Are you getting 7-8 hours of good quality sleep each night?
Whether you’re trying to conceive naturally or undergoing fertility treatment, sleep impacts your reproductive health. Let’s delve into the science.
Hormonal Regulation: The Foundation of Reproductive Health
Sleep is vital for regulating your hormones.
Melatonin is produced by your body during deep. It is a powerful antioxidant that helps protect your eggs from oxidative stress, supporting their viability and health. Research has shown that melatonin helps improve ovarian function and is also involved in the maturation of eggs during ovulation.
Luteinizing hormone (LH), which triggers ovulation in women and testosterone production in men, follows a circadian rhythm. Disrupted sleep can impair LH release, potentially leading to irregular ovulation and decreased fertility .
Cortisol and Stress: Sleep Helps Keep It in Check
Lack of sleep can raise your stress levels by increasing the production of cortisol, your body’s main stress hormone. When cortisol levels are regularly too high, which is common with our hectic modern lifestyles, it can interfere with the balance of reproductive hormones. This could lead to irregular periods or even anovulation (when no egg is released). Stress can also impair sperm production and quality in men, making conception more difficult .
Sleep helps the body manage stress by lowering cortisol levels, providing a chance for the body to recover and maintain a hormonal balance conducive to conception.
The Role of Sleep in Weight Management
Being overweight or underweight can both lead to hormonal imbalances that impair fertility. Inadequate sleep is strongly associated with weight gain due to changes in appetite-regulating hormones like ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin, which stimulates hunger, tends to increase when you’re sleep-deprived, while leptin, which signals fullness, decreases. As a result, poor sleep can lead to overeating and difficulty maintaining a healthy weight .
For women, being overweight or obese can lead to conditions like polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which is a major cause of infertility.
Proper sleep, along with a healthy diet and regular exercise, can help maintain a balanced weight, boosting fertility and improving the chances of conception .
Sleep and Men’s Fertility
Just like women, men need adequate rest to support the proper functioning of their reproductive hormones.
Studies show that men who sleep fewer than six hours a night have a lower chance of conception compared to those who get 7-8 hours. Sleep deprivation reduces motility (sperm’s ability to swim) and affects morphology (the shape and structure of sperm). It can also lower testosterone levels, which are essential for sperm production .
Sleep and Successful Fertility Treatments
Sleep disturbances have been shown to reduce the effectiveness of fertility treatments. Studies show that women who sleep 7-8 hours a night have the highest success rates with IVF compared to those who sleep fewer than 6 hours or more than 9 hours .
Better Sleep
The NHS provide advice and support for better sleep:
How to fall asleep faster and sleep better
Subscribe to the Weave Your Web blog for further advice and inspiration on supporting your fertility, including tips for better sleep. You can also use Weave Your Web charts to log your sleep and see the impact of the lifestyle changes that you make.
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