5 factors that can affect fertility

There are many factors that affect fertility, including both physiological processes and the day-to-day happenings in your life.

Your reproductive system does not work in isolation, so if you are thinking about pregnancy or trying to conceive, it can help to understand how your body functions as a whole.

The way you sleep, manage stress levels, nourish yourself, exercise and your environment all influence the functions within your body. Having a clearer understanding of these can help you better support your body through conception and pregnancy.

So, what can affect fertility?

The foods you eat

Food nourishes your body. As petrol fuels an engine, food fuels you. The feeling of hunger is your body alerting you to its need for sustenance. Sometimes, with the huge array of food choices we have today, we forget the needs of our bodies and choose foods that fill the hole but do little more. It’s all too easy to pick the foods carefully crafted by experts to trick our senses, taste delicious and leave us wanting more. These foods rarely bring your body what it needs, but fill the hole.

To work optimally, your body needs a selection of foods that nourish it with protein, fibre, healthy fats, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals. Ideally, your body receives this from natural, unprocessed foods, such as organic meat, nuts, seeds, vegetables, beans and a small amount of fruit. These nutrients give your body what it needs to function efficiently.

The car fuel analogy can help here. You wouldn’t fill a fuel tank with water and expect the car to run properly. In the same way, when your body doesn’t get the nutrients it needs, it cannot function as expected. This doesn’t always show up in obvious ways. Inadequate nutrition can cause symptoms like anxiety because your body relies on a steady supply of nutrients.

If you want your body, including your reproductive system, to work well, it is important to make sure your daily food intake provides what it needs.

The liquid you drink

In addition to nutritious foods, your body needs water. Your cells, tissue, and organs all need water to work properly. Your body maintains its temperature, lubricates your joints and removes waste using water through defecation, urination and perspiration.

When you restrict your body from water, it is unable to perform its functions efficiently. Water helps your body absorb nutrients. When your diet brings you all the nutrients you need, ensure you include water to open the locks. The recommendation is around two litres of water a day for women and three for men.

Alcohol can increase the risk of ovulation disorders. Some people choose to stop drinking alcohol completely, so consider whether this will work for you. Stress and infertility can go hand in hand. If abstaining from alcohol will increase your stress, you might find it preferable to reduce your alcohol consumption rather than go teetotal. 

To exercise or not?

Movement plays an important role in how your body functions day to day, including your reproductive system. Your body is built to move regularly. Historically, movement was part of everyday life – walking, carrying, building, crafting, and foraging. This steady, varied movement supported circulation, energy use, and the regulation of hormones.

Movement plays a role in regulating your nervous system – it helps your body process and settle activation, which can influence sleep, mood, and hormonal balance. More structured exercise supports this, but it is not the only way. 

Consistent, moderate movement across the day, interspersed with periods of rest, aligns with how your body evolved to function.

Very high levels of intense exercise, especially without adequate recovery or nutrition, can place additional demands on the body. In some cases, this may disrupt hormone production and ovulation. If your current routine is highly intensive, it may be worth looking at how you balance it with rest, nourishment, and lower-intensity movement.

Sleep

Low-quality sleep can correlate with lower rates of fertility. Lifestyles today affect sleep dramatically. Artificial lighting that we all use to light our homes and streets, combined with the bright light on screens, all inhibit your body’s production of the sleep hormone melatonin. Busy lives leave many of us overtired. When you ignore your body’s sleep cues, your body responds with the danger response and pumps the ‘alert’ hormone, cortisol, through your body.

Limited sleep can cause symptoms of anxiety. You can call this false anxiety. It feels like anxiety, but it is a physiological response to your sleep cycle. Many people experience all kinds of anxiety when trying to conceive, including ovulation anxiety, anxiety around pregnancy tests, anxiety about when they will fall pregnant, anxiety about pregnancy, anxiety about having a baby, and the list goes on. Try to reduce your levels of false anxiety by getting enough sleep every day. 

Stress

Stress plays a significant role in fertility because of how the body allocates its resources.

Your body is constantly assessing its environment and adjusting accordingly. When it detects ongoing demand or pressure, it increases activity in systems designed to help you respond. This involves the release of stress-related chemicals that raise alertness, increase energy availability, and prepare your body for action.

While this state is useful in the short term, it changes how your body prioritises its functions – reducing processes that are not immediately required. Reproductive processes can be part of this shift.

In modern life, many of these signals are ongoing rather than short-lived. Work demands, disrupted sleep, constant input, and lack of downtime can keep the body in this more activated state for longer periods.

Supporting fertility involves looking at your overall load. This includes creating space for rest, reducing ongoing demands where possible, and allowing the body periods where it can settle and reallocate resources back to longer-term functions.

Does stress affect sperm?

Research indicates stress has a negative impact on the male reproductive system. Stress can decrease testosterone, lower sperm count, impact sperm production and sperm motility.

Can stress affect pregnancy?

Stress can influence pregnancy because it affects how your body regulates itself.

Practices such as hypnosis and meditation can help your body move into a more settled state. In this state, breathing slows, muscles release, and the body is able to function with less ongoing activation.

Becoming aware of stress can sometimes lead to more thinking and tension around it. Learning ways to settle your body gives you something practical to return to instead.

Hypnobirthing teaches techniques that support this more regulated state, which you can use throughout pregnancy and during birth.

Depression and infertility

Infertility and depression sometimes come as a pair. You might not know which came first, but you might find that they both increase the other. If your fertility journey creates a feeling of depression for you, it is important to ask for help.

Your doctor will guide you with medications and let you know what is available for you under the NHS. If you can get private support, a hypnotherapist or other talking therapist will help you unpick your feelings and emotions in a safe, supportive environment. A hypnotherapist can help you manage your diet, feel motivated to exercise, change your sleep pattern and reduce your stress.

If you feel you have hit a stumbling block on your fertility journey, some hypnotherapy sessions might help you regain energy and strength to continue. Research shows hypnotherapy has a positive impact on fertility, with many people conceiving during or after therapy.

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