this can cause a lot of pain and it can also lead to inflammation scarring and the formation of adhesions, which are bands of scar tissues that can cause organs to stick together.

  So some of the common symptoms include chronic pelvic pain, painful periods, so you can really feel severe pain where it's to the point where you can't really function when you're getting your period. It can also happen to increase pain during sex, and many times it is linked to a lot of digestive imbalances and microbiome imbalances as well.

  This can often cause issues. Also trying to conceive, in many cases people might need surgery. There are many different things that people can do. Of course there are supplements that people can take. And today I'm gonna talk more about the connection between the [00:02:00] vagal tone and endometriosis. So. It's really fascinating.

  It's not something that you'll find often, but I'm very excited to share this and if you wanna find out more, stay tuned. 

  So now that I mentioned what endometriosis is and really the condition and how it can impact your fertility health, I'm gonna also talk about vagal tone and really what the connection is between the vagal tone and endometriosis. If you heard some of my earlier episodes, you'll know that I talk a lot about the vagus nerve and about how the nervous system is so impactful when it comes to reproductive health.

  It's gotten to the point where that has become my [00:03:00] obsession as a fertility practitioner. It is so important and it really explains the yin and the yang process and really how the body's able to get into a homeostasis and regulate itself. And it's so pivotal when it comes to fertility health. So the vagus nerve is a cranial nerve, and it's the largest cranial nerve in the body, but it plays an incredibly important role.

  And I've mentioned this before, but I'm gonna mention it again in case you haven't seen it before. What it does is it actually communicates with the enteric nervous system which is your digestive nervous system, and it's , hundreds of millions of neurons that go throughout your whole digestive process.

  And it can be one of the causes for people having issues with digestion when there's a low vagal tone. Because it is so impactful when it comes to digestion, and one of the things that Vagus nerve does is that it impacts the parasympathetic or rest and digest [00:04:00] aspect of the body. So when your body is in parasympathetic, that is the optimal time to digest food, and it can also cause a more.

  Calm state of mind where your body is not in fight or flight, but it's more regenerative. So when it is in fight or flight, it's a little bit more of a sympathetic response. Now, there's nothing wrong with being in the sympathetic response. It's not like the bad state to be in. It's actually part of our nervous system and part of the autonomic nervous system, which composes of both the sympathetic and the parasympathetic.

  But when it becomes too chronic, then it can cause a lot of different problems, and the body gets into a more survival state. So vagal tone basically refers to the vagus nerve's ability to function. So the stronger it is, the stronger it functions, the stronger the vagal tone. One of the ways that you can actually measure vagal tone is through something called heart rate variability, HRV, [00:05:00] and you can see many different apps, many different devices that actually measure that.

  And HeartMath Institute also discusses a lot about that, and they talk about the heart brain coherence, and they look at. Heart rate variability and vagal tone. And there was actually certain types of exercises, , that you can do to actually increase vagal tone and increase heart rate variability and also increase.

  Just by doing so, heart, brain coherence. So the higher the heart brain coherence and the higher the heart rate variability, the more calm we feel, the better state that we have. And apparently in conditions of endometriosis, the vagal tone. Is actually lower. So one of the things that I would definitely suggest if you do have endometriosis is to improve that vagal tone.

  And I'm gonna be discussing many, many different ways to do that. So as we know with endometriosis, one of the things that it's linked to is [00:06:00] digestive issues. And the higher the vagal tone and the better the biggest nerve is functioning, the better it can talk to and basically communicate with the enteric nervous system, which is really your.

  Digestive nervous system. And so we know that when we stimulate the vagus nerve, it can actually improve your digestive system. And when that happens, you're not only improving your ability to take in nutrients, but you're also decreasing the inflammation in the body, which is really pivotal when it comes to not just endometriosis, but egg quality and overall.

  Fertility health. So this is something that anybody who's going through the fertility journey, male or female, can benefit from regardless if you have endometriosis or not. So just to kind of go back on the endometriosis topic, one of the ways really the only true way that you can know if you have endometriosis is by getting [00:07:00] a laparoscopy.

  It is a surgery, so I'm not saying to go and do that. However, if you suspect that you might have endometriosis based on inflammation, gut imbalance, really strong menstrual pain, pain with periods and kind of lower back pain around that time, then you could still do this because you're gonna benefit from it anyway.

  So I would go and talk to your doctor if you do suspect that you have endometriosis to get your options. So besides looking at heart rate variability, you may kind of realize if your heart rate variability is high or your vagal tone is high based on how well you get back from really stressful situations.

  So if you are the type of person that. Gets anxious pretty easily. Startles really easily has like an off nervous system, gets really nervous around people. That's okay to a certain extent, if it's not [00:08:00]chronic, if it's not something that's really impacting your life. But if it is impacting your life and it's something that happens and when you get out of those environments that trigger that.

  You continue feeling like that, that may mean that you have a lower vagal tone, which means that you're not able to adapt from one state of stress to a more calm state of your nervous system. So while that doesn't confirm heart rate variability, and ultimately the best thing to do is really to measure it, and you can measure it with many devices like even, or ring, you know, there's many devices that actually track your body and your heart rate variability.

  And that would be the ultimate way to confirm it, but there are definitely symptoms that you can feel as well. So studies do confirm that women have a lower vagal tone if they have endometriosis, and that a lower vagal tone is also linked with higher inflammatory conditions. , some of the things in life that can impact [00:09:00] vagal tone really do have to do with high stress.

  So if you're constantly exposed to high stress in your life, that can impact your vagal tone. And also, I've mentioned this before, it's really important to know that if you do have high stress. It's not the end of the world if you have some stress, but high stress chronically can really impact your overall health and it can also throw off your nervous system balance.

  So even if you have IBS or any kind of gut conditions or inflammation or bloating, I'll be covering things that will also benefit you as well. So what's pretty amazing is that there have been studies, actually animal studies that have shown that increasing that vagus nerve stimulation, which will improve the vagus nerve function has been shown to decrease lesions in animals of endometriosis.

  This is thought to be because vagus [00:10:00] nerve stimulation can regulate and decrease inflammatory markers in the body. So I'm gonna cover a few ways that you can stimulate your vagus nerve overall. I. So breath work is amazing and it works with the diaphragm, especially belly breath. So as a child, you probably knew how to breathe. You'll see babies breathe from their bellies because that belly breath is actually the way we're supposed to breathe.

  But as we get older, we actually learn habits that are not really great for breathing. So belly breath is really good. So you could put your hand right underneath your. Ribs, which is where your diaphragm is, and start to use that, really the diaphragm as a muscle and breathe in and out and do this a couple of times a day to retrain yourself.

  To breathe from the belly. I remember not doing that. And then years ago, learning and retraining myself to the point where it became unconscious and I was just a [00:11:00] belly breather. And it really impacted how I felt in general because I used to have generalized social anxiety. And I remember going in for body work.

  A massage and the woman said, oh, you're a belly breather. So it, it is something that I was like, oh, I'm so happy. I'm so proud of myself that I actually trained myself. I wasn't even focusing on trying, and she noticed it. So it is something that you can train yourself. It's a habit that we have. It becomes unconscious.

  So just like a good habit can become unconscious, a bad habit can become unconscious, but you can also change that bad habit to a good unconscious habit. So I've talked about slow, deep breathing, but you can also do something called box breathing, which is inhale to four, hold to four, exhale to four, and then hold out to four.

  And then you can slowly increase that with time. I remember when I used to teach Kundalini yoga, we had something called, it was like the meditation [00:12:00] aspect of the yoga training, and it was something called the 16 seconds.

   breath. We would breathe in so it's not quite the box. It would breathe in to 20, hold for 20, breathe out to 20 and that's 60 seconds.

  And doing so really calms the mind. And of course you'd have to work yourself up to doing that and not do that right off the bat. 'cause it is very hard and it is a practice you have to build up to. So another thing that can help stimulate the biggest nerve is cold exposure. Now with Chinese medicine, you may have heard me say that it's not really great to have chronic cold exposure.

  So I often tell people, keep your feet warm or put socks on and don't put your feet on cold tile. Now this is. A chronic thing, this is doing something day in and day out. And also we do have our first kidney point on the bottom of our feet. The kidneys are in charge of our reproductive health, so you don't want that coldness from the tile to come up from the feet [00:13:00] into the channels.

  So this is why I say that for a day in and day out. But once in a while, you can give yourself a little cold exposure. Doing so, like maybe doing a quick cold shower once in a while is okay. Now, if you are, of course this isn't for everybody. If you are somebody who tends to be cold all the time, this may not be for you.

  But what they do find is that that quick stress effect of the cold exposure, like even a cold plunge. Can actually stimulate the vagus nerve. So it's a quick stress response. And then the body goes from stress, which is the sympathetic to parasympathetic. It starts to stimulate that nervous system regulation.

  Another thing that can really be beneficial is gargling or humming. And I personally love to ohm. If I feel really stressed, even if I'm driving, I just om or hum what humming does. Is, it actually slows down your breath. And you may have heard me say this before in [00:14:00] previous episodes, is that when you breathe slow and deep, you actually calm your nervous system.

  So, and especially your exhale. So the longer your exhale, the calmer your nervous system, and the more it's gonna go into parasympathetic mode. So when you're inhaling and you're exhaling with a hum, it slows it down. It actually stops it from being cleared fast. Of course, meditation and mindfulness. Now, what meditation does is it really gets us to a state of receptivity and a state of listening.

  When we're in meditation, we're paying attention to ourselves, even ourselves, when we're anxious or we're feeling uncomfortable. When you're feeling that sensation, it's almost like a somatic acknowledgement of your body sensation, so you're aware, you become more aware. Of what happens when you are feeling uncomfortable, and then having those times during the day is really beneficial for that mindfulness to increase.

  Because the more [00:15:00] you give yourself opportunities to pay attention to yourself, your mind, your body, how it feels, the more mindful you become, the more you can get really tuned in with your nervous system. And that awareness has been shown to really improve your overall physiology, which in turn. Can help your nervous system regulation and your vagal tone.

  And of course, one of my favorites is acupuncture. Acupuncture can help tremendously, and we actually have a bunch of points that I use often to stimulate the vagus nerve, and part of it is an ears. So another thing that I would suggest if you can't get to acupuncture is just massage your ears or even massage your feet.

  Anything that really stimulates that calming effect. The ears are one of the ways that we can access the vagus nerve. So I hope you enjoyed this episode, and feel free to share this with anybody that you think can benefit from this information. [00:16:00] It is information that you may not often hear. I haven't heard about it before until I stumbled upon it and I was like, Hmm, that's very interesting.

  And then the more I learn about the nervous system, the more impacts I see that it has over reproductive health. So I hope this was beneficial for you and. If you ever have any questions, ideas, or thoughts for future episodes, you can always reach out to me and DM me on Instagram where I am very active and my handle is at the wholesome lotus fertility.

  So thank you so much for tuning in, and I hope you have a beautiful day. So that concludes today's episode. You can find all of the links mentioned on the episode notes. If you're enjoying these episodes, please take a moment to share and leave a review. Reviews mean everything to podcasters and I really enjoy hearing from my listeners.

Ep 336 The Detox Organ That Quietly Shapes Your Fertility

On this solo episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, I explore one of the most underrated yet powerful organs in your fertility journey, the liver. From both a Chinese medicine and Western medicine perspective, the liver plays a pivotal role in hormone balance, detoxification, and emotional regulation. I break down the signs of liver qi stagnation (hello, PMS and irritability!), how stress directly impacts this organ’s ability to function, and why supporting your liver is essential for optimal fertility and menstrual health.

You’ll learn practical ways to give your liver the TLC it needs, from stress-reducing rituals to the best foods and herbs that support detoxification and hormone balance. Whether you’re trying to conceive naturally or going through IVF, this episode is packed with tips on how to nurture your body’s natural detox pathways and create a more fertile environment from within.

Key Takeaways: 

• The liver plays a crucial role in managing hormones, detoxifying the body, and supporting menstrual health.

• In Chinese medicine, liver qi stagnation often caused by stress is a major pattern that affects fertility.

• PMS symptoms like irritability, bloating, and breast tenderness can stem from blocked liver qi.

• Western medicine highlights the liver’s role in clearing excess estrogen, important for conditions like PCOS, endometriosis, and fibroids.

• Supporting the liver with stress management, acupuncture, breathwork, and liver-friendly foods can significantly enhance fertility outcomes.
  
  

For more information about Michelle, visit: www.michelleoravitz.com

Check out Michelle’s Latest Book: The Way of Fertility!

https://www.michelleoravitz.com/thewayoffertility

The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/

Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/

• Transcript

  Michelle Oravitz: [00:00:00] Episode number 336 of the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. Welcome to the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. I'm your host, Michelle Orbitz, and today I am going to be talking about the liver when it comes to Chinese medicine, as well as how western medicine perceives it and understands it, and why it is really an important organ when it comes to your fertility health.

  So stay tuned.

  Welcome to the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. I'm Michelle, a fertility acupuncturist here to provide you with resources on how to create a wholesome approach to your fertility journey.

  /

  Today I'm going to be talking about the liver when it comes to Chinese medicine and how it is perceived as a very important organ when it comes [00:01:00] to fertility, health and menstrual health.

  And as we know, menstrual health is really the heartbeat of fertility health. Then also as it is seen through a Western medicine lens. I'm not a western medicine doctor, but there is a more conventional way of looking at the liver, which is a bit different as you'll see to how Chinese medicine perceives the liver.

  So the liver's role according to Chinese medicine is to ensure the free flow of qi, which is life force vitality or sort of an energy, but it's way more than that.

  also stores blood. And is really important to prepare the body right before a woman begins menstruation.

  It is very much related to emotions, and its emotion is anger. I. So when the liver is stagnated and is not able to ensure the free flow [00:02:00] of QI in the body, it can cause stagnation. And one of the biggest things that causes liver chi stagnation is stress. So it's actually one of the most diagnosed condition and pattern liver tree stagnation of all patterns.

  It is one of those things that a lot of people, and this actually reflects the state of the world today, because we just have so many demands and we're constantly being bombarded with information news. And the pace that we're going on is not a typical natural pace that we're used to or ancestors used to have, where we used to be a lot more connected with nature, which calms our nervous system and helps with stress.

  So some of the common signs, and it could be some and not all, or you know, the, any one of these really. If you have a few or a number of these symptoms, it might be showing that you have [00:03:00] liver chase stagnation. So you may have noticed that at times when you feel really stressed, you hold a lot of tension in your upper shoulders.

  That is actually a response to liver cheese stagnation. You may have also felt like you're sighing really strongly when you're stressed. That is liver cheese stagnation. It's a feeling of fullness in the chest where you feel like you need to blow off steam. I. If you felt really angry, and I mean really angry, that is definitely liberty stagnation.

  Or if you're feeling more irritability, that comes and goes. That is also liberty stagnation. I.

  Liver cheese stagnation can also impact PMS. So PMS really means premenstrual syndrome, so it could be an umbrella of many different things that can come up, and it doesn't necessarily have to be irritation. It could be other things as well. So one of those things are irritation [00:04:00] or fatigue or just really any symptoms that you have before your period.

  Constipation, bloating. Breast tenderness, mood swings. So those are all things that can be really under the umbrella of PMS, really having any kind of even cramping before you get your period. What that shows is that there is energy that is stuck, and since the liver has an important role of storing the blood and preparing the body for the menstrual cycle, what happens is.

  It also has a role for ensuring the free flow of qi, and when it is trying to do one thing, it's not, and it doesn't have as much energy to begin with, then it's not able to do all of its functions all at once. And of course, it becomes very busy. Right before a woman has her period, because it's preparing that, plus it's doing its regular job of ensuring free flow of qi.

  [00:05:00] So when that free flow of QI is being backed up or stagnated from the tenseness of stress, then it's not able to do its job and therefore women will experience PMS symptoms.

  And what happens now and what I see often in my practice is that. Women do have a lot of stress, so they may show up as having many different patterns at once. So stagnation is considered a full pattern, and then there's deficiency because sometimes a full pattern can actually cause deficiency because if something gets jammed up and blocked that being full, so it's more like a blockage.

  It can cause the body to not get the nourishment and. Energy that it requires, so that a stagnation, so a full type pattern can cause a deficiency. And then sometimes a deficiency can cause a full pattern and sometimes can, and sometimes deficiency can cause a full pattern. And then what can happen too is when the cheek gets stagnated for a very long time.

  It impacts like the next in [00:06:00] line, which is blood. And when blood gets stagnated, it can cause things like fibroids because then it becomes more of a mass. And so ultimately liver cheese stagnation is one part, but it can continue and progress to something way more severe. It can also impact endometriosis as well.

  And then liver cheese stagnation can also impact the spleen. So the elements of the liver when it is too stagnated can actually what's called overact on the spleen. And the spleen in Chinese medicine is in charge of your digestion. So if you've ever been in a situation where you feel really stressed, some people will either wanna overeat and then some people won't be able to eat at all, and sometimes their stress will end up.

  Being felt in the gut, and that is your liver overacting on your spleen and stomach, which is your digestive system in Chinese medicine.

  so conventional medicine sees the liver as having a [00:07:00] very important role when it comes to detoxification of your body.

  It really is the main organ, except of course there's other ones like your colon but the liver will detoxify a lot of chemicals and what happens often too is if your colon is backed up, it actually makes the job of the liver in cleansing your system harder. So in order to really take care of the liver, you don't just focus on the liver, you also focus on your gut health.

  So as we're seeing both in conventional medicine and in and in Western medicine and in eastern medicine, the liver and digestive system do work hand in hand, even though they're two different systems in the body, but ultimately the whole body has many different systems that work like a symphony.

  Now, how this relates to your menstrual cycle Is that one of the things that the liver does is remove excess [00:08:00] estrogen from the body, so it is important to remove excess estrogen. And nowadays we also have a lot of. Hormone mimicking chemicals like xenoestrogens, which are fake estrogens, that the body confuses for estrogens.

  And ultimately, when we start to get something called estrogen dominance, it causes things like endometriosis and fibroids, many different conditions, and it can also throw off our estrogen progesterone balance. Then ultimately because hormones are this intricate, delicate symphony, it can impact your hormones as a whole.

  This can also cause irregular cycles, which is obviously very important to regulate when you are trying to conceive.

  The liver also has an important role in regulating glucose and insulin, which is really important for many [00:09:00] conditions like PCOS, which tend to have many, there's many different types of PCOS, but most of it, the majority tend to have a link with

  insulin resistance, so that is really important as well.

  Some things that people might feel when their liver is more sluggish is they will feel more sluggish and tired. They'll feel hormone fluctuations. they'll have more PMS, and they might even see some skin issues like acne where their body is trying to cleanse itself.

  They might also feel bloated and constipated, and sometimes even might have a little more sensitivity in their right upper quadrant, which is the right section, right under the ribs.

  Ultimately, you want your body to be free of toxins and you want the energy to flow in order to have an optimal menstruation for women and really have optimal fertility.

  So there are definitely things that you can do to help your liver.

  [00:10:00] One of the biggest things, as we mentioned before, is actually managing stress. So in Chinese medicine, we really don't see a difference between the body, the mind, and the spirit. And there are so many different aspects that come together to really create our health. And that is why our mind and how we feel and our emotions are just as intricate and just as important as really what we put into our bodies through food and how we move and our exercise and our sleep.

  So all of those things really matter when it comes to your overall health and ultimately your fertility health.

  So some ways you can manage stress is. talk to somebody when you have a lot going on. It's really important because we as humans are meant to connect with others and it actually feels good for us to connect with community. It's important, however, to find people that you feel safe with and not people that will make you feel worse [00:11:00] for feeling your feelings.

  So it's important to have a safe space to talk and maybe perhaps a community. There are many different communities out there when it comes to fertility health and you can also find psychotherapists that's specifically work in the fertility category. So they really understand the stressors that come specifically from being on the fertility journey. So those are really great to seek out and there are many people that are professionals in that category. I.

  Another thing that is super, super important, and it's something that I actually wanna do a whole other segment on, which is breath work. So through breath work, you can actually stimulate your vagus nerve and regulate your nervous system. So it's really, really important to learn how to breathe because through the breath, that is one of the easiest ways to truly communicate with the brain that you feel safe.

  Then when you create a feeling of safety, your body will automatically feel at ease and it can let [00:12:00] go, and you'll also feel like you're thinking more clearly because when your liver is able to ensure that free flow of Qi, your body overall feels so much better.

  Meditation. I am a huge fan, and that is something that I have been doing for many years and has completely changed my life, so I highly recommend getting into meditation. You can get into many different meditations, and one of the things if you're just getting started and you don't know much. Is something that I recommend often to my patients and my coaching clients is to look into, um, something called the Headspace series.

  Headspace is an app, a meditation app, and there's a series on Netflix, and most everybody has Netflix. And they go through many different types of meditations. They explain exactly the science behind it and what those types of meditations do, and then at the end of each segment, they will cover and kind of guide you through that particular meditation that they spoke about.

  And I highly recommend doing [00:13:00] that because then you can try out different forms of meditation. The two main forms are. Paying attention to your breath or repeating a mantra in your mind. And there are many specific mantras and a lot of 'em are seed mantras that you can find from Vedic traditions, which is ancient India.

  And those work really amazingly.

  And of course, acupuncture. I'm a huge fan. it changed my own life and it helped me so much and this is really what inspired me to do it myself and to go back to school for it. Acupuncture is amazing for relaxing, but it's also great for so many other things, but it also can help with moving that energy blockage.

  So through acupuncture it ensures more free flow. And one of the things that I noticed when I first started acupuncture was that I came in for my periods. They did regulate and then I realized, hey, I'm a little less stressed at work. I feel a little better if somebody says something that's challenging for me to hear.

  I felt better [00:14:00] and I was able to receive it better. So that was one of the things that I noticed, and it was probably because, and now I understand it better. My energy and my free flow of QI was much better since I was going to acupuncture. So that is something that I highly recommend. And then just to keep in mind, things like alcohol and caffeine do get filtered by the liver, so having too much caffeine and alcohol has contributed to higher incidences of inflammation and endometriosis, and also fibroids. So the reason being is because those are things that need to get filtered by the liver. If you're giving the liver more work to do and it's going to be taxing, then it is going to impact how it is able to do its job. You ultimately don't wanna give it more toxins to worry about. So it really is something that it needs to filter out. So one of the things that you could do if you suspect that you have a more sluggish liver, or you need to give it a little [00:15:00] more TLC, I would definitely either lower your intake of alcohol and caffeine, and ideally it would be best to eliminate it completely.

  Similarly, you wanna avoid processed food that have ingredients that you cannot pronounce, all of those chemicals. You also wanna avoid environmental toxins, plastics, really things that will also contribute to a heavier load on the liver. You also want to ensure that you're getting proper sleep.

  Not only is that going to help your nervous system, but it's also gonna regulate your body overall and your overall chi. It's also going to help the liver. So one of the things that the liver does, as I mentioned before in Chinese medicine, is it soars the blood. And I remember one of my teachers early on telling me.

  Well, teaching the class that when you lay down, if you're really, really feeling tired and you feel really stressed, just laying down makes it easier for the liver to [00:16:00] store the blood because obviously you're not standing and you're laying. and by doing that, you're actually supporting the liver.

  So even taking naps sometimes can really help.

  There are definitely foods that can help, and cruciferous vegetables are amazing and these are really important, especially if you have endometriosis or fibroids. they specifically are really beneficial for the liver, but they're also great in eliminating toxins from your colon as well.

  So cruciferous vegetables are broccoli, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts.

  Other things that you can consider are dark leafy greens. And I would suggest cooking them slightly, not overcooking them, but those are actually really beneficial. And it's beneficial to cook because it can help your spleen digest it better.

  Lemon water on an empty stomach, because in Chinese medicine, the taste.

  Let me see.

  Lemon water is amazing because also in Chinese medicine, the taste for and an Ayurveda, the taste for the liver is [00:17:00] sour. And sour tastes and bitter tastes also support detoxification of the liver, so bitter greens think about things like that that will also support the liver.

  so examples of that are dandelion and turmeric And as far as herbal supplements, you may have heard of milk thistle. Sometimes they'll have a combination tincture that you'll find in health food stores of milk thistle and dandelion. And one of the things that I also wanna mention is that if you are going through IVF and what I typically will suggest to a lot of my clients Is to work on your liver or maybe have a little time in between treatments if possible, so that you're able to assist and maybe take those herbs like milk thistle and dandelion root, and then also something called sulforaphane, which is made from cruciferous vegetables, and it can also detoxify and support the liver.

  It's important to give [00:18:00] yourself that extra support if you know that your livers already being bombarded with a lot of excess hormones, which happens with cycles. So it is nice to give yourself a little break afterwards where you're able to assist the body in flushing it out.

  And magnesium is also a very key mineral to help support the liver's function.

  so ultimately you gotta love your liver. I mean, it has an incredible, incredible role when it comes to your overall health and when it comes to your fertility health. So it's important not to bombard it and really kind of take it as a two step to support it with the right foods, to eliminate things out outside in your environment or even the things that you're eating to encourage a healthier, happier liver.

  So I hope you enjoyed today's episode, and feel free to share this with anybody that you think can benefit from it. Thank you so much for tuning in [00:19:00] today, and I hope you have a beautiful day.[00:20:00] 

Ep 335 Rethinking Fertility: Longevity, Herbs & the Taoist Way with Jiaming Ju

On today’s episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, I’m joined by Jiaming Ju @kunhealth, a second-generation traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) practitioner and health economist who co-founded Kun Health with her father. From leading one of the world’s largest longevity data projects to creating personalized Chinese herbal formulations, Jiaming brings a rare and fascinating perspective to holistic fertility care.

We dive deep into the roots of Chinese medicine and its powerful role in treating unexplained infertility, recurrent miscarriage, and postpartum recovery. Jiaming shares why customized herbal medicine—rather than a one-size-fits-all approach—is key, and how stress, liver qi stagnation, and over-medicalisation can often stand in the way of conception. We also discuss the importance of preparing the body and mind for pregnancy, how men’s health is often overlooked in fertility journeys, and the practice of wu wei—doing nothing—as a healing principle.

This is an eye-opening and empowering conversation for anyone navigating fertility or seeking a deeper understanding of the interconnectedness of health, mindset, and tradition.

Key Takeaways: 

• Chinese herbal medicine offers a deeply personalized and effective approach to treating fertility challenges, especially unexplained infertility and miscarriage.

• Liver qi stagnation and chronic stress are common root causes in fertility struggles.

• True healing goes beyond quick fixes—it involves preparing the whole body and mind for pregnancy, not just aiming for a positive test.

• Partner health, especially sperm quality, is often under-acknowledged and under-tested in fertility journeys.

• Practicing wu wei—intentional rest and non-productivity—can help calm the nervous system and enhance reproductive health.
  
  

Websites/Social Media Links:

Learn more about KUN Health here
Follow Jiaming Ju in Instagram

For more information about Michelle, visit: www.michelleoravitz.com

Check out Michelle’s Latest Book: The Way of Fertility!

https://www.michelleoravitz.com/thewayoffertility

The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/

Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/

• Transcript

  [00:00:00] Episode number 335 of the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. My guest today is jamming Jew Jamming is the owner of Kon Health. Alongside her father, jamming went from leading the world's largest data collection on senior adults from New York to Singapore to joining her father in his decades long mastery of traditional Chinese medicine, infusing Ming's expertise on aging data and economics.

  Together they help people live healthy lives and preserve Chinese heritage. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Welcome to the podcast Chiming. 

  Jiaming Ju: Thank you for having me. [00:01:00] 

  Michelle Oravitz: Yes. I would love for you to share your background. I know you're second generation traditional Chinese medicine practitioner, which is really cool. I love the fact that you actually have your roots there and your father does too, and I feel like.

  That kind of takes it to a whole other level when you're working and learning from your parents. So I'd love to hear your background and have you share it with the listeners.

  Jiaming Ju: So I'm a health economist first. So I was in health, I was in economics basically for 10 years. And. I think before Covid I was running one of the largest think tank on longevity data collecting in the world at the time in Singapore. And then I came back to the States in 2019 and decided to retrain for four years.

  It takes four years in California. And then that's when also around the same time I opened Quinn. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Awesome. Longevity? I think of longevity and I think about fertility. 'cause a [00:02:00] lot of times when we treat fertility, we're actually doing a lot of anti-aging. We don't call it that 'cause we're working on mitochondria and really kind of getting the health of the eggs and the uterine lining.

  So tell us about your experience with fertility and what you've what you've seen. In practice.

  Jiaming Ju: Well, I mean, I work with a lot of people who have unexplained infertility. That's actually an area that I work a lot in. And this applies to both men and women among my patients. So I will have. A lot of patients who you know, they probably had a failed, failed rounds of IVF. And then that's when we work together.

  I also have a lot of patients who have repetitive miscarriage which is increasingly common, unfortunately. And then I also work with a lot of women on postpartum, which is more on the traditional side, as you know, in Chinese medicine. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Yes, and so I know that [00:03:00] we often get asked this, and I get asked this too, but I love always hearing the different perspectives on Chinese medicine. To explain to people in layman terms, why does acupuncture and Chinese medicine, I know Chinese medicine's a big umbrella. Acupuncture is really one part. I think most people think just acupuncture, but of course there's MOA herbs.

  I mean, there's so many different things. There's also auricular, you can get really detailed on that. So can you explain what Chinese medicine could do really to regulate periods, to regulate ovulation? Just kind of help fertility.

  Jiaming Ju: Well, I mean, first off, I think I grew up in the Chinese medicine family business, so to me it's very bizarre when people separate them. You 

  Michelle Oravitz: the acupuncture and the herbs and the,

  Jiaming Ju: treatment from the,

  herbal treatment. However, I think customized herbal formulation has always been the elitist form of Chinese medicine.

  It takes a lot of family [00:04:00] lineage. You know, pre bottled stuff aside for the modern human really, you know, whether you have fertility issues or not is really that one has to take a one-on-one approach to effectively treat something that's very complex. So having said that I only work at Quinn for customized herbal formulation, so we don't do, although I'm licensed, I don't do acupuncture 

  Michelle Oravitz: Oh, got it. Oh, I didn't know that. I thought you did acupuncture as 

  Jiaming Ju: no I don't. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Oh, okay. 

  Jiaming Ju: We have all of you guys who are. 

  Michelle Oravitz: actually I know in China they do separate it. A lot of times people will get really, really focused on one aspect. 

  Jiaming Ju: Yes and no. I think in if, because in China and Korea they have TCM hospitals, right? So you have different departments where post-stroke, you go first off to the acupuncture people, which is the physical therapy part of Chinese medicine. And then. Depending on the severity of the stroke, you likely will get customized herbal formulation on top of that.

  I usually say that [00:05:00] acupuncture is amazing, is like a great deep spring cl that everyone needs it often customized herbal formulation and diagnosis is more like a renovation, so they're entirely different projects. I think when you consider a human as a house, right, you're building a house, you need, you have different needs.

  In terms of female, I think we go back to the topic. I always like to talk about how women are fundamentally very, very important in Chinese medicine because Chinese historically are obsessed with babies. So this is the reason why a long time ago in all these empress, like, you know, like palaces, you will have.

  A whole college of hundreds of royal physicians, and they're all Chinese medicine doctors. And their goals are not only to keep, to make sure the emperor can live for as long as possible, is to make sure all these concubines can produce as many kids as possible. So this is why I think the, the practice has a lot more interest in the history, right?

  The history is being that. [00:06:00] We love kids and you want, China has one of the largest population in the world throughout history and you know, so it has a lot of that. You want kids and you need to care about women's health. So in a nutshell, I really like what you mentioned before, like when I actively worked as a, basically a longevity economist and my job was to advise countries in terms of you know, fertility policies, aging population, right?

  How can you encourage, and I often say that women's. Women friendly policies are essentially longevity policies. You don't have women giving birth to kids, then you won't have a, you know, sustainable population. This is one of the same. So I really liked you pointed that out. That is totally right. I think not many people think like that.

  And so in a nutshell, like there is the historical interest then that would mean that in terms of research, there is the interest in the research, there is interest in data, there is Chinese medicine has been around for 3000 years and gynecology in particular in that field has been around for [00:07:00] 3000 years.

  This is very different with how western medicine has developed. Right? Like c-section technique for example, was developed, I dunno, a hundred years ago, like it is very. It's, it is, it is. So it's really like not comparable in terms of history, even sheer patient number and patient cases. So I think Chinese medicine really in many ways excel in understanding women's health and fertility.

  I. 

  Michelle Oravitz: For sure. And I, I always say like with medicine, one of the key things that you wanna look at is how well does it age And Chinese medicine ages really well. So a lot of times you'll see new things, new pharmaceuticals, and then a couple years later you find out it's not as great and then something else comes out with Chinese medicine.

  I mean, it looks at nature, it really looks at like the elements of nature. That is something that is consistent. It's just part of really understanding that and then understanding ourselves. So I think that that is so cool about Chinese medicine.[00:08:00] 

  Jiaming Ju: Right. The internal is very much so the physical, right. I have, I'm sure you have too, a lot of patients who on the surface they're like. Really healthy. But they haven't had a period for three years. So, you know, this is, this is not, and then they will spend the money on Botox. But which then you're like, okay, you look good for maybe a month, and then you have to do this again.

  Right. it is very different perspective. I think many people say that, you know, why do, for example, in the practice of postpartum recovery, right? I'm sure you see it, and I see it a lot from the practice where. People who don't have, who are not on top of their health condition, especially in terms of digestive health.

  I'm more prone to have thyroid issues or, you know, preeclampsia in the last trimester and then post burst. This doesn't only drag their health just downhill. And then also impact how you're going to have a second kid or a third kid if you want to. It really completely like, you [00:09:00] know. it really completely wrecks your house in a ways that you didn't even see this coming.

  And that is a completely different perspective, right? Because often I will have patients who say that, oh, you are the first person who listens. How do you know I have these issues? Before I even tell you, I. It is really patterns. And I go back because I am a nerd and I am an economist. Like I go back to data collecting Chinese medicine like in my father's, you know, practice.

  Like he will start seeing a kid at the age from the age of five and then she's, he sees the same kid when the kid is 35. You see a person's in a whole families right Conditions throughout their whole life, and That's The best possible data collection you can dream of, and you can think of. This is not just a, oh, here is some pills for antidepressant, for postpartum depression.

  Like give a women a pill like that. They will still have gazillion other issues, like what does this solve? And you will hear often for people who have postpartum depression, for example, right? Like they will then be dependent on depre antidepressant for [00:10:00] the rest of their life. Then one questions. What does that serve?

  Right? Where does that put you as a human? Do you feel like you are out of control for your own health? So Yeah. it's a different approach. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah, completely. It's interesting you say about antidepressants because I feel like it's almost a screen in between me and the person. I feel like I'm not able to fully get through to the person with the treatments because there's something in the middle, in the way I. And and of course I don't tell them just stop because I know that that is a whole process.

  They have to be under the care of a doctor and tell them how to come out of it, because it's not something that you can just suddenly take out. I often feel like that. And I'd much rather if I can just treat it with nothing else, it'll be a lot easier. And then another thing too is that I thought you said that was really interesting and true is um, you know, I think a lot of times often people just want that positive pregnancy, but you talked about [00:11:00] something that is actually crucial.

  If people want a healthy pregnancy and then also healthy afterwards for more kids, you really have to think big picture and not just quick fix. And I think that we're so conditioned for the quick fix that we don't think about the whole garden and really tending the soil. And I always think about it like that.

  It's like, yeah, we could throw a seed in and maybe that's gonna sprout. But if we don't give it the conditions it needs, those roots aren't gonna go deep and it's not gonna be a sustainable, like rooted sprout, which I think similar with pregnancy, you want not just pregnancy, but you want a healthy pregnancy, and you also want a healthy mom and baby.

  You need it all. It's not like you can have an unhealthy mom, healthy baby. You have to have the whole picture working together.

  Jiaming Ju: I think that's why like many people getting on IVF, and if you consider it a percentage of success rate for IVF is actually not that high. Right? And then everyone is, and a [00:12:00] lot of people are disappointed because they feel like I paid all this money and I, I, I got it. Why is it not happening? I think first off is because we're all conditioned to think that pregnancy is such a simple thing, right?

  You do it and you'll get pregnant. The, in Chinese medicine we always say mental is the physical and vice versa. The impact of stress of our day-to-day demand, of being a modern human, whatever, whatever that means, has a huge number in other fertility potential, right? I often says to, I often say to my patients and I say like, you know, often because. My patients might, in the middle of it, they're, they didn't come to see me For,

  fertility, but like after they healed from like long covid or something, they're like, I want to have kids. You know? Now I can really think about it and I will usually say that, you know, definitely be careful with like when you wanna get pregnant, because the healthier you are, the fertile you are, the more fertile you are.

  Often I think in this society where we talk about IVF [00:13:00] technology, ever since it has been introduced, it has become a thing where people feel like, oh, so long as I do it right, I will, it will happen. And often people get very disappointed when it doesn't happen. And I'm sure you see in your practice a a lot in recent, in the past five years, you know the, there is an increasing percentage of people who have to DOIs.

  IVF like twice or three times and still maybe without success. Right? So I think there is a lot of a lot to be said about looking at fertility, not just as a functionality that you as a woman or you as a human will just somehow have, but it's really about your overall health, right? Like, and I often talk to people who have repetitive miscarriage.

  I'm like, your digestive health is everything. Who is gonna carry the baby is gonna be you. Now, if you are having, already having like nausea, dry gagging, like five times a day, even when you're not pregnant, your chances of basically having repetitive miscarriage is probably quite high, right? So we have to fix what's, [00:14:00] what is the fundamental thing.

  It is. Not that let's have a kid, because often I and I very, I talk about this not very often. But I do treat kids, and you often see a lot of kids who have incredible intolerance for food early in age is due to the fact that mother had a very difficult pregnancy. 

  So this is very much so linked.

  It's not, like you said, it's not like the mother has to be in perfect house. So you have a chance, the mother and father in perfect house. So you have a chance of this baby being in perfect house often, even if you could get pregnant, if you have a kid who has so many problems in the first two or three years there, basically.

  You know, there was one time with a patron of mine who, when he came to see me, he was two and a half years old and he was basically deemed a failure to thrive because he couldn't gain weight and he was having leg [00:15:00] diarrhea. Often. He was having crazy eczema. And then you find out the mom during pregnancy and before pregnancy had a lot of issues.

  So this is all interlinked. Yeah. 

  Michelle Oravitz: it really is. Another thing I see often is people who do IVF and then they go to the doctor and the doctor says, well, you barely have anything. You really need to start immediately. And I always encourage them, spend a little time prote, you know, preparing yourself if they've never, if they haven't come to me and I say, you're much better off waiting a few months.

  Taking care of yourself, nourishing yourself, then doing IVF, then rushing into it. 'cause we're just looking at numbers and not kind of thinking about the quality and the preparation. 

  Jiaming Ju: Mm-hmm. '

  Michelle Oravitz: cause in three months, it's not like you're gonna just lose everything. It's gonna just drop off a cliff. I mean, it's gonna be a few more months.

  You're gonna be in much better position.

  Jiaming Ju: I think that's totally true. I mean, in, in the old country, in East Asia, when you prepare for [00:16:00] pregnancy, six months is very standard. That's when your partner quits smoking. They quit drinking, you know, you both eat healthy. All of those stuff, Right. And in this country we don't, it's almost like nobody necessarily prepare it.

  Everyone just expect it would just happen until it doesn't happen after a while and suddenly it goes from, oh, I'm really casual about it, to now I'm in a panic. I must do IVF. Right? And. A large, obviously unexplained infertility has a lot to do with, there are multiple root causes. One of the most common ones I have seen is actually intense liver g stagnation, where often a women consider themselves as a failure for not being able to get pregnant.

  And the more you and I usually be able to tell with a patient when the first, for the first consultation, they'll say, I need to be pregnant by this date.

  Michelle Oravitz: Right.

  Jiaming Ju: You're not a machine, we're not ai. It doesn't work like that. And often, I also, I [00:17:00] don't know whether you experienced this in your practice as well, but I often I always ask about better the partner or whoever, is the sperm donor better?

  They have tested, oftentimes they have not. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah, I agree. 

  Jiaming Ju: has done all the 

  work then, 

  Michelle Oravitz: I've seen that a lot and and sometimes the doctors don't even mention it. 

  Jiaming Ju: Right. And it is shocking to me because as we all know.

  through research I believe it was the newest study done using collective data from Europe the sperm quality, both in terms of speed and quality per say, is 50% lower than like.

  20, 30 years ago, and this is understandable due to drugs, due to not sleeping, due to not taking care of ourselves, Right. Due to stress. So why is it always that we're plowing the field of a women? And I always say this, I said the worst thing would be I'm p plowing your field. And the seed is subpar then.

  So, 

  Michelle Oravitz: Correct. 

  Jiaming Ju: right? Like, it's so, like, it's So easy. for the man to [00:18:00] get checked. It takes no time at all. 

  Michelle Oravitz: I know.

  Jiaming Ju: So like how is it in this, like, you know.

  this is almost common sense both in terms of money, in terms of time, get your, get your sperm donor, you know, partner 

  checked first. Um, it's It is interesting.

  Michelle Oravitz: It is for sure. And then also, I mean it's, what's interesting is, yeah, you can get checked and everything looks normal and they're like, everything's perfect. But then the DNA might have something off, which. A normal analysis does not cover that. It's a special test that people take after, and usually they won't do that unless there were like miscarriages or there were failures with the embryos to grow.

  So they'll, they'll then they'll check the sperm. DNA fragmentation.

  Jiaming Ju: It is always a little too late. And interestingly I think even given my own experience, like I have two kids and they were born in different, two different countries, and I. The second one who was born in the [00:19:00] us I think the, the, even the md, the gynecologist like checkup is very minimum. There was, you know, like if you want like a, a better, clearer picture, you gotta pay more.

  Like there is like, I think the, the standard of what women are provided in this country in terms of like basic, you know, like a, a basic kind of gynecological service throughout is very low compared to other countries. But I mean that also creates a lot of. Tension and anxiety from first time moms.

  Right. You don't know. And then you show up and then you said you're having some pain and doctor's like, it's okay. And then you 

  know, there 

  Michelle Oravitz: supported because you know, internally something's off. Like, you're like, I know something's off. I'm not crazy, but like, ah, you're fine. It's in your head. 

  Jiaming Ju: right. And I think through and, and I think that's really the fundamental difference between Chinese medicine and western medicine.

  Right. Chinese medicine. This is why a lot of [00:20:00] people ask me, they're like, you're a Columbia educated economist. You wrote for the Economist magazine, and then you know, you run Nobel Prize winner think tank like, but like Chinese medicine, it must be so different. It's actually not. Health economics is all about getting subjective health data from.

  The person you interview, that's not so different from what, what we do in Chinese medicine. It's about you being the patient who knows best about your health, right? So if you say you have a pain, you have a pain, I'm, I'm don't live in your body. I don't get to judge you. I think this is also the reason why so many people feel heard.

  Chinese medicine clinics where they feel like you're just another pregnant person, like time is up, you are leaving. So it's it's a very different process. Yeah. 

  Michelle Oravitz: It is such a different process and I actually remember myself the first time I went to an acupuncturist. This is like kind of what started it all. I was in a completely different career and I all I could get from [00:21:00] every single doctor I went to was the birth control pills. And people hear hearing this, a lot of my listeners already know my story, but it was just basically I had irregular periods and that was the only answer I can get.

  Never made sense to me on a intuitive sense. I was like, this just doesn't make sense. There's gotta be something. They're like, Nope, that's just your body. The only time you can have normal periods is if you take this. So I went through 12 years of that and the first time I met. My first doctor, Dr. Lee, who's from China, and he actually happened to specialize in gynecology.

  He sat with me and one of the biggest takeaways, like the biggest impacts that it had, was him listening to me and asking me questions and showing me interest in every part of my life. And I was like, wow, this is crazy. This is so cool. I've never gotten this much attention from anybody on like, what's going on in my body?

  Jiaming Ju: right. 

  Michelle Oravitz: And then so that was really fascinating. Of course, that did change my [00:22:00] period and I was resolved. I, I did the, you know, real raw herbals and the acupuncture. But then also looking back when I went to school, one of my teachers said, and it kind of like never left my mind that part of the healing, like the therapy starts before a needle goes in.

  Just by listening and the second you feel heard, that by itself has an impact on your healing.

  Jiaming Ju: Right. The, the physical is mental and that is observed and in every single way we treat patients. I have, I would just say like 90% of my patients not only have like physical ailments, they have a lot of like mental. Concerns as well. Right. And usually as both the, the mental improved physical improvement and vice versa.

  And this usually seems very, like, it's like a huge surprise or a big relief to the patients because they're like you. I mean, I, I [00:23:00] didn't have to take antidepressant pill for this whole time. Right. It's, I think is, it is a very interesting. Myth we are told and I, I don't mean this as a, as a, something like a, like I'm simply raising this as a question. How is it that we all come in different shape and form, race, color, experience, lifestyle, choices, all of that, and sexes. And then when you say, okay, someone is suppressed, you give everybody exactly the same. The only thing that varies is in the dosage.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yep.

  Jiaming Ju: Isn't that weird? 

  Michelle Oravitz: Mm-hmm. 

  Jiaming Ju: Right? Like it, and if you ask people who are depressed I'll give you an example because I have a lot of A DHD patients especially and The first thing I always ask when I examine the tongue for A DHD patients is better.

  You have anemia. And often they do. But as we know in Chinese medicine, even if the lab says you don't have anemia, your tongue can tell me you have anemia. [00:24:00] The, the chance of you being anemic and showing a DHD symptoms is very high. So is that actually a DHD or not? Oftentimes is actually not true. A DHD.

  This is the reason why a lot of women who thought they have a DHD got on A DHD medication and then they crash when they don't take the medication, right, their energy crash, their focus crash. Then if, I mean, this is really a questions like if you take something, it works. The minute you stop, it doesn't work. Did they ever work? Right. It's almost 

  Michelle Oravitz: it resolve it? It's not resolving, it's not a, a true solution. 

  Jiaming Ju: Right. And then when we talk about pregnancy, it's a similar process, Right. Is this just we implant a child in your body? Great. I'm glad technology works, but I think if I recall back in the days when IVF was invented, It was not supposed to be used so widely in today's environment.

  It was [00:25:00] for, I believe, for specific reason, Right.

  There was a, a really strong infertility, I believe structurally for. Was it the researcher? We invented it. So like it was not supposed to be. It's the same thing with C-section. It was not supposed to be widely used. Like today's, I remember when I lived in Singapore C-section was so popular.

  It was like, you can pick your date. It was a thing you can pick, pick a auspicious date to give birth to your child, and everyone goes to have a csection on the same day. It wasn't designed like that. It wasn't meant to be used like that. So I think. Modern human need of getting things done. Like I need to have a child.

  Here is the child, and here the child is delivered like this need of doing, boom, boom, boom. Just click on your life. To-do list is preventing us to see the garden you talked about is preventing us from really taking care of ourselves and really do the way that we are supposed to do that. Nature enables it because we [00:26:00] probably wants too much.

  I don't know. 

  Michelle Oravitz: It's a too quick to, you know, quick fix. It's, it's going against the dao. It's going against that present moment, that being present because my theory or 'cause it wasn't really something that I specifically learned, but like, the more present you are, the more life force q you have because you, in this portal, your energy, your attention, like you said, no separation between the mind and the body.

  So the more present we are, the more energy could be here. If our minds are here and then it's somewhere else, or our bodies are just here and our minds somewhere else, we're scattered all over the place. And so let's actually go back 'cause I thought that was really interesting what you were saying about the liver chi, like really, really severe liver cheese stagnation.

  For people listening, I've talked about the liver before, but liver cheese stagnation is severe stress. It's really being, to me it's kinda like being in major fight or flight chronically.

  Jiaming Ju: Mm-hmm. And it is interesting because the liver store is the blood. So [00:27:00] some people will say like, especially, it's funny because I lived in New York for a long time and I will always spot a patient from New York from a mile away because whenever you ask them like, are you stressed? They're like, no,

  they look really stressed, but they're like, no, I can't handle it.

  This is intense Stress. 

  Handling it, you know, 

  doesn't 

  Michelle Oravitz: first of all, I lived in New York, so I know exactly what you're talking about. 'cause I'm a re recovering New Yorker. And then secondly ahead, I have a, like, I have a patient I could just picture in my head right now. I'm like, how are you doing? Everything's perfect.

  Everything's fine. Sleep is good. Good, good, good. Great. You know, and I'm like, she, and, and then like every needle that goes in, oh, oh, you know, she's.

  Jiaming Ju: I think this is the hardest lesson in life. I feel. Is to desire something and not getting it, like, either, not on your timeline or like not the way you want it. [00:28:00] And I think liver cheese stagnation is exactly that. I mean, traditionally we say, oh, it's anger is more manifested in road rage.

  But really in today's society, I like to interpret liver cheese technician manifested in ways. That is like a mild, like a irritability, like a constant irritability. You're just waiting people to, to do something wrong and you are snap at them, right? We are all familiar with that kind 

  Michelle Oravitz: It's resistance. It's resistance to life. 

  Jiaming Ju: frustration, right?

  You're like constantly frustrated. Someone else got a promotion, you think you are deserve the promotion, you're not seeing anything frustration. It is. What you think in your head you deserve. And the reality, and there is a gross, like mismatching here. And I, every single time I have a patient who comes because of, you know, infertility issues and I will always spend so much time talking to them about their psychology, like mental health.

  [00:29:00] I, the way I do consultations. I have a huge part, at least I think. Total 30% of my total questions about the mental this matters in particular to people who have been having difficulty pregnant because, and I explain it to my patients like this, if you are so stagnant, if your body is so full of stagnation and cheat, where do you think a baby can sit?

  The baby. The baby has nowhere to sit. There is no room for the child. And that in a way. Is indeed the hardest lesson because to be pregnant, to be a parent to me personally, I think is the hardest thing in life is, is the uncertainty. You can do everything you do. Right, right. In, in parenthood. You don't know how it's gonna turn out, and this is, this process actually start from getting pregnant.

  Like so many people feel so certain, oh, I just do it, you know, a couple [00:30:00] of times. And during ovulation I will be pregnant. It doesn't work like that in Chinese medicine. You know, when it advocates for healthy pregnancy, it is the Jing, it is the Chi, it is the Ansys, it is the spirit and body of you and your partner. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Yep.

  Jiaming Ju: I'm not even a religious person, but I would say that is rather agno agnostic like process, right? Because You need a bit of luck For a person who is intensely chi stagnant, they don't believe in luck. You, I'm, I don't know whether you've checked this with your patients, 

  Michelle Oravitz: yeah. No, they, they put everything on their shoulders. They think that it's all up to them, and that's why they feel like they need to control, and it's being in that fight or flight because you're in survival mode. And when you're in survival mode, there's not plenty to go around. You need to scrounge and you need to work, and you need to fight to get whatever you need.

  And that's that's ultimately, you know, from an observer's perspective. Yeah, that's what I see.

  Jiaming Ju: Right. And it is, you will see whenever that [00:31:00] happens, you know, it's almost like you as a provider, you are being told like. This is the only thing you're doing. You're, you're giving me a child and then like, this is never gonna work. This is never gonna work because liver cheese stagnation. Really, I feel like clinically is one of the major reasons for unexplained fertility.

  And that in turn frustrates the person even more because you're telling them structurally there is nothing wrong, but they just cannot get pregnant no matter what they do. Right. So this is already a deeply frustrating process and telling them that, leave it to. Just follow the protocol and leave it to fate.

  And you, I will always notice that 50, not 50%, like you always have like 20% of people or 30% of people who are just not, they'll ask you like, what are the best thing I can eat to make this happen faster? Right? Like, what, what is um, you're going against what you, you know, you're, you're doing exactly the opposite of what you're supposed to.

  But that is hard. I think 

  Michelle Oravitz: It is hard. Yeah. It, it's, it's one of those things that is often [00:32:00] missed and I, I, I actually wrote a book about that. 'cause in the book I don't give any diet tips or anything. Like, I'm like, that's not what's needed. Because everybody can look up like the best diet and there's plenty of great books about what can help.

  And of course everybody's different and, you know, really understanding kind of your own sensitivities and et cetera. But. My point is, is that many times people going through the fertility journey are actually very smart. They're very educated, and they educate themselves on. Supplements and what to do.

  And so they're, they, they have that down, but that's not what it's about. I mean, it's about also the nervous system and I, I say the nervous system 'cause it's more late layman terms, but it's ultimately what the QI does. Like the QI needs to move and to flow. And if we're in this fight or flight, it's stagnates.

  And so you see that often?

  Jiaming Ju: I think that's really true because it is really about the difficult, the most difficult thing in life is to dive [00:33:00] into uncertainty. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Mm-hmm.

  Jiaming Ju: You have two types of people who, well, you have three types. One type who just like go with the flow, right? Nothing wrong with that. You have one type who always wanna get ahead before everybody else.

  They always wanna know everything that's supposed to be done, it comes to being pregnant, having a healthy delivery, that's actually not how it works. And I think that's, you gotta have a openness. To say, I'm going to dive into this uncertainty because you know what, when a baby is here, when you have to raise this child, right, you're gonna need that when they start going to school or even when you homeschool them.

  It doesn't matter. Like you cannot control everything. And I think that is a very important thing that really starts even during pregnancy preparation. 

  Michelle Oravitz: You know, I will say it's kind of like meeting the love of your life 

  Jiaming Ju: Right, 

  Michelle Oravitz: and you're not like, [00:34:00] you are gonna be the one that I marry. You know, you can't, you, it doesn't work like that. Then the person's gonna wanna run, run away. 

  Jiaming Ju: right. you.

  can't just come with your list and be like, well, You check every single list here. Right. 

  Michelle Oravitz: It's gotta be a little more romantic and have those, you know, moments of quiet and silence and, and kind of have this dance happen.

  Jiaming Ju: Yeah.

  But you know, I, I think the world has in increasingly, has increasingly become a place where. People want bandage solutions. And I think that where the economy, if you're looking at some like rising industries, that that's what it gives like, right? A product. This is especially the case in America where it's all about something has a product, right?

  Like what is the one-off solution you could give to that? But things where humans have been doing for centuries, like procreation. Defies the odd of that, no matter how many one-off Band-aid solutions you're [00:35:00] gonna have, it's not going to click. And I keep telling this to all my patients who not only just for fertility, but for every odd syndromes under sun, as I have a lot of patients who have very difficult, complex disorders, is that. When you commit to something that is trying to get pregnant or trying to get better, it's like when you go to a Taoist pimple or you go to any church or any religious place you go and you put a slice of your peace of your heart and peace of your mind there because you are really committed right in that given moment.

  And that's all I'm asking for as a provider. I always don't always go into it with. But what about this? What about this? What about this? Like, why don't we settle this one first? So, you know, talk about nervous system. You can come down first. [00:36:00] Otherwise your nervous system is all over the place where you are like, you're not doing anything like, you know, fully.

  So. 

  Michelle Oravitz: And what other suggestions do you ever give people suggestions that they could do outside of the. What you're helping them with. Because I would typically say even like you can come in, do the acupuncture, even take the herbs and supplements. But if you're going back and having a crazy stressful time, then it's going to pretty much negate a lot of what we did.

  So I'll suggest things even like rounding or spending a little time in the morning of silence or peace just to kind of get themselves into a partnership really with me on their health.

  Jiaming Ju: We have a 16 page behavior report that we customize for every single new patient that I will hold 'em to it. That includes 

  nutrition and also lifestyle [00:37:00] tips for people who try to get pregnant specifically. I give, like, I consider this not as tips. I consider this as just like you need to do it is to get your husband or your partner or whoever donates the sperm tested as soon as possible and making sure they're not drinking like six.

  Bottles of beer a day. Like, you know, like if you're in this like, you know, situation prep, pre preparing for pregnancy, they should too. And I usually advocate for morning intercourse rather than night intercourse. During ovulation to increase the chances. And there are a bunch of specific ones. I usually give like on a patient to patient base, but I also will tell people to spend at least one or two hours of, of a day to practice the Daoist principle of Uwe.

  Michelle Oravitz: That. That's my favorite, by the way. 

  Jiaming Ju: and I, you know, your New York [00:38:00] patients will be like, no. But like, can I actually go cycling during that time? I'm like, no. The point of Uwe is you do nothing productive. Then they have, you put them in a conundrum because they're like, then I'm just wasting my time. I'm like, no. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Wait, so people who don't know wwe, can you explain.

  Jiaming Ju: So WWE is the Daoist principle of doing nothing. It's a practice I regularly issue to people to forcefully calm their mind. So I give a bunch of suggestions through what you can do for your wwe. Like for example you can knit, but not because. You're knitting for a nephew or something, you're learning to knit, not because you're good at it, it is because you want to.

  So it's to completely deviate from a lifestyle where we are chasing daily achievement all the time, right? It's more about resting your body and mind and focus on what matters on the present, which traditionally you to think it doesn't matter. So one of my favorite [00:39:00] thing, even when I lived in New York City, was to really sit in a random coffee shop and just sit there, read my book or like judge people's sense of fashion.

  So I will like people judge when I'm in the cafes. Like, what did you do during that time? Nothing. But I always feel like, great. 

  Michelle Oravitz: But it's like effortless effort. You're still there. It's not like you're totally inactive. You're, you're still there, but you're like in this neutral flow 

  state. 

  Jiaming Ju: Right, and then that's very important because there is nothing more difficult to a person who tries to get pregnant than thinking they're losing time. They're being told that they're losing time. They're late by every possible doctor under the sun. But you know, that is a time, is a, being late or not is a relative concept, as we say in Chinese medicine, 

  Michelle Oravitz: It's true.

  Jiaming Ju: So oftentimes you'll see people like signing off for IVF, not because they're physical ready, It's because they are told they are short on time, right? [00:40:00] You don't do this now, you can't do it in three months. But statistics don't work like that. Like you said, you know, within three months, your body's not going to dramatically change.

  You, you must well spend the time to take care of yourself, then really increase your chances rather than, I'm gonna dive into this when I'm super stressed. Pinning so much hope on this. So yeah, again, I mean, I, I think that's really the thing, like having a child and being pregnant is not just something you must do in life.

  It's a, it's more than that. It's a mild, it's, it's, it's a face in life. One doesn't have to have it, but if you do decide to have it, I, I really think that people need to take a broader view on it. 

  Michelle Oravitz: 100%. I think that is so beautifully put because it is a big picture and it's you can't just take the part and then look at the part and say, okay, that's it. You have to [00:41:00] look at like. How it interplays and works together as a whole organism. And that's when you get the big picture. And yeah. And I think about like, you know, the yin and the yang, you know, being too young all the time, you're gonna burn out the yin and that's ultimately the nervous system right there, having that balance.

  Jiaming Ju: Yeah, exactly. I think the society demands us to constantly deliver. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Mm-hmm.

  Jiaming Ju: The question is, what are you delivering? There isn't a return policy for a parent once the child is here. You are responsible for them for life. So this is not just, I'm just, I just wanna get pregnant. This is a how it's going to completely transform your life wrecking you because your identity will be rewritten the minute you are pregnant when you become a parent.

  And I think people need to probably, you know, take it, I always say like, take it more [00:42:00] seriously, but also take it less seriously. I. Because I think people take it really seriously on the, am I pregnant or not pregnant part, Right.

  But that don't take that too seriously, but like people need to consider what that means.

  The implication at your health more seriously. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah, for sure. And so if people, and it's, it, it really helps to have somebody to work with because I think that. There's a lot of reminders that can be done from somebody who's looking at it more objectively and not in it because it's very hard to understand what you're sharing if you're not working with somebody else.

  And I think that that's like the benefit on top of obviously getting the therapy, but also getting, you know, the treatments and also. Getting that perspective because when you're too in it, it's very hard to decipher. So I think that that is very priceless. So for people who want to work with you, what do you offer?[00:43:00] 

  Are there, 

  Jiaming Ju: I only, well, so if you are interested in Chinese medicine, you wanna know how much I can tell you just from your tongue reading 

  Michelle Oravitz: about this. I have to just, I'm opening my gate. Because I have a delivery. Okay, sorry. Okay, let's start that again. Camille 

  Jiaming Ju: I also probably need to go in five minutes. I have a patient in a bit, but I think the, if you're interested in, and I always say this as a dare and those are kinds of my favorite tongue, tongue readings to do, is that people who say like, no, I won't tell you anything. I just give you my tongue, and then they're completely in shock when I spell out all your, their life secrets.

  So I think That's the number one thing you can do. And in these tongue readings, I also give three quick suggestions, but I give a very good overview of like what you're not telling me about what's happening, wizard Health. And that's a very fun thing to do. 'cause everyone has a tongue, right? And tongue reading is one of the most traditional things we offer in Chinese medicine.

  But usually the [00:44:00] serious, more serious part. Is the one-on-one consultation with me online. And and then customized herbal formulation. I would say like 95% of my one-on-one patients on customized herbal formulation. And then. We do the monthly follow up for that. And then there is also a bunch of digital small booklets, recipe books like that we that I have written.

  For example, I have a postpartum recipe booklet that I highly recommend for anybody who is pregnant. And you don't know what, what really you heard about this myth about Chinese women eating different things postpartum. You don't know what that is. I wrote. A 20 page I believe, recipe book that 

  includes breakfast, lunch, and dinner and snack.

  For that. So That's a lot of like self study resources as well. Yeah,

  Michelle Oravitz: That's great. Sounds awesome. And you do raw herbs. 

  Jiaming Ju: no, I only do gran. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Oh, granule, which is so easy, but it also is effective because it's easy to [00:45:00] digest, easier 

  Jiaming Ju: right. And everything is made to order. So we have patients from Scotland to, to Singapore. It's, it.

  is we, so it's everything is made to order and I co-write a formula with my dad for every single patient. So, 

  Michelle Oravitz: Fantastic. And how can people find you?

  Jiaming Ju: You can follow us at Quinn House, KUN House. I believe we're on TikTok as well, but I never check TikTok.

  I'm a little bit scared of TikTok, so, Instagram is my 

  Michelle Oravitz: It's funny, I never got into TikTok too. I just do reels on Instagram. I just love Instagram.

  Jiaming Ju: Yeah, I think TikTok is a little bit of a wild scenario, but yeah, Instagram is where I, I think do the most, so. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Awesome. Well, it was such a pleasure talking to you. You sound like a wealth of knowledge and I love your perspective and really how you understand really from diet and, and also herbals, which is an art in itself. So thank you [00:46:00] so much for coming on today. It was such a pleasure talking to you. 

  Jiaming Ju: you. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Awesome.

  Yeah. 

Ep 334 This Sleep Habit May Be the Key to Getting Pregnant Faster

On today’s episode, I’m joined by Dr. Peter Martone @drsleepright, an educator, injury prevention specialist, and chiropractic expert who has spent the last 25 years transforming health by helping people sleep better through spinal alignment. After a personal injury led him to uncover a surprising link between poor sleep posture and chronic health issues, Dr. Martone developed what he calls the “Corrective Sleeping Position” a method that supports spinal health, optimises vagal tone, and enhances parasympathetic nervous system function.

We dive into how nervous system imbalances impact fertility, why improving sleep is about who you become, and how simple shifts in your sleep setup can profoundly change your energy, hormone regulation, and overall wellbeing. Dr. Martone also introduces his animal sleep avatar test and shares practical advice on how to align your body and mind for optimal healing, starting in bed!

Key Takeaways: 

• The autonomic nervous system plays a central role in fertility, especially the parasympathetic (rest and digest) system.

• Correct spinal alignment during sleep can reduce nerve interference and improve organ function, including reproductive health.

• Many fertility challenges can stem from imbalances in vagal tone and nervous system inhibition.

• Dr. Martone’s “Corrective Sleeping Position” helps improve heart rate variability and promotes deeper healing at night.

• Sleep isn’t just about rest—it's about becoming a better, more aligned version of yourself.
  

Websites/Social Media Links:

Dr. Peter’s Website
Follow Dr. Peter on Instagram
Check out Neck Nest here

For more information about Michelle, visit: www.michelleoravitz.com

Check out Michelle’s Latest Book: The Way of Fertility!

https://www.michelleoravitz.com/thewayoffertility

The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/

Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/

• Transcript

  [00:00:00] Episode number 334 of the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. My guest today is Dr. Peter Martone. Dr. Martone is an educator injury prevention specialist and patient care health practitioner who has been focused on improving patients biomechanics for over 25 years. During his private practice as a chiropractor and exercise physiologist, Dr.

  Martone always believed that the structure of your spine affects the function of the central nervous system, and this interference is at the root cause of most of the chronic problems people face. Dr. Martone now uses this principle as the cornerstone to help people get WAY better sleep. His techniques have been featured on C-B-S-N-B-C, Fox News and over 50 international podcasts.

  He currently travels the country teaching people how to regain their health in the bed by getting [00:01:00] way better sleep. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Welcome to the podcast, Dr. Marone. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: Thank you so much for having me. I can't wait to dive in.

  Michelle Oravitz: Me too. So I'm really intrigued. We have not had a chiropractor yet on the show. However I love chiropractic work and I also believe. That it can help a lot with the nervous system. And I often talk about the nervous system and how that impacts fertility. So I'm really excited to have this conversation.

  And before we get started, I would love for you to give us a bit about your background and how you got into the work that you do, and especially when it comes to [00:02:00] sleep. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah. Wow. That's like a, it's a big zigzag. A lot 

  Michelle Oravitz: It always is. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: we 

  Michelle Oravitz: It always 

  Dr. Peter Martone: wait. I never thought up. I never like, woke up one day and said, oh, you know what? I'm gonna be in the most exciting field of my life. I'm gonna be in the sleep industry. Like, it's so, it was like so boring. But you know, it, so what I was, I'm a chiropractor, I'm an exercise physiologist, a nutritionist.

  I've always loved the to help people. Improve their function and quality of life by changing their lifestyle. So I was, I was, I was big on helping people, what's called balance, the autonomic nerve nervous system. So there's, in our, in our system, we have organs and our organs are typically not controlled by like the conscious nerves that controlled by like autopilot stuff, which is the sympathetics and the parasympathetics.

  So what I found a long time ago is that most people when they have chronic illness or dysfunction. They have an imbalance within that autonomic nervous system. So I [00:03:00] spent a good part of my first 15 years in practice helping people balance their autonomic nervous system until finally, and I always had bad back, which isn't really what brought me to chiropractic. What brought me to chiropractic is I got adjusted once and my stomach problem went away, and, and I'm like. I'm a chiropractor, I have a bad spine, and I was in a little bit of an injury mountain biking, and I finally herniated my disc.

  So I was in the emergency room. I'm sitting there saying, how can I come to this? I've been helping people with back pain and wellness, and I'm now hooked up on Dilaudid because I'm in the emergency room because I'm, I was just, my back finally failed. And in your own brain? at a subconscious level, I felt like I was a failure because I'm like, how can.

  I not help myself, so not a really good place to be. And then, so out of big lows, a lot of times you can learn from those. And, and I have a very [00:04:00] competitive mind, so I'm like, I gotta figure this out. I have to figure out why I had disc issues and, back problems. So I started reviewing x-rays. I reviewed 3000 x-rays and I found a pattern.

  And that pattern was I had loss of cervical curve in my neck. And, and due to an adaptation, which I found is that it, it adapts with a, what's called a SOAs, major muscle spasm in your lower back, and the SOAs attaches directly to a disc. So I'm like, holy Mac, maybe I had a neck issue, no pain in my neck.

  Maybe I had neck issue all this time, and it was messing with my lower back. So I'm like, well, how do I fix that? I've been getting adjusted. I'm like, the only time I can do it is a one third of my life. I ba basically do nothing and that's sleeping. So I started to cha, I was always a side sleeper. I curled up in a ball and my back was always twisted.

  I had shoulder issues and I'm like, you know what? I bet you it's alignment when I'm sleeping. So I started [00:05:00] to put pillows under my neck and I started to force myself to sleep in a specific position, which we now call the corrective sleeping position. Then once I started to. Have my patients sleep in those positions.

  Now, their chronic issues I've been dealing with, they're needing me so much less because their body's healing really at night while they sleep, which now, hence now another 10 years later. I am in the sleep industry after 25 years of zigzag, right?

  Michelle Oravitz: That's so interesting. And so how have you noticed that impact? Well, actually let's take it back to like why chiropractic works, not just for the spine. I think people think, just like you said, you went for for back pain or for the stomach pain, or you ended up getting your stomach issues resolved. People don't, may not realize that chiropractic work.

  Can impact [00:06:00] internal organs, systems and other things other than just your back. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah. So let's look at, so this is gonna be a really different way for people to think, okay, but I'm going to make it and break it down into a very simple analogy. If you go to into a room and there are lights in the room, and then you take the dimmer switch and you dim the switch down to 50%. Somebody walks into this room, they're like, wow, it's really, it's not light in this room.

  Now what you would do is you go to the Dimmi switch and you turn it up. Well, now in our current paradigm, people don't even look at the dimmi switch as the problem. They look at the light bulb, which is the organ. Nobody looking at the nervous system going to that organ. They all look at the organ. So they'll put new bulbs in there.

  They'll put a transformer in there that puts more energy at the bulb when. The pressure, the, the, the li the, the dim switch being down is an issue. [00:07:00] So the spine is basically your fuse panel to the body and, and it's set up where these nerves come out of these holes in the spine. And if the spine's out of alignment or your hips out of alignment or your neck's out of alignment and you have these curves, you're putting pressure on a nerve.

  There's research that's been done. Pressure equal to the weight of a quarter on a nerve will cause a nerve to malfunction by 60%, leaving it only with 40% function. So think about that. If the nerve is only functioning at 40%, how can the organ be healthy? And nobody on the planet looks at that as cause of disease, except chiropractic.

  Everybody looks at it like, oh, you just get your spine adjusted 'cause you're in pain. I was never in the industry for pain. And I tell my patients, listen, I'm a little different. I said, look, I wanna help you with the pain, but if you are walking with one shoe on and one shoe off, you're gonna have back pain.

  If I just focus on [00:08:00] your back and I don't create it, don't fix the imbalance, then you're just gonna be dependent on what I do. And that's the same thing. Now, when we help our clients with chronic illness and fertility and breathing issues and digestion issues, the first thing we do is align the spine, turn up the dimmer switch.

  Then we see what happens. Internal organs.

  Michelle Oravitz: Interesting. And so what I know that obviously. Because I know in Chinese medicine there's so many different reasons that cause one thing, so we look at the root cause for fertility conditions. What have you seen so far? I. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: That is so great. So that's a great question. Now when within our sleep system we the, the, I guess you can say the crust. That, that connects all the, all the other, like everybody give anything that most of the experts tell you, you can Google, right? Oh yeah. Room temperature and beds and all this stuff.

  It's all [00:09:00] Googleable. But the crust that holds all of the, be the missing pieces, the crust, and that's, we live our life through our nervous system and everything we say, do function, feel, happens through that system. So when you look at fertility, don't look at it as the infertility, as the issue. That's the outcome.

  Look at it as. What controls fertility? People would say hormones, right? What controls hormones? Nervous system. Okay. What specific nervous system? That nervous system is called the parasympathetic nervous system. The parasympathetic nervous system is your thrive nervous system verse, your survive nervous system, which is your sympathetics.

  So you can either run from a tiger and you're in survive 'cause your body needs to get away from it. You can sleep and thrive. So our bodies thrive at night and survive during the day. So it needs to be a balance. The three systems that are controlled by your Thrive system. And when you have infertility, you have [00:10:00] an issue with all three of these systems.

  It's immune system, it's digestive system. It's reproductive system, so anybody that has an issue with one or of them has an issue with all three of them because you have an issue with parasympathetic inhibition. So, so it's not that you're just all sympathetic dominant because you're, you know, you're, you're super excited, you're inhibited because you're dimmer switch is down 50% and nobody's addressing it.

  So most of the time what we see with our, our patients that have infertility, they have issues at the atlas, which is right at the brainstem, and it's due to loss of function there, or it's down in the Coio plexus, which is in the, which is in the, in the, in the coic, which is in the pelvis. So a lot of times it's pain associated, but there's also digestion issues.

  There's eczema, there's skin issues, there's all of these other issues. But all, all that's telling us is the nervous system imbalance.

  Michelle Oravitz: That's interesting. It's interesting that you pointed [00:11:00] behind the ears because that's where you can stimulate the vagus nerve. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: Correct. That's, that is the reason why, 'cause it's true to the carotid sheath. There's three nerves that go through there. It's the vagus, the glossopharyngeal, and the spinal accessories. So, lot, lot of times if, if a, a woman has infertility, she has definitely a loss of cervical curve, but. Her hands might fall asleep or she has a thyroid issue also because of that forward posture, or she gets reflux because of the upper portion of the stomach is also addressed by the carina, which is, you know, the cough reflux

  Michelle Oravitz: Interesting. And do you see this for men? Men as well? 

  Dr. Peter Martone: I do, but a different manifestation of symptomatology. A lot of times that's gonna be a low testosterone. That's gonna be like especially with men with the prostate is a, is a big issue at that area, but men, women, some, a lot of times will have it. We're, we're seeing it now more than ever in women.

  I have my own theories on it, actually. I believe it's covid [00:12:00] vaccine, but they we're seeing a lot of heart palpitations, so we're seeing a lot of imbalance within the arrhythmia of the heart. That's why I am I have these rings on. I always measure my heart rate variability and that's what 

  Michelle Oravitz: Oh yeah. I love that. The HeartMath. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: clients. Yeah, absolutely.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah, so, so talk about that. I talk about it a lot too, but I always like to get different perspectives. 'cause I feel like even if it's the same topic, if somebody else talks about it, you might get something different. So, 

  Dr. Peter Martone: This is so great. So the, so just to understand what heart rate variability is, is your heart needs to beat. And when you're running from a tiger, your body wants a very rhythmic beat so that the muscle in the brain can really consistently know the amount of sugar that the organs are getting, right? So the, so when you're sympathetic dominant, which means you're in survival, you have a very rhythmic heart rate, which means if you, let's say, have a a heartbeat of 60 beats per minute, every second you have a beat.

  And that's what [00:13:00] people think is good. That is really bad to have that chronically because you put the same stress on the heart and the heart will fail. So when you're, when you're in thrive or you're parasympathetically dominant, your body's ready for anything. So the heart rate is very in irregular interval.

  So instead of every second, maybe it's 0.75 seconds. Then the next one is 1.1 second. Then the next one's 0.5 seconds. Then the next one's 0.8 seconds. So it's done.

  So you're, you're spreading the stress around the heart, which is a very healthy thing to do for the heart. But what that's telling us is when you are, when your heart rate variability is high, your parasympathetic dominant. When your heart rate variability is low, you're sympathetic dominant. So most people that have dysfunction, especially in the, in the autonomic nervous system or in the parasympathetic nervous system like fertility, they're going to have low HRV readings because they're going to be [00:14:00] sympathetic dominant.

  Whether it's due to parasympathetic inhibition because you're, you're turning, you're putting pressure at the brainstem on the vagus nerve, or it's due to you just so stressed that you never turn this on into weak muscle, whether it is, you can analyze that through these trackers and then, and then we can then, let's say meditate and then connect the subconscious brain to a scent every time you meditate and then take a heart rate variability reading.

  Then know what improves your high rate variability during the day, then connect you to a scent any other time. That's a scent. So when you smell the scent, your HRV comes down and then you can start to retrain the 

  Michelle Oravitz: It's an association. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: Yes.

  Michelle Oravitz: That's interesting 'cause I've said that before. You know, that's what in India they used to put the incense on during meditation. So immediately when you smell it, it puts you in that state so that it's quicker to get into a deeper state of meditation. And it's kind of [00:15:00] interesting how really the heart becomes so adaptive when we're in this rest and digest mode.

  The parasympathetic. And it's also more creative in a sense because it's not, it doesn't act predictably. It's creative based on the needs,

  And that's 

  Dr. Peter Martone: becomes creative when 

  Michelle Oravitz: and your body becomes creative, 

  Dr. Peter Martone: then yeah, the mind becomes creative because you're taking the blood from the, what I call the immature, ignorant child brain, right? Or the Yeah, the, the, the, the 

  Michelle Oravitz: reptilian 

  Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah. Reptilian brain. And it starts to transfer it to where really, where you can get true inspiration and innovation in, in, in, in that, in the back portion of the brain.

  So you can, you can start to think better and consequently. You, we, my, my daughter's now working on one of my companies and she's like, dad, I don't care what's mindset mastery? Because we have five core elements of sleep. I'm like, honey, mind [00:16:00] mindset mastery is like everything, right? If you, if you can master your thoughts, remember thoughts, create an adaptation within the nervous system.

  So if you want to. Be sympathetic, dominant, fair anxiety, financial stress, relationship, stress, hate, envy. Those are sympathetic emotions. If you want parasympathetic emotions, focus on gratitude, love, caring, prayer. Those are parasympathetic emotions. So if you can master the mind and focus the thought, which you can.

  Then you can focus the neurology, which is the real step in bringing back control in chronic illness.

  Michelle Oravitz: So fascinating. I love this topic and I love how you could look at it in so many different ways, but there's so many different schools of thought and they all kind of point to the same thing, even like ancient. Teachings and then now some of the current [00:17:00] research that's coming out. And it's fascinating because it really is something that can be measured, like you said, with the heart rate variability and also the heart brain coherence, and that they do actually communicate, you know, there's a communication between the two and the fact that people do have a choice in this, I think that that is often missed.

  I think that people don't realize that they actually have a choice. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah, and I think that that's, you know, that is a great. Way to say it, right? You do have a choice. And, and like I told my daughter, I'm like, you have a choice on what to think, right? And, and, and, and what we focus on is what we become. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Mm-hmm. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: When you are looking like, think about this. So I'm not, we haven't even talked about sleep.

  I've only talked about my intention. My intention is balance, the autonomic nervous system and health. Sleep is, you can't just put your head on a pillow. Buy. Buy a new what? Buy a new pillow. Buy a new [00:18:00] bed, buy a new sleep supplement and get better sleep. So what we talk about is who do you have to become to do what you need to do during the day?

  And then sleep is a byproduct of living a healthy life in our intention is everything. Our intention is balance in the nervous system. Yes, I wanna help you sleep, but I didn't enter the sleep industry to make you a better sleeper. I'm there now. I entered the sleep industry to allow you to become a healthier individual.

  So who are you when you're waking up? I want that to be a better version of you, A more energetic version of you. So we have this animal sleep avatar test that we have people take. It's a free test. And what animal do you sleep like? And then based on what animal you sleep, like I can give you. The tips specific to how you sleep and tell you how you need to fall asleep because each animal needs to fall asleep differently.

  Michelle Oravitz: That's fascinating. That's so, so I'd love to hear how you approach sleep altogether, like how [00:19:00] your method works to doing that. You'd mentioned obviously figuring out really how you sleep, what type of animal but how do you really help people? What are the different steps you take them through? 

  Dr. Peter Martone: So the, the, so think about, think about the, let, let's look at sleep as an analogy. This is a analogy that we're actually putting into our way Better Sleep program now is think about it as a, a battery charger. Okay? First thing you do with the battery charger or a charger is you have set up. So first have to set it all up, plug it in.

  You have to, you know, do a whole bunch of stuff to set up. Set up is how you fall asleep. Okay? I have three steps. It's called the triune of sleep, so we put people to sleep. Then we have the five core elements of sleep, which is when you're sleeping, are you waking up refreshed? How much. Is your energy being recharged?

  Are you only recharge it from, you know, zero to 25%, [00:20:00] 25 to 50%, 50 to 75? Or are you waking up like me? You are freaking ready for the day because your battery is so full. So most of the time where, where it, it's too complicated to dive into the five core elements 'cause there's just so much. That you have to do.

  It's, it's, it's, it's be, do, have, it's changing your life, eating right, being fit, and thinking well. So, so we, we have different roadmaps on every month. We change a different lifestyle habit to be, make somebody become healthier and then a better sleeper. But I think really where, where the most applicable advice I can give you right now is the setup in talking about what we call the triune of sleep.

  This is what 99% of the people on the planet get wrong. And this is why really my first step was figuring out the triune. And then the other step, you know, is different. So the triune of sleep is [00:21:00] this. You have three things at play when you need, when you're falling asleep, you have the body, the need, the needs of these three things, the needs of the body.

  The needs of the subconscious brain and then the needs of the conscious brain. Okay? The body wants alignment. It just doesn't want to be in pain. It just, it needs to be in a pain-free situation. The average person tosses and turns 20 to 40 times a night because the body's in pain. That's it. That's why we toss and turn, so.

  The next thing is the subconscious brain. The subconscious control sleep. The body pain will interfere with sleep or the subconscious control, sleep, the subconscious need. Safety. The sub body just wants to feel safe and protected. I grew up in Malden, Massachusetts and it was on a busy street, and every once in a [00:22:00] while the kids would bang on my window to play a prank.

  I was on the front, front porch, so I thought when I went to sleep I was going to get abducted every single night. So the only reason I could, I would be able to fall asleep is I'd have to put all my stuffed animals around me. I'd curl up in a ball to feel safe, then I would be able to fall asleep. So think about that.

  When you put your kids to sleep, there's subconscious need for sleep, and the reason why they wanna sleep with you is safety. And now the. The conscious brain, it's where everything screws up. It's like, oh my God, I wanna feel comfortable. You're not comfortable 'cause the body isn't comfortable. What you mistake for comfort is safety for the con subconscious brain.

  So the conscious brain screws everything up. So we have a whole host of things that we do to get people mindset mastery, to get them out of their consciousness, and we can go over some of those. So to set the try put, most people put themselves to sleep with their conscious brain thinking they're comfortable.

  We want to [00:23:00] reverse the triune, put the body in an aligned position. I, I'll show you that in a second. It's called the corrective sleeping position. This position inherently is unsafe for the subconscious brain. That is where people take an animal sleep avatar test to develop to, to identify the amount of safety that needs to be created by each avatar.

  So you have a gorilla and armadillo and an ostrich. Ostrich, it wants to stick its head under the ground. Right. It is so timid. You know, that's where abuse relationships, those are timid, timid people that need so much safety created. You know, when you sleep, it's gonna be very difficult to get them to sleep in a line position.

  Then you have the armadillos, which are like 60% of the population. They curl, they, they, they need safety, but they curl up in balls. They, they like to have their, you know, on their side with that pressure on their 

  Michelle Oravitz: That's me. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: And then I can tell 'cause your head's tilted [00:24:00] and then, and then 

  Michelle Oravitz: Oh, is it 

  Dr. Peter Martone: it is, and then when, and then the gorillas, they can, you know, they can fall asleep anywhere.

  So, so depending on what avatar you are, then we give you advice and tips based on your avatar to 

  Michelle Oravitz: husband's a gorilla 

  Dr. Peter Martone: yeah. Right. 

  Michelle Oravitz: anywhere 

  Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah. 

  Michelle Oravitz: with his mouth open. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: And then and then, and, and then, and then from there, then we teach you to, to shut down the conscious brain.

  Michelle Oravitz: Got it. That's interesting. So what's the proper position? 

  Dr. Peter Martone: All right. Is this, is this on video? 

  Michelle Oravitz: Well, it is for some people 

  Dr. Peter Martone: Okay. So then what you'll do is 

  Michelle Oravitz: you guys could check, check it out on YouTube if you wanna check this out. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: and then you explain what I'm doing. Okay. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Mm-hmm. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: Alright, so the position is typically, hold on, I gotta, I don't, I've shorted an out outline. Alright, I'll 

  Michelle Oravitz: Okay. He's moving away from his mic, so I'll have [00:25:00] to explain. I. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: Okay. All what I have right now is I have a a neck nest. That's the pillow we created, but you can do this with a soft down pillow or, and, or, you know, any type of 

  Michelle Oravitz: so he's got basically a pillow.

  that looks like it's gonna support his neck, Right? 

  Dr. Peter Martone: Yep. So the one thing with sleep is, or, or anytime you support something in the body, you weaken it. I, that's why, you know, sneakers or art supports, it weakens the foot. Back support weakens the back chair. Support weakens the back. A pillow defined as a support for your head. Anytime you support your head, you weaken the cervical curve.

  So what you wanna do is you wanna support the neck, but let let the head hang off the back of the pillow so it's not supported 

  Michelle Oravitz: So basically just have a pillow for your neck. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: And then you don't want the head supported because the weight of [00:26:00] your head will cause a, a sense of distraction. And that distraction will reinforce the curve in the neck, aligning it, improving vagal tone, improving the function of the vagus nerve.

  So just by sleeping in this position, you're gonna improve higher rate variability by 10 to 30%.

  Michelle Oravitz: Interesting. Okay, so he's basically laying on his back and he is got something that looks like a bolster, but it's soft and it surrounds his neck. He put, he has it supporting his neck and it surrounds on the side, and then his head is not supported behind it. It's just laying back. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: Yes. And that's, that's the design that we created with the Neck Nest. So I'll, this is, so I'll show you now how to do it with like a sound. It would be. It has to be a soft, soft pillow. This is what I used before we created the ness. So I, I would put pillows on their edges [00:27:00] and see a pillow is support for your head.

  You do not wanna support your head when you're sleeping on your back. You want to support your neck and allow the head to hang off the back.

  Michelle Oravitz: Okay,

  so now he's using it with a pillow, but having the pillow on its side, so it's basically not laying flat and it's a very soft pillow, so he's able to adjust it. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: of your head is unsupported. That is really, really, really important.

  Michelle Oravitz: That's interesting. I'm gonna try that. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: It's, 

  Michelle Oravitz: I'm gonna try that. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: That's awesome. 

  Michelle Oravitz: So you gotta train yourself to be a back sleeper. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: Yes. Well, you have to train yourself to fall asleep in that position. Remember, when you are trying to start to get to that type of mindset where you gotta be a back sleeper, you're not in control. All you have to train yourself to do is fall asleep in that [00:28:00] position and go take your animal avatar test, and then it'll tell you how to, how you need to create safety to start in that position because you won't be able to shut off the brain.

  Actually, you know what? Let me give you another tip. Because this is important. If you're gonna start to fall asleep in this position, a lot of times people will feel like they're falling backwards or they, they, they'll, they'll, they'll lose their breath because their body does not like that extension, because of the vestibular.

  You feel like you're, you know, you, you're, you're, you're, 

  Michelle Oravitz: you're not supported. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah. Yeah. Your, well, your body your body's brain or valid system doesn't like it. So you can use either a bed wedge or something and sleep slightly sitting up. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Mm-hmm. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: another way that I do this 

  Michelle Oravitz: So he's saying to put

  a bed wedge if that's the case. If it makes you feel uncomfortable Or not safe and supported, you can use a bed wedge. [00:29:00] And then on top of that, use that neck support that he was mentioning before. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: if you don't have a bed wedge, which a lot of people don't, you can put two pillows. See how I have two pillows down there

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah. So instead of a bed wedge, you could put two pillows to support your back. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: and then 

  Michelle Oravitz: So that it elevates you 

  Dr. Peter Martone: And then you're sleeping elevated.

  Michelle Oravitz: got it. Yeah. So you could elevate yourself to make That, an easier way to fall asleep. Interesting.

  Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah. that 

  Michelle Oravitz: you got me curious. And that helps your vagus nerve and it helps get you in parasympathetic mode, which helps your hormones. Gets you in creative mode, which of course the physical creativity is your fertility.

  Dr. Peter Martone: And that you can't Google, 

  Michelle Oravitz: No, that's really fascinating. So how can people find this or really find out how [00:30:00] to like learn all of these amazing techniques? 

  Dr. Peter Martone: they can take they can go to Dr. S-L-E-E-P-R-I-G-H-T, that's dr. Sleep right.com. They can take a free animal sleep avatar test and then, then you're in our world, you'll get some you'll get anytime we do like sleep things, you can do that. And then there you can find out about our programs. And then if you wanna dive deeper and, and look into Neck Nest, there's you can get a link for to Neck Nest from there.

  Michelle Oravitz: That's so interesting. Dr. Peter Marone. This is really, really fascinating. I've never had anybody come on here and talk about it with also, I mean, first of all, talk about this subject, but also with such a unique approach to sleeping. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: Yeah, thank you. It's we put a lot of, a lot of sleepless nights into it and you know, now it's, it's act two, it's, my mission is to change the way the world sleeps. Helping them get way better sleep. And the way [00:31:00] is awakening the full potential of a well-rested, aligned you and the you's important.

  It's who do you need to become to have the be be the best version of you? And, and it's, it's not, I wanna have it right. I want to have better sleep. Then you're just gonna go from what to what? To what, to what to what. And it's like, who do you need to become to change your mind to be able to get there?

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah. And so really the idea is getting into that state and the new habits will help you stay asleep. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: It's, it's, it's amazing how it, once you start to work on the drills of the 10 minute sleep ritual, which is putting yourself to sleep for the setup. Then the five core elements of what you do during the day is fun because now you're just becoming healthier and 

  Michelle Oravitz: Right. Feel more arrested, 

  Dr. Peter Martone: gonna make you a better sleeper.

  As long as you get the, if you don't plug the, the charger in you, 

  Michelle Oravitz: then you're grumpy. you don't wanna learn anything. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: exactly.[00:32:00] 

  Michelle Oravitz: We don't wanna be grumpy, 

  Dr. Peter Martone: No 

  Michelle Oravitz: we wanna feel good. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast and sharing this amazing information. And so, so you gave them the email. Is there, I mean the website, is there any other place that people can find you or learn 

  Dr. Peter Martone: We're, we're on Instagram at Dr. Sleep Wright. We're on TikTok now. We just had one thing go over a million views. 

  Michelle Oravitz: Oh, cool. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: It's. Sleep. Right. So, Dr. Sleep Wright is the is the brand that you'd be able to find me on.

  Michelle Oravitz: Fantastic. Well, thank you so much Dr. Martone for coming on.

  today. This is a great conversation. 

  Dr. Peter Martone: Thank you for having me.

  Michelle Oravitz: Awesome. [00:33:00] 

Ep 333 Unlocking Fertility Through the Ancient Wisdom of Ayurveda

On today’s solo episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, I’m sharing one of my greatest passions Ayurveda, and how this ancient healing system can deeply support your fertility journey. Ayurveda, which translates to “the study of life,” is a holistic approach that brings harmony to the body, mind, and spirit. In this episode, I’ll walk you through the three doshas Vata, Pitta, and Kapha, and how understanding your unique body type can empower you to make daily choices that support reproductive health and overall well-being.

You’ll learn how to identify your dominant dosha, how to nourish and balance it with specific foods, yoga practices, and self-care rituals, and why Ayurveda is such a powerful and intuitive tool for restoring balance. Whether you’re new to Ayurveda or looking to integrate it more fully into your life, this episode is filled with practical guidance to help you feel more connected, grounded, and supported on your path to fertility.

Key Takeaways: 

• Ayurveda is a holistic science that balances the body, mind, and spirit to promote fertility and overall health.

• There are three primary doshas Vata (air & ether), Pitta (fire & water), and Kapha (earth & water) each with unique physical, emotional, and energetic characteristics.

• Understanding your dosha helps you make personalized lifestyle and nutrition choices that support hormonal balance and reproductive health.

• Vata types benefit from warmth, grounding, and healthy fats; Pitta types thrive on cooling, anti-inflammatory foods; and Kapha types need stimulation, lighter foods, and movement.

• Daily practices like dry brushing, self-massage, and tailored yoga routines can deeply support nervous system regulation and fertility.

• Ayurveda provides intuitive and practical tools you can apply daily to feel more balanced, energised, and connected to your body.
  

✨ Take the Dosha Quiz here to discover your Ayurvedic body type!
 

For more information about Michelle, visit: www.michelleoravitz.com

Check out Michelle’s Latest Book: The Way of Fertility!

https://www.michelleoravitz.com/thewayoffertility

The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/

Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/

• Transcript

  Michelle: [00:00:00] Episode number 333 of the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. Welcome to the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. Today we're diving into the ancient wisdom of Ayurveda and how it can support your fertility journey. Ayurveda is a holistic approach that balances the body, mind, and spirit to optimize overall health as well as reproductive health.

  Today I'm gonna cover a couple of different things that you can do to implement Ayurvedic techniques into your daily life, so stay tuned.

  Welcome to the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. I'm Michelle, a fertility acupuncturist here to provide you with resources on how to create a wholesome approach to your fertility journey.

  Michelle: So the word Ayurveda actually translates to the study of life.

  Very similar to [00:01:00] Chinese medicine. It looks at the elements in nature ~~and really what helps balance and create,~~ and really what helps create balance in the body and the mind.

  and I will be sharing today how you can apply these concepts in your daily life. So stay tuned.

  So Ayurvedic medicine is how I first got started into natural medicine. It is really, really amazing and it is actually a very nurturing type of medicine. There's a lot of aspects to it, = and one of them being nutrition, the other being herbals. Then also there's a lot of body work and also yoga is considered to be part of Ayurvedic medicine is the physical therapy aspect.

  So there's a lot of massage type therapies. There's also a lot of enemas that people can do with herbal enemas. and cleaning the nose. There's many, many different aspects of Ayurveda and it truly is a science unto itself. Most of my episodes in the past have been really [00:02:00] geared to Chinese medicine, and although they are cousins and there's a lot of shared details on how they work, it is kind of unique and I will say it actually is a little bit more applicable to your daily life than even traditional Chinese medicine, which.

  Many times you have to go in for the acupuncture. You cannot do that for yourself. You could do acupressure. With Ayurveda, they use marma points, so it's kind of very similar. So it's also points, and there are a lot of parallels. So the yoga in Ayurvedic medicine, it could be looked at as the Q go in Chinese medicine.

  So truly with Ayurveda at the core, just like in Chinese medicine, we look at the yin and the yang. And with Ayurvedic medicine we look at the doshas, which are three body types, People could either be one of the body types or they could be two or three altogether.

  So very few times [00:03:00] people are all equally three, which is called trid Doic. Most of the time they're actually two body types together. Very rarely they are just one.

  Ultimately what a person's body type is, is basically containing of elements. So every body type has specific type of elements, and I'm gonna cover all of that.

  And how you balance that is you start to eat, incorporate foods or habits or daily routines. That will balance and support that. And in some cases, when you're working with a practitioner, they'll also share and suggest herbs. But that is something that I recommend working with a practitioner on because even though herbs are natural, they are medicine.

  So it's important to work with somebody who's really familiar with it.

  So, like I mentioned before, with Ayurvedic medicine, there are many different ways to balance [00:04:00] the doshas, and today I'm gonna cover all the different doshas. And also if you would like, I have linked a quiz in the episode notes.

  ~~That will take you to a quiz and that quiz will help you figure out what type of body type you are. ~~And that quiz will help you figure out what dosha type you are. So the first dosha type that I'm gonna talk about is called the Vata Dosha. ~~And the Vata dosha is, ~~and the Vata dosha has two elements, and that is air and ether.

  And the more you hear about this, it might be kind of strange to hear about different elements, but the more you hear about it, it's gonna start feeling very intuitive and it's gonna start making sense. Vata body types are tend to be more thin and they don't really have as much muscle definition unless they're coupled with Pitta, which I'm gonna go over soon.

  They're the type of people that tend to be super, super thin and it's very hard for them to gain weight, They also tend to feel a little more anxious, I guess, less grounded because they don't have a lot of [00:05:00] earth and they're all air and ether. So if you, now, this is where the intuitive part comes in, is when people have too much air and ether.

  There's sort of, I guess that kind of. Saying they're up in the sky or they're a little more creative and they have a higher imagination 'cause they don't really have earth holding them down. So they do tend to be a little more free spirited, but they also tend to be very anxious.

  They also tend to experience more irregularities. And this is, could be irregularities with her menstrual cycle. It could also be irregularities with her diet and. Their ability to digest, so sometimes they're constipated. Most of the time they'll be constipated and they don't have regular bowel movements.

  They could also be regular with their sleep. Their sleep is a little bit more shallow, and so they'll tend to wake up easily and startle easily.

  ~~Vata Dosha, since they're air and ether, they tend to be a little more dry as well. So they will tend to have really dry skin. They'll tend to have very frizzy hair, or at least really dry hair, and they'll tend to be a little more frail. Their energy will spike, but then they get really exhausted. So they don't have as much of that regularity as far as energy as well.~~

  ~~The next body type is called a Pitta dosha body type Dosha, same thing.~~

  ~~a Pitta Doha has fire and water as its elements. Pitta tends to be a little more fiery. And, um, going back to do, let me go back, I'm gonna go back to Vata, Vata, ~~Vata body types or doshas also tend to be more cold. the ether and air, again, they don't [00:06:00] have as much fire, so they tend to be a little more cold in their nature.

  So you'll see a lot of times there'll be kind of a thin look and they'll always have themselves covered.

  So a Pitta Dosha, which is a Pitta body type, is going to have the elements of fire and water. So Pitta body types tend to be a little bit more hot, they'll be a lot more resistant to hot weather and really resistant to hot and humid weather. They tend to have more oily skin.

  They tend to break out a little bit more. They also tend to feel emotions of irritability, whereas Vatas a little more anxious. Uh, PTA types will have more feelings of anger or irritability, and they are a little more explosive. They're super sharp mentally and they're really able to express themselves easily.

  They're type A personalities, really getting things done, very [00:07:00] executive, and they also tend to have a really good muscle build.

  They'll tend to have a little bit more hormonal imbalances when they're imbalanced. and the liver plays a significant role, so the liver also holds onto anger, so they'll tend to kind of have more liver imbalances when it comes to Chinese medicine.

  Pitta since they have so much fire, they do tend to be very passionate people, and you'll see that coming out when they're working. They really, really feel a lot of strong emotions.

  And then the kafa. Dosha is earth and water. So kafa tend to be a little more slow moving. They tend to be a little bit more introverted. They like to sleep and they like, and they feel like they need a lot of sleep in order to get their energy.

  They tend to have a little bit more of a slow metabolism and they will tend to gain a little more weight and it would be harder for them to really take it out and that it'll be harder for them to lose weight. They tend to be a little more [00:08:00] thick boned and kind of bigger. Their hair tends to be a lot more thick and really robust.

  They might have like thick eyebrows and big eyes.

  They could tend to have more slow circulation, excess mucus, or things like PCOS. They might be a little bit more on the insulin resistant side. Chinese medicine, because they don't have a lot of fire, they could be more of the yang deficiency.

  but they do have a tendency to be more stable individuals, so they are really great with relationships and loyalty. They're a little bit more stable, more relaxed, more at ease.

  So based on the body types I just mentioned, food also has elements. So this is where Ayurvedic medicine becomes beautiful and like a symphony. So you basically take the tones that are missing in a person or the elements that are missing in a person, in a person's body type, and you will [00:09:00] prescribe as an Ayurvedic practitioner the different things that they should have, whether it's herbs or food or diet.

  And diet is much easier, obviously, to implement for people figuring out what they need and then becoming more aware of those. So that is why sometimes even reading books on this and really understanding what your body type is can give you a lot of insight on what foods to choose. So since food has elements as well, what we do as practitioners is we tend to find foods that will balance out.

  For example, for Vata body types, since they are air and ether, they will do really well with foods that are a little more warming and that have more earth. So root vegetables would be amazing for Vata body types because they'll bring the energy of Earth and they're a lot more grounding, which is something that batta body types flourish in do really well when they have.

  So consider warm foods, things that are warming [00:10:00] in nature, but also like orange soap and carrots, um, root vegetables, dms, sweet potatoes, things that are growing from the earth and even beets. Those kind of things would be great, but they also need cooked foods because they have so much cold that that can be, you don't want too much raw, because raw tends to have, just like we say in Chinese medicine, raw foods tend to have a cold nature, So it's really important to have more warm cooked foods for Vata body types. They also tend to have more digestive problems, so warm cooked foods is the best to nourish their digestive systems.

  You also wanna consider since they're so dry, to add oils, healthy fats, so think coconuts, avocados, Coconut oil, olive oil, macadamia nuts. All kinds of nuts as long as you're not allergic as also

  Warming herbs such as ginger and [00:11:00] cinnamon.

  And they can also do well with a little bit more sweet and a little more fruits because they tend to be so thin they need that extra nourishment. So things like honey, and they could do really well with bananas or dates. Those are really beneficial foods for Vata.

  So when it comes to Picto Doha, since they have a lot of fire and water, but they're mostly fire, they do not do well with spicy foods. Spicy food can cause them more inflammation in the body, and they do tend to break out in their skin. so spicy food will just irritate that excess fire.

  What's interesting is that pita body types tend to love spicy food, and that is one of the most difficult things to get them off of. They do really well with very cooling foods like cilantro, parsley, cucumbers, and watermelon.

  Other fruits like melons and pears are really good as well. And just think green and blue [00:12:00] foods because they are more cooling in nature. So things except for jalapenos. So consider things like dark leafy greens and broccoli cilantro. Mint as well.

  They would do really well with things like ghee and coconut milk, but not too too much oil because they do tend to have more of that oily nature, which is one of the things that leads to the acne.

  They also do really well with bitter and astringent foods. So dandelion leafs, mung beans are really good. They detoxify the liver and they support their liver as well, and food that is sour in nature as well.

  So the Kafa dosha, just similar to Vata, but very different in the fact that they both don't have a lot of fire. So the Kafa, Vata. So the kafa dosha will tend to do really well with foods that are warming. So [00:13:00] things like soups and stews, but not as much on the earth, so not as many root vegetables. So avoiding potatoes, having more lighter vegetables that have more ether air, such as leafy greens.

  And vegetables. so think even asparagus, spinach, broccoli. Those are really beneficial. But having them cooked and not raw. And then you wanna do lean proteins, chicken, and this is actually for all of them. Lean proteins a bit specifically lean for Kapha. 'cause they tend to have so much earth.

  And then lentils and mung beans would be really beneficial. And then also warming teas, cinnamon cloves, ginger, things that bring in a little more fire will be really good for their digestion. And they are the body type that could. Technically do better with having their breakfast a little later. Whereas most body types we always suggest to do early [00:14:00] breakfast with kafa.

  They can actually afford because their digested, because their digestion is so slow and their metabolism is so slow, they could afford a little more exercise and a little, and they can handle not eating right away when they wake up.

  So some of the implementations that I learned about and suggested for a lot of my patients is to do an AGA massage. So this is actually self anointing, something that you can do and you can use essential oils, and this is a whole other thing which I teach about, but using essential oils could be very similar to what people do with, What Ayurvedic practitioners do with herbs. So certain essential oils are also very therapeutic and you can use cooling ones for Pitta or heating ones for and grounding ones for Vata, and then heating ones and ones that kind of like are a little more light in the tone for Kapha. And many times I would [00:15:00] blend specific ones, put it in a certain oil, and then use that for the.

  Bianca, which is the self anointing or the self massage. And this is something that I often suggest you don't need necessarily if if you don't know as much about the essential oils, then you could just use any moisturizer really. But it's really about activating the body and you can start out before getting in the shower by using a dry brush, which moves the lymph.

  It brings a lot of vitality to the body and this is Tri Doic. So in some cases implementations can help all the doshas, and this is when it's called Tri Dosha, basically helps everybody. So you could use the dry brushing.

  It is a brush that you buy and it is something that you use before you get in the shower on dry skin, and it moves the lymph and it creates a lot of great circulation in the body. And then after the shower, you can use oils to massage your body. General rule [00:16:00] of thumb is to massage from the outside, so like the most distal feet and hands towards the heart.

  So if you're doing it from the feet, you bring it up towards the groin and then you bring this up to the armpits and then you massage your belly and clockwise form and that will get more. And then you can do your lower back. And pretty much anywhere your hands can reach. And this could be a very grounding practice that really supports your nervous system.

  Another thing is yoga and meditation. So for a Vata type, they will tend to do better with things like yin yoga, which is a lot more calming or restorative yoga, which really calms their nervous system and helps them with that tendency to have more anxiety.

  And Pitta types will tend to need more of that power yoga or something that gives them a little challenge, and they'll tend to like that as well. But they could also benefit with something that calms them down as well, just to kind of ease them [00:17:00] after releasing energy through exercise.

  And Kapha will tend to do better with a higher intensity workout. That will definitely stimulate them a little bit more. So even things like hot yoga might tend to benefit a Kapha body type more than a ~~can. A Vata, a~~ Vata body type.

  So if you'd like to find out what your dosha body type is, definitely check out the link that I have

  for the Ayurvedic dosha body type quiz.

  Ayurveda is really an amazing, amazing science, and I absolutely love it. It's something that you can really apply to anything in your life once you know a little more about it. And it's great once you know your body type, because it also explains to you how you feel mentally, and that is really a big part of it.

  So you'll understand why you tend to be a little more anxious, whereas maybe your husband is a little bit more. Stable, relaxed and [00:18:00] doesn't get too moved by too much. So it depends on the body type. And then so it explains really how we are wired and what we could do to counteract and balance that. So I hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you so much for tuning in.

Ep 332 Why Symptoms Are Your Body’s Messages with Katie Beecher

On today’s episode of The Wholesome Fertility Podcast, I am joined once again by Katie Beecher @katiebeecher_medical_intuitive, a licensed professional counselor and medical and emotional intuitive. With over 35 years of experience, Katie has a unique ability to create detailed physical, emotional, and spiritual reports and even symbolic paintings using just a person’s name and age.

In this powerful conversation, we dive into how fertility challenges are deeply tied to the body’s messages, unresolved trauma, and even spiritual guidance. Katie shares insight into Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome as a hidden factor in infertility, the emotional layers of miscarriage and loss, and the importance of connecting with spirit babies. We also explore how symptoms are not something to fear—but invitations to tune in and heal.

Whether you're on a fertility journey or simply seeking a deeper connection to your body and intuition, this episode is filled with wisdom and compassion.

Guest Bio:

Katie Beecher @katiebeecher_medical_intuitive, is a licensed professional counselor and renowned medical and emotional intuitive with over 35 years of experience. Known for her unique ability to create detailed wellness reports and symbolic paintings using just a person’s name and age, Katie has been featured in over 200 media outlets including Goop, Poosh, and Kora Organics. She is also the author of Heal from Within: An Intuitive Guide to Wellness, a practical guide that teaches readers how to access their own intuition, cultivate self-love, and heal holistically. Katie’s work is deeply informed by her personal healing journey from bulimia, Lyme disease, and depression—an experience that began when she courageously sought help as a teenager and has since inspired her life’s mission.


Websites/Social Media Links:

Katie’s Instagram
Katie’s Facebook
Watch her on Youtube
Get her book: Heal From Within: A Guide to Intuitive Wellness
Read here blog: The Common, Frequently Overlooked Disorder That May Connect All of Your Mystery Symptoms

 

For more information about Michelle, visit: www.michelleoravitz.com

Check out Michelle’s Latest Book: The Way of Fertility!

https://www.michelleoravitz.com/thewayoffertility

The Wholesome FertilityFacebook group is where you can find free resources and support: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2149554308396504/

Instagram: @thewholesomelotusfertility

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thewholesomelotus/

• Transcript

  # TWF: Katie Beecher (audio)

  [00:00:00] Episode number 3 32 of the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. My guest today is Katie Beecher. Katie is a licensed professional counselor and medical and emotional intuitive. With over 35 years of experience, Katie is featured in over 200 media outlets including Goop, Courtney Kardashian's website and Miranda Kerr's Gora Organics blog and has taught a week long workshop.

  At the Omega Institute, she has a unique way of working with clients, creating a detailed, individualized, physical, emotional, and spiritual report and symbolic painting before ever seeing them, talking with them, or seeing a photograph using only their name and age. Katie's first book. Heal from within. An intuitive guide to wellness uses practical tools and techniques Katie uses in her own medical and spiritual intuitive readings.

  The book teaches you to be your own medical intuitive, using [00:01:00] Katie's revolutionary step-by-step process for connecting to intuition and spirit, finding self-love and empowerment as well as to heal physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Heal from within is filled with remarkable stories of healing from her years of experience, as well as her own healing from bulimia, Lyme disease and emotional illness at the age of 16, without telling anyone, including her parents, Katie contacted her pediatrician and began therapy for a severe eating disorder and suicidal depression.

  She has been healed for over 35 years.

  Welcome to the Wholesome Fertility Podcast. I'm Michelle, a fertility acupuncturist here to provide you with resources on how to create a wholesome approach to your fertility [00:02:00] journey.

  Michelle Oravitz: Welcome back to the podcast, Katie. I'm so happy to have you back.

  Katie Beecher: This is a really great topic and I work with it a lot, so it's nice to, uh, podcast.

  Michelle Oravitz: So good. So I remember our first podcast episode. We talked about how about your gift really, and how you also incorporate art, which I thought was so cool.

  Katie Beecher: Yes.

  Michelle Oravitz: and so now since then you've started to see a lot of people. With fertility, like specifically

  fertility people are coming to you like about loss miscarriage and also spirit babies, like future babies and babies who have, yeah.

  Katie Beecher: I mean, I've, I always worked with a little bit but yeah, lately, like the past six months or so, I've really been getting a lot of fertility people. And, and I really, really, my heart goes out to them.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah, for sure. And I feel like it's kind of like you're being called, you're being summoned.

  Katie Beecher: Yes.

  Michelle Oravitz: it's like a need, it's like a need in that world to really [00:03:00] become a messenger in that space. I wanted to get your thoughts, like, why do you feel like we're living at this time right now?

  Like this time it seems to be more needed than ever. Like the, the fertility space, like there a lot more people are experiencing that. There's a lot more of that happening now, and I wanted to get, get your take on it.

  Katie Beecher: Yeah, I mean, I think some of it gets down to just lifestyle changes and people having children getting married later, having children later, you know, decide to do that. And that's kind of. Age isn't necessarily a fertility block as we know, but it definitely can complicate things, you know? So I think that's a piece of it.

  I don't know if there's more stress than in the past. It feels like it,

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah

  Katie Beecher: for sure. So, and we all know that stress plays a big part in it with the cortisol and the, you know, effects on the immune system and, and all those kind of things. So I think that's also it. And [00:04:00] I feel like people have more of a need to communicate with spirit in terms of their own personal relationship with their intuition.

  Their body and a lot of people for various reasons are kind of out of body and,

  Michelle Oravitz: Right. It's true.

  Katie Beecher: it's really hard to know what your body needs for fertility or anything else if you are not in it or if you feel like it's your enemy or you can't listen to the signals it gives you in terms of self care, for example.

  You know, so.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah, I agree. I also like noticed, I remember I read your book and it's, I feel like with you, it's what's cool. What I really like is that. You not only are connected to spirit, which I think that most people who don't really understand it think it's kind of like somewhere up in the clouds or it's not like real, or I not, it's hard to like kind of, look at because it's not something that could be looked at. It's something that's more experienced. But what I find that's interesting about you is that you [00:05:00] really pull it into the body

  Katie Beecher: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

  Michelle Oravitz: you kind of like the intelligence in your body. It's almost like the, the messages that your body's giving to you. And that could be considered Yeah. Like intuitive, but that's actually like something we all have.

  Katie Beecher: Yeah, no, it's true. I try to, you know, make it not woo woo because it's really not, and we all have medical intuition. We use it all the time. Like, you know, if you get a stomach ache, it's, you immediately start thinking. and problem solving. Like, was it something I just ate? Do I need to have crackers?

  Do I need to get some seltzer? Do I, you know, have to, aol, do I need to lay down? Do I need to go to the hospital? So whether it's you or your kids, right? Because we're, we do it for our family members also. so I think it's something that naturally happens. My abilities take it to the, you know, nth degree, which is different, but it doesn't mean that people don't have medical intuitive abilities who don't do what I do.

  Michelle Oravitz: 100%. I think so too. It's, [00:06:00] not I think it's something that we've all been given because we need to have it. We need to know what's going on with our body and we can have it too. It's not something, and I think that sometimes we also give the power away. I.

  To other people to dictate kind of what we should do with our own bodies, and we also overlook our own intuition on what our bodies are telling us because we don't trust that.

  I mean, it really kind of goes on and on.

  Katie Beecher: It, it really does. And I think people, if you have trauma or illness or something, the thought is that these, these feelings in your body, are scary or that there are enemies or we have to fix them and obsess about them. And a, I think a more practical way of looking at it is what is my body telling me?

  What is my intuition telling me? You know, if my chest is tight, that may be my intuition yelling at me that I need to do something different or whatever. Even like anxiety [00:07:00] is so big and I look at anxiety as number one. It's very natural. It's a survival mechanism, right? We've always had it. We've always needed it.

  And it's letting, it's letting you know that something isn't right. So it may be danger or it may be that you're letting people take advantage of you, or not setting boundaries, or that you're not doing self-care or you're doing something against yourself, or it just means something's wrong that we need to take a look at.

  And the more you push it down, the stronger it gets. So then it becomes this big thing in and of itself, you know?

  Michelle Oravitz: But it's actually just trying to guide you. It's kind of trying to get your attention and that's why I always say like symptoms, it's so funny 'cause we get really annoyed with symptoms. But symptoms are our best friends. They're the best things that we could have. It's such a, a, genius design of our bodies

  is to let us know what's going on

  and to guide us.

  It's when we fight with the symptoms, they grow bigger and bigger and then they become like really hard to manage.

  Katie Beecher: And then what happens [00:08:00] is the more we ignore, the worse they get and the more that they need to interfere with our help, our happiness, and our help, and, and it's not even necessarily our faults because. We have a culture of just, you know, grin and bear it, kind of get through it, you know, just don't even, you know, and, and there's something to be said for that as well, but like, you can't ignore what your body is telling you.

  And then also expect to be healthy and happy because you, you're either here or you're out here.

  And if you're out here. It's impossible to be present. Most of us live in between, like I, I live out there too, so, but I be here, you know, in order to function and and help people too.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah. And then so talk to me about some of the cases that you've seen of late. You know, 'cause you've been talking to more people. I know we were talking before [00:09:00] about a lot of loss, and I think that that's a really important topic because it's so confusing, it's heartbreaking. It's just really hard for people, especially because not a lot of attention goes on that type of loss.

  Like pregnancy loss. It's not given a ceremony. It's not unless the couple decides to do it. So I think that, and then the community, sometimes couples go through it alone, so I think that it's a very unique type of loss in that way. It could be really, really difficult because of that.

  Katie Beecher: like I said, I really feel for people and a lot of it is, things that some, if you haven't been through it, like a miscarriage or, or whatever, or a fertility journey. Right. If you haven't been through that, just like if you haven't been through anything, it can be hard to understand what a person's going through.

  But I was working with somebody recently and she been trying to get pregnant for. I guess like five years now. And she's in her forties. And she's gotten pregnant through [00:10:00] various means, but they were all chemical pregnancies, so they only lasted about a week or so. And then even with the egg retrieval all of her embryos have seemed to have some abnormality, so.

  There's nothing that she can do, you know, in terms of, of fixing that. And then the, the question is like, does that mean that every time I try to get pregnant, there's gonna be something wrong with the baby? And is there something wrong with me and is there something wrong with my body? And just like, and this person, I really feel for her 'cause she's doing it alone.

  She doesn't have a partner, you know, and so there's not even anybody to help. Kind of support you and pick up that slack, you know? And that, that loss just then turns, I think, to sheer terror of, ah, and then

  Michelle Oravitz: right. Every single time you have to go through it, you're, you're not gonna be able to feel safe.

  Katie Beecher: and there's A-P-T-S-D [00:11:00] component to it of, do I get my hopes up? What if I get hurt again? What if I, and, and all of those feelings of grief and loss and everything come back every time you even think about doing it again. You know,

  Michelle Oravitz: Right.

  Katie Beecher: and I just, like you said, it's not, and I think things like your show and other things have helped people be able to talk about it more.

  You know, but it is a foreign concept to a lot of people.

  Michelle Oravitz: For sure. And so what do you see, do you see like a spiritual component to it? Is there some message or something that they need to like address that

  they feel um, at least to get through it, you know, to get them stronger? Mm-hmm.

  Katie Beecher: so it's, I I pick up a really mixed bag of things. It's not uncommon for me to pick up. Physical or emotional issues that need to be addressed before a healthy pregnancy can take place. And so, things [00:12:00] like Lyme, because Lyme can get passed on, you know, to your kids. And if you have that, there's a lot of reasons why you need to heal as much as possible, you know, before you can have healthy pregnancy.

  What I pick up on a lot is something called ER Danlos syndrome. Have you heard of that before?

  Michelle Oravitz: No.

  Katie Beecher: So Ler Danlos, the, one of the most prominent symptoms of it is hypermobility. So being ultra flexible, but even that can, can be different in every person. But it's a connective tissue disorder and it's collagen and elastin that are always inflamed in your body.

  So you have this ongoing inflammation, but EDS impacts virtually every area of the body.

  Michelle Oravitz: Wow.

  Katie Beecher: It's really, really crazy. I have it, my daughter have it has it also. So I feel like a Guinea pig, you know, having, and then I can help a lot more other people, which is. Is good. And then I end up helping a lot of families 'cause it's genetic.

  So people are like, oh, I didn't know I had it. That [00:13:00] sounds like my mom, but that sounds like my sister. Or, you know. But the thing about it is that because your organs can be lax because there's inflammation, because all sorts of things and it screws up your hormones. It a million things that can be a real, a hidden cause of infertility.

  Michelle Oravitz: Wow, that's crazy. 'cause I've never heard about.

  Katie Beecher: Yeah, it's not uncommon. It used to be considered a rare disease and there's 13 different types, so all except the most common type are pretty rare. But the most common type is not rare at all. I pick it up all the time and it's been getting more media attention, which is good. Because doctors are really bad at diagnosing it.

  'cause there's all these symptoms and so when you go to a doctor, usually all insurance allows them to pay for, is that one symptom? Like, which is crazy because you need to look at the whole body

  to

  Michelle Oravitz: Wow, that's so crazy. And what could

  you do about it?

  Katie Beecher: So, you can't [00:14:00] cure it, but there's a lot you can do. And so a lot of it is like testing for histamine sensitivities, for example, histamines come into it.

  They do all sorts of different, you know, testing for autoimmune things and just that kind of thing is, is valuable. But what was the most helpful to me in my treatment was getting to work with physical therapists who were specialists in EDS.

  And I was able to see like which parts of my body were really stiff.

  'cause you can be stiff, not just

  flexible, right? It all, it moves around your body all the time. 'cause your tendon ligaments are going like this. And so what was tight? What was loose? What was weak? Was strong. Different sides of the body are different. It ex like it can show if you have a, a loose area, other areas get tight to overcompensate for it.

  So, I've been able to like do things like before I do my pole dancing and aerial arts and stuff like [00:15:00] that. There's certain exercises and things that I need to do in order to not injure myself again. And even things like, it makes you more susceptible to bone density issues, right? Because it does, it can't, you can't hold up your muscles and bones with loose ligaments.

  So there's a lot of things. And in terms of pregnancy, right? People with EDS are more prone to things like placenta previa and all sorts of different complications, even like miscarriages and stuff. Implantation issues, just all kinds of things. Endometriosis, so many things. But during pregnancy, as you probably know, our ligaments and our hips loosen up anyway, right.

  So if the doctor knows that you have EDS, there's things that they can do, exercises they can give you, things that they can do to, you know, watch for. And also like maybe if things are really loose, you might need a a cesarean, you know, before another person would, or [00:16:00] even like. Anesthesia, for example.

  People with EDS, sometimes anesthesia works, sometimes it doesn't work, sometimes it works too much. So it's, you know, those kind of things that you can kind of prepare for knowing what conditions people

  Michelle Oravitz: Could it impact like an incompetent cervix?

  That's, uh, so that's another one. You'd get a cerclage to keep it closed.

  Katie Beecher: Exactly, exactly. Yeah. It affects the whole body, 'cause connected tissues everywhere,

  including the brain.

  Michelle Oravitz: crazy.

  Katie Beecher: It is, it's really, and it's, it's so gratifying to work with people with it who have been told they have everything else, like fibromyalgia. Don't even get me started on that diagnosis. But, you know, that's what comes back a lot because

  they don't know right, what the root causes are.

  And even like, like pots you know, like I said, histamine sensitivities, like there's so many side. Side things that are basically created when we have inflammation and when

  our organs aren't doing what they

  Michelle Oravitz: It can impact your gut. I mean, it [00:17:00] impacts so much.

  Katie Beecher: huge. Yeah. And the earlier you get diagnosed, the better. And my daughter and I have this running joke.

  Oh, it's EDS, you know, but I wasn't diagnosed until my fifties and she got diagnosed when she was 25. so

  Michelle Oravitz: so crazy. Wow. That's actually eyeopening. 'cause it's not something that I've heard. I, because I, I see patients all the time. They're always giving me their doctor's diagnosis. I would've remembered it 'cause it's a very unusual

  Katie Beecher: Right, and there's a spectrum, so it, there's hypermobility and then like everything else, it's a spectrum. So even if you don't have full blown EDS,

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah.

  Katie Beecher: person, it, it can still affect you.

  Michelle Oravitz: Are there any functional medicine approaches that can help it inflammation?

  Katie Beecher: like definitely, you know, supplements that help with inflammation

  and, you know, natural stuff. There's a a

  Michelle Oravitz: Or even collagen, taking collagen or like bone broth. I don't

  Katie Beecher: yes.

  Michelle Oravitz: are the things that I think off, off

  Katie Beecher: [00:18:00] Yeah. It's kind of a mixed bag because part of it is that we don't process collagen.

  Michelle Oravitz: Oh, I

  Katie Beecher: Right way. However,

  I find taking collagen very helpful.

  Michelle Oravitz: Okay, got It It could be also, like certain people might benefit, certain people might not. It's kind of like a, it's not a one size fits all, even if you have it.

  Katie Beecher: exactly. And like I use dma. Which is kind of a weird little thing, but I use it for hair growth, but it also is silica, so it helps your bones and, and you know, and then um, there's a supplement I like called Liga plex too, which also helps with adrenals 'cause it messes with your adrenals, messes with your nervous system, the whole whole thing.

  A lot of people with it are neuro neurodivergent links, eating disorders. It's, it's really, wow.

  really, because you don't have a. Sense of your body. So your your proprioception is off and your body image is off, and

  Michelle Oravitz: That's interesting. It's so crazy to me [00:19:00] because um, you know, so many people go through these things and they think it's their fault.

  They don't realize that there is another explanation kind of lurking underneath that is causing them to feel the way they're feeling and they feel the shame and kind of guilt for getting to the place that they're getting to, but they just don't realize why.

  Mm-hmm.

  Katie Beecher: My daughter actually just from me being me, you know, and then the, she has the same and different symptoms, even though we have the same subtype of EDS, but she actually went to her doctor and. Told the doctor all about this stuff and the doctor's like, well, that's too rare. That doesn't, you know, it really even barely ever happens.

  And you know, the, just gave her medical gaslighting. And thankfully I have two stubborn adult children who, you know, she went to somebody else who had more of a background in it. She got officially diagnosed, she went back to that doctor,

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah. Good for her because sometimes that's so frustrating. Yeah. Yeah.

  Katie Beecher: She was like, uh, this is what I have, and you told me I didn't.

  And like, you really need to know [00:20:00] more so you can help other people. And the

  Michelle Oravitz: Right. Yeah, it's good. It's good. I like it when that happens. 'cause it's not, not to sort of, it's more to, to educate them like I to come back. 'cause patients educate me all the time. Like I think that as doctors, you need to let your patients educate you because that's how you learn, that's why it's called a practice. You have to connect and really listen to your patients if you really wanna become a good practitioner. In general. Yeah,

  Katie Beecher: Yeah. And I think the best practitioners have medical intuitive abilities.

  Michelle Oravitz: true. And I'll be honest, it's interesting because like, I definitely have always been sensitive. I do think that I'm intuitive. I don't like, uh, it's not something that I kind of go forward with, but it's true. Like people that work with me know that, but. I will never override another person's intuition.

  So if somebody tells me they don't feel right about a supplement, even if the textbook tells me that is the perfect supplement for them, I [00:21:00] will say, listen to your body. That's always, just listen to your body, you know best. And I think that, I think that that is just kind of like a do no harm. You have to really respect the person's inner intelligence that they only connect with.

  Katie Beecher: Yeah, and teach people how to trust it, like as accurate as my guides are, and it's really amazing. I tell people I don't want. You to trust my intuition over yours. Like I want you to consider what I'm saying, but it doesn't mean that like I wanna teach you how to develop your intuition. I wanna

  teach you how to talk to your spirit

  Michelle Oravitz: Well, that's your book. Your book talked a lot about that.

  It was like empowering your own in innate intuition.

  Katie Beecher: Exactly. And we do need other people. We do. You know, 'cause we have blinders and we have fears and all kinds of stuff that can get in the way in our own agendas and you know.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah.

  Katie Beecher: But I think when you talk to people and they think about times when they're in, when they trusted their intuition, they can be like, like miraculous things [00:22:00] happened.

  Michelle Oravitz: It's true. It really is true, and sometimes it's interesting. Sometimes in order to trust your intuition, you're actually. Given a very difficult choice to make. You have to like do something that is hard to do or like go against people's opinions or go against what your initial expectation was, but then it becomes so worth it, it it, you start to realize there's a reason for that.

  Katie Beecher: Yeah, I totally agree. And it's, if I hadn't gone through some of all of the stuff that I've gone through, I wouldn't have learned how to, you know, develop and trust my intuition and my weird abilities. And it was really through that diversity and. I like to tell people that other people's pain or your own pain might be the greatest gift you've received.

  It doesn't make it any easier, but you know, if you can respond to it and figure out what you need to do to take care of yourself and maybe learn to trust spirit instead of feeling [00:23:00] alone all the time, like. There's so many benefits to it that yeah, even though it's not an exact science and you don't always

  trust it, you

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah, everything's so unique. I think that that's like on earth, like every person is so unique. Every path is so unique. Even if you have like this, a similar type of path,

  it's still unique. You were just talking about uh, EDS and how it's unique with every person that has it. And the same thing with fertility.

  So like people going through that, you know, going through those challenges, it's like any kind of challenge in life really. You know, where something is there. To guide you. I've seen it. I've talked to enough people. I've been doing this in, you know, the podcast since 2018. I've talked to enough people to hear stories and how their end, like the end point.

  They always look back and they're like, I wouldn't have changed it. But when they're in it, they're like, I don't want this. But then afterwards they're like, oh, wow. Now I see. It's like hindsight shows [00:24:00] you the reason.

  Katie Beecher: A lot of the time too, I find that people have, who are having fertility issues, they have really difficult people in their lives or they hate their job or something like that. So it requires setting boundaries. Especially if you know, you and your partner don't agree on some really important parenting issues or values or what I see a lot too is people who are concerned about their parents or in-laws.

  And how they're going to be with their children. And so it can be an amazing opportunity to stand up to them and set limits with stuff. Maybe you would've taken from your own parents or an in-law for yourself and you're like, no way you're treating my kids like that. Or saying that around my kids are doing, you know?

  I got a lot ballsier for sure when I had kids and I.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You, and then that's really, I think that that's one of the things, [00:25:00] like, I feel like fertility challenges set you up for parenting because you, you start, you start with advocating for yourself, and eventually you're gonna have to make very difficult decisions

  with kids and advocating for them, even in the medical com, you know, system.

  I, I've had it for many things. Doing things that, uh, is a little outside the box. I didn't want fluoride, my kids' teeth, and people look at you sideways, but now it's coming out that it's not good. And not being political, like I'm just saying in general, like in general, it's coming out that fluoride is not good for you and it lowers the IQ of kids.

  It, it is what it is. Yeah.

  Katie Beecher: I know it's, and that's, I know so many challenging things because yes, it benefits teeth, but oh my God, all the other stuff.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah. And there are other things that can benefit the teeth. Uh, vitamin D. Yeah. So many things. So, so it's kind of like that, like it doesn't [00:26:00] end, you know, these challenges never end. And I think that what you're saying is so important, like really setting boundaries and standing up for what you know to be right. It's really listening to your heart, your integrity, and kind of like staying in your integrity. I feel like that might be difficult at first, but it actually makes your life easier.

  Katie Beecher: Does. Yeah.

  Michelle Oravitz: It's kind of like the the trick thing that people don't realize.

  Katie Beecher: No, I, I tell people it's like training a dog, like you're setting boundaries with your dog so that they don't, you know, pee in the house or

  they,

  you

  Michelle Oravitz: be happy later.

  Katie Beecher: so, and that's, that's how you parent too, and that's how you deal with, with other people in your life.

  You know, it's not a negative. Maybe it'll make people angry at you.

  You know, maybe temporarily, maybe not, but, oh, well, Yeah. Listen, if people are angry at you, when you're not doing something to intentionally hurt them and you're just kind of speaking your truth, then that's a they problem.

  Oh, it.

  Michelle Oravitz: You know? It's like, you know, you're [00:27:00] not like trying to hurt anybody. You're just speaking your truth. Then that's, you know, you can't, you can't really control that. And I, and I say you have to stand, definitely stand your ground. I agree with you. I mean, that's definitely a big thing. Do you through spirit babies, like get messages for things that they want their future parents to know?

  Katie Beecher: It works a lot of different ways, so, encourage,

  Michelle Oravitz: Right. I think that's the theme for today. It's not a one size fits all.

  Katie Beecher: No. I get messages from children who who were not able to come through as healthy pregnancies. That's a good way to put it. Even people, and it's awful. If, if you've had an abortion and now you're trying to get pregnant, there's like can be so much guilt

  Michelle Oravitz: It could be in mind off. I know. I, I've talked to so many people

  Katie Beecher: Right. So I talk to them. I also am able to talk to babies and children who are coming to them. And it's [00:28:00] fascinating because it's, it's often biological children, but sometimes it's also children who are going to come to people through adoption or.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yes. I just got the chills 'cause it's true. Like it that it's still your child. Yeah.

  Katie Beecher: Like, I see it all the time where there's a mom or a parent, you know, parental group, whatever you wanna call them. And there's this child on the outside and they're not necessarily a baby. And that's often my signal. My guides are like, this person needs to help whoever this is. That's they're gonna connect with whoever this is.

  And it may come to them, they're not expecting, you know, but, and as we know there so many kids who. In need of good parenting and, and foster care system's awful. And, you know, and all those things. and it is very delicate to bring up,

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah, it's true. It's true because, uh, people have their own plans.[00:29:00]

  Katie Beecher: know, and, and of course they want biological children and of course, you know, so I, I totally get that. But I am honest with people when I do my readings and I'm just like, Hey. This is coming through,

  Michelle Oravitz: I think you have to be

  'cause you're a messenger and you can't change the message

  if that's what it is. And I had Dr. Lisa Miller on who had gone through, actually it was very interesting. She had gone through her fertility, like a fertility challenges and. Went through so

  much to try to conceive and she kept getting this inner voice come to her and say, if you if you can conceive, would you adopt?

  Or something like that. Like, I don't remember the exact sentence, and would you still adopt? And she was like, no, I, I want my own baby. And then it kept coming to her. And then at one point she just happened to be, I think I was staying at a hotel or somewhere where. [00:30:00] There was a program on kids that were orphans, and one of them was inhaling some kind of chemical and said, the reason that he does that is because he doesn't feel love. Like he doesn't have anybody that loves him. And of course, you know, anybody has a heart and hears that

  their heart breaks. But for her it was like this next level of, uh, wow. Like it really shook her. And at that point it was, it. It was her and her husband, and there was a reason why the TV couldn't work and it had to be on that, and they ended up adopting in that.

  And the night before she went to adopt, I think it was outside of the country, she heard the voice again, the question come back to her, would you adopt if you can conceive naturally, would you adopt? She said, absolutely. And that month she also conceived. you know what I mean?

  And it was like those children were supposed to meet and be SI

  Katie Beecher: Yeah, exactly.

  Michelle Oravitz: was just [00:31:00] the whole thing. So crazy.

  Katie Beecher: The person um, that I recently worked with, I saw a young boy and an older girl and I said, one of them is not going to come from you. And and I'm like. There's gonna be some child you hear about, or some show is gonna come on, or some program or something you come across on the internet, and it's going to open your eyes or open your heart to the possibility of adoption.

  It doesn't mean that you're not gonna be able to have your own. Biological person too. But yeah, I literally saw them together holding hands and it's, I get a lot of images through my, you know, with my guides. But I totally felt like, you know, she's like, I really don't even wanna go there. I said, I understand and I'm not telling you what to do.

  All I'm saying is look into the possibilities even doing a donor egg, because that might take that fear. of having, you know, a child [00:32:00] that is really disabled or something like that, you know, because, and I'm not, that's not a judgment call. She told me the first time she got pregnant, she had this overwhelming fear that there was something wrong with baby.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah, it was like that intuition.

  Katie Beecher: Exactly. And then it didn't, it wasn't viable, you know, so it turned out she was right. I

  said, see, so your intuition's working,

  Michelle Oravitz: Right. Although I just took this for people listening, just 'cause you have a thought like that doesn't mean it's gonna happen.

  There's a difference between fears and sometimes fears can trick us, but then there's also intuition and that is real. Like it's a, it's a, it feels different.

  Katie Beecher: It's true. And, and especially, I mean, any new mom or anyone, time you, you know, you get pregnant of course. You're like, I would want this to go, well, this

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah, you're gonna, you, and sometimes your mind goes into all kinds of places. What if it happens like this? Or that doesn't

  necessarily mean it's your intuition.

  Yeah.

  Katie Beecher: Yeah.

  There's a difference between fear and I. Yes.

  Michelle Oravitz: It's happened to me before. Yeah. No, no. 'cause I know, like my, I, I know myself. Like if I, you know, I'd be like, oh [00:33:00] my God, well if I feel that, does that mean that it's real?

  And, it feels like that. Yeah, for sure. Like when you're actually going through it. But sometimes you do have like this real strong nudge, like knowing which is different. But again, it's harder for people who don't like, do what you do to really distinguish the, Difference. How can people, actually, that's a good question.

  How can people figure out what's my intuition and what's my fear? be a perfect person to ask.

  Katie Beecher: sot book I. And it talks about all of this stuff, but I really, I'm glad that you mentioned it because people will say to me like, how do I know it's my intuition or not just a voice in my head or something I made up right? Or fear or whatever. So what I tell people is, whatever you get when you're communicating with intuition, just allow it to be there.

  Write it down. It's a written technique thing. Write it down. Just allow it to be there without judgment, without fear. And then if something does come through that's scary. Then address [00:34:00] that and just be like, okay, hello voice. You know, what is this thing that I'm really afraid of? Why am I afraid of it?

  What can I do about it? Is this an intuitive feeling or is it just a fear? You know? So that way you are not pushing it down,

  Michelle Oravitz: Mm-hmm.

  Katie Beecher: addressing it.

  Michelle Oravitz: Right. Right. That's a good point. 'cause sometimes we'll push it away.

  Katie Beecher: Right. And this way you can problem solve. Like I'm, I'm really afraid you know that there's gonna be something wrong with baby. And then, so that may prompt you to be like, okay, ask your doctor if there are tests that you can do to, you know, so

  Michelle Oravitz: you

  can be proactive. Yeah.

  Katie Beecher: You know, like in my own case, I felt like something was off.

  We had an amniocentesis and it,

  gonna get into this whole thing, but it showed like a potential, really like huge problem, like. Like still a born person. Yeah. It was really, really scary. And the doctor's, like, most of the time we don't even find this this thing with the cerebral spinal fluid, unless there's an autopsy and it [00:35:00] like, doesn't affect most people, but, but it could be worst case scenario.

  So they're like, you can do nothing or whatever. And I'm like, no, I want the amnio. I wanna know, do the genetic testing. And, and it was torture because at that time it took a month. Sales. But I was glad I did 'cause they're like, everything is normal.

  So, yeah. And you could carry that fear or you could be like, I'm gonna do something about it and find

  Michelle Oravitz: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And that's where you're being guided

  to resolve and that's, that's what I like about how you approach this is because you approach it from a very realistic way where you're actually using action in order to, but also intuition and you're bridging the two.

  Katie Beecher: Yeah, I like to give people actionable steps. You know, and okay, yeah, all these things are happening and you can't control them and it feels awful and you don't feel like you have any power, and, but what kind of things can you do? Even if it's just not just, even if it's, you know what? I can't control what's [00:36:00] going on right now, but I need to go take a walk, or I need to go work out, or I need to go do something creative to calm down my nervous system.

  Let out the stress that is an actionable response.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yes, that is true. And your nervous system. I am obsessed with the nervous system. I talk about it a lot because it's an information, it's an information system. So basically it's an antenna like, and if it's not if it's chaotic, you're not gonna get the message. It's static.

  Katie Beecher: Exactly.

  Michelle Oravitz: You need to regulate it. And that's part of the whole reason why I think stress is, you know, is such a factor.

  We're constantly fight or flight. We need to even it out and kind of take the other, you know, the other balance of rest and digest and kind. I think that when we do that, we're able to get the messages more clearly.

  Katie Beecher: Oh my God. Yeah, absolutely. Even my, you know, my own self if I'm feeling out of it or whatever, I'm just like, you can't go into your reading list this way. You know, you can't create your report and painting and all that. So you need to go do something to [00:37:00] chill.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah.

  Katie Beecher: Be in a better space. So yeah, it's not just regular people, it's also people who do this for.

  Michelle Oravitz: Oh, it's every person. Every person with a nervous system. And it also puts you in a more creative, like when your nervous system is balanced, you're also more creative. You're able to be more creative. And what is fertility? It's your physical body's creativity.

  Katie Beecher: It, it is so true. And our bodies are just so tuned in to what we are thinking and feeling. A, a quickie uterus story this actually happened to me, so going through a bunch of really intense stress with husband's job and stuff like that, so life was really freaking chaotic and I had been painting every day and I'm like.

  I just lost the desire and I don't paint like black daggy things anyway, so I just was like too depressed to do anything. And ended up having really bad abdominal pain for a full year. Really bad ing abdominal pain like in, in bed. [00:38:00] Never knew when it would start and like crazy. 8 million tests of course, and no one could really find anything.

  They did take my appendix out and found a cancerous tumor on my appendix.

  Michelle Oravitz: Oh wow.

  Katie Beecher: A rare cancerous tumor. So that obviously needed to come out. Um, So that was a good thing from all this crazy. But ultimately the doctor was finally like, okay, your uterus feels weird. And so I'm like, I, I've had my children.

  Well, I'm not doing this pain anymore. Please just, you know, let's end this. So, woke up from the surgery and she said, we had to take one of your ovaries too. I'm like, okay. And she said, I've never seen this before in anyone. I'm thinking, yeah, it's me. My, my fallopian tube had wrapped around my uterus,

  Michelle Oravitz: Oh my

  God. How can they not see that in the ultrasound?

  Katie Beecher: well, it was adhered to it, and I guess the angles, it

  just

  didn't, didn't show up. But I was like, I know exactly what that is. That is me. I cut off my creativity. I cut off that [00:39:00] connection to myself, so my body responded by literally choking off. Center, which is

  Michelle Oravitz: Wow. Isn't that crazy? That is so crazy. But I see stuff like that a lot. Like, you know, a thyroid or like throat. Conditions. And the people also at the same time have a difficulty expressing themselves to the most pivotal person in their life. And you know, and sometimes just releasing that and all of a sudden tears and things come out, our bodies, you know, it's like that book.

  Uh, your body keeps the score. true.

  Katie Beecher: It, it's, and you know, Carl Young and other people like that have been talking about it for, I don't know, long, long, long time. And now just we're, we're just catching up now.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah, and it also gives you symbols. It'll give you like

  a reflection of metaphors.

  Katie Beecher: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. It's, it's really fascinating and like, I like to teach people how to talk to your uterus, talk to your eggs. You know, talk to your [00:40:00] hormones, whatever's going on, and treat them as your friends. Not something that you hate or that is broken, or that you have to obsess about or even fix.

  Of course, the goal is to heal. But, and I did this with healing from my eating disorder, was, what do you need from me? Why is this happening?

  Michelle Oravitz: Mm-hmm.

  Katie Beecher: are there things I need to change in my life? What are you trying to tell me? How can I help you heal? So, treat it like a team member

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah, I

  Katie Beecher: that is in it with you that's helping you make changes rather than feeling like it's foreign

  or you're out of your body.

  You hate your body. It feels

  like

  it's.

  Michelle Oravitz: thing. It's that, that kind of myth of the separation.

  Katie Beecher: Exactly. Exactly. So that takes so much of the anxiety out of it also. 'cause you're like, okay, I do have [00:41:00] some control over this. It's not just this, my body that's doing all these things that I don't want it to do and can't understand. Like

  Michelle Oravitz: Right. It's, it becomes more whole, like you feel more wholeness.

  With that, it becomes more complete. There's more closure too because you're allowing whatever it needs to be expressed to express itself. I remember seeing Dolores Cannon, I'll see sometimes like reels or different things and she was talking about how your cells in your body, like look at you kind of like your executive function as a God and like whatever you say, it's like, oh, that must be true. And that's really how your subconscious mind works and that's why hypnotherapy works because it's kinda those suggestions. Ultimately come from the top. Your conscious mind can make those choices

  and then repeat it, repeat it, repeat it until it gets into the subconscious mind. Your body and your cells are part of that subconscious mind.

  Katie Beecher: It's true. And even just I'll be, you know, freaked [00:42:00] out about something, whatever, before I go to poll and, I'll have a great class burn off all this energy and I'll come back and be like, what was I even thinking about? Or a totally different perspective what was bothering me before. So, so much is our mindset.

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah, it, it really is everything. 'cause it's like how we experience our world and you could take like 10 different people with the same exact life and they'll experience it differently.

  Katie Beecher: Yeah, it's, it's so true.

  Um,

  Michelle Oravitz: have choice.

  Katie Beecher: we do, so I'd like to encourage people who are dealing with fertility difficulties to not see their body as the enemy. To be open to all sorts of possibilities. When we release some of that anxiety and stress, we're more creative, like you said. So maybe you, you think of a, a problem solving strategy that no one's brought up before, you know, or that you haven't, [00:43:00] or maybe your body will be like.

  Oh wait. I thought it was this, this, and this, but maybe I need to have my hormones checked, or maybe the testing wasn't accurate or maybe like it just frees you up

  to

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah.

  Katie Beecher: more answers.

  Michelle Oravitz: I see it a lot of times with my patients. So what you're saying is actually very accurate, like. I think that once people, and I see it also once they do acupuncture or like dirt, certain practices, they'll start to uncover things and they'll get ideas and they're like, oh, that's interesting.

  Somebody said some, something about that. Or they'll listen to a podcast and hear like the guests and they're like, oh my God, I think that that's my route. And it just kind of, they start to align and then find answers. So

  Katie Beecher: I mean, being a control freak, which I'm guilty of you

  Michelle Oravitz: All of

  us.

  Katie Beecher: freakiness. Right. And anxiety just, it interferes more than we realize, and it's almost like people are addicted to anxiety,

  Michelle Oravitz: Oh, 100%.

  Joe [00:44:00] Depen always talks about that, and it's true, like you could, you could be addicted to stress

  and like the adrenals and the, and you could get addicted to the hormones that anxiety and stress. Give you,

  you just are so used to it that that feels normal. And that's why, you know, abusive relationships you'll tend to gravitate 'cause that feels normal.

  Katie Beecher: And also if you're stressed out and your life is chaotic, it's impossible to think about your own needs and your own goals

  Michelle Oravitz: Mm-hmm.

  Katie Beecher: your own issues. So it's a way of avoidance, like every addiction is, you know, it's a way of avoiding stuff that you need to take care of or that's painful or whatever. So it's really sad that that people sort of.

  Choose that route, when they do have choices, it's not, not making people out to be, you know, that they're, it's their fault or anything. But we do have a lot of choice in, in what we do and how we interact with people. And just setting boundaries or not is a great [00:45:00] example, you know.

  Michelle Oravitz: I agree. I mean, I think that finding, figuring that out and kind of realizing that we actually have so much more power over our lives. I think that that's like that first step of empowerment. You're like, oh, wow. So I think that absolutely, it's true. We do have choice. Yeah.

  Katie Beecher: Right. And even like now, it's a bit of a crazy time. You know, and, and I'm sure a lot of people are feeling like. I can't change a society or, or a government, no matter what side you're on, whatever, you know, but there's too much there and I have no power. And it's, even fertility is just such a huge issue, right?

  But if you start being like, what can I do to take care of myself? What can I do to control my issues or when I feel like I'm spiraling? And then. Maybe I have more power than I think in terms of like getting together with like-minded people or fighting for your issues or you know, [00:46:00] something. So I just, that powerlessness is just such an awful feeling.

  Michelle Oravitz: it is, and it it all has a place too, in

  some weird way to teach us or to bring us back

  to ourselves.

  I always kind of have the belief that all roads lead to the light. ' cause eventually, even if it's like a really tough time, it'll eventually lead you to some kind of light.

  Katie Beecher: That's very true. And also on the subject of control, I like to tell people it's not all or nothing. So it's not like you're in control mode, all obsessed. You know your agenda. And the only alternative is to totally step back and give all that up. The way that I like to describe it is spirit intuition.

  It's there as a helper

  and letting it, like I recognize myself if I'm going too hard on an agenda or forcing something, whatever, and I can just be like, okay, this isn't working. So step back, allow intuition to come into your life [00:47:00] as a protective guiding force, and it tells me when I need to take action and what I need to

  do. It gives me ideas. It helps me problem solve, so I'm not giving up any control. I'm gaining more

  by letting Spirit into my life.

  Michelle Oravitz: I love that. I think that's so important and I, I'm very spirit forward. It's like my, I, I can't do anything without my, I call them like my invisible assistants,

  and I'll tell you like when you lean on them or him, I, you know,

  whatever it is that you feel connected to. I see them as his team, you know, but, but yeah, I, whenever you lean on that intelligence, it always shows up.

  Like it almost always shows up like in incredibly miraculous ways. And I see it with my patients. I see it with my clients. Like that's the crazy thing is like the, the stories that I hear all the time. So it's real, like it's legit. And, uh, I think [00:48:00] it's so cool. So. For people listening now and they're like, okay, I wanna work with Katie. Like how, what kind of offerings do you have

  Katie Beecher: Sure. So I basically do two types of readings. One is what I call a full reading. And it comes with a four page report and an intuitive soul painting

  and.

  Michelle Oravitz: that. I think

  Katie Beecher: I know just with the name and age, I prepare the full report and the painting. I send it to them. We meet for an hour, we discuss everything I've sent and then a million things, more people can ask whatever they want and more stuff comes up.

  And then I also have an offering for just an hour without the report and painting. So it all depends on kind of what people want and what they can afford, and, you know, stuff like that. They're both effective. And I do sometimes offer a 30 minute too, although it's not on my schedule,

  but it's an option.

  So yeah, those are basically the two. And then if people even like, they have questions about what we [00:49:00] talked about, I encourage them to email me after. So it's not just like you have a question, you have to make an appointment after I.

  Michelle Oravitz: That's

  Katie Beecher: Yeah, so because we talk about so much everything, emotional, physical, spiritual, that's impacting you in a positive or negative way, we talk about it.

  So it's a lot. But yeah, it's a pretty amazing process. I also teach people how to connect to their intuition and their bodies during the visit if that's something they wanna do.

  So,

  Michelle Oravitz: And how can people find you?

  Katie Beecher: So the easiest way is my website, katie beecher.com. but

  Michelle Oravitz: Mm-hmm.

  Katie Beecher: Instagram and Facebook and, and all of the

  Michelle Oravitz: I follow your Instagram. I love her Instagram. It's so cool. And I love all the, all the things that you do. Like, uh, all the, what was it? The poll work. I think that's so cool. That's hard. That's not easy. That it, it's not as easy as it looks. I could tell you that. You, you have to use a lot of core.

  Katie Beecher: You use your whole body. It's

  really crazy. And when you have EDS, movement is [00:50:00] one of the most important things you can do. What I do is a bit extreme and I've had injuries because I've dislocated things, but still the best thing I've ever done for myself. And I really encourage movement for stress relief and

  Michelle Oravitz: Yeah. Well, good for you. It's amazing. So thank you so much, Katie. This is, uh, it's always a pleasure talking to you. I really enjoy it, you know, it's really fun and I think it's important too. It's important. I really love talking about connecting to that, like the spirit or energy, you know, I think it's so important.

  I think it's a lost art. In a way, because we've gotten so just into science now we're

  coming back. Now we're bridging it, which I like.

  Katie Beecher: Yeah. No, I agree. I.

  Michelle Oravitz: Mm-hmm.

  Katie Beecher: Because you're letting your guard down in a way,

  Michelle Oravitz: Yep.

  Katie Beecher: you know? But

  Michelle Oravitz: But that's where the power is. That's the portal. All right. Thank you [00:51:00] [00:52:00]