Hormones and Fertility

Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine both say that there are two fundamental laws that invigorate and nourish life, Yin and Yang.  Yang the energising and yin the nourishing.  Or in Sanskrit they are known as bramhana and langhana.  Yang is considered male and yin is considered female. We receive yin in the form of food and emotional comfort, which provides satisfaction and growth.  Yang digests it and organizes it into blood, bones and energy.  Men and women are very different in the way in which they rejuvenate their energies, whilst men need to get rid of their energy through excecise women need enough rest to restore and maintain they're enegies.

But nowadays the world has a very aggressive, stressful yang energy and this can lead to the depletion of the more sattvic yin.  Women's dominant sex hormones, oestrogen and progesterone have a predominantly yin influence whereas stress hormones like cortisol and adrenaline have a yang influence.  Excess cortisol alone has a catabolic effect on skin and muscles.  

This is why managing our stress hormones is the key and Ayurveda says we can do this by eating grounding foods, having regular massage, and finding moments of rest and stillness.  
This way our bodies are prepared for producing healthy eggs, and ready for conception.  Our eggs need to be pampered with preenana and jeevana, satisfaction and life force, not harvested into production.  As women are having children later in life all to often they turn to IVF to conceive fast even if this risks compromising their health in the long term.  Ayurveda offers a more gentle, yin approach.  Medicines such as soma jam can be used, soma means having the quality of the moon, the moon has alway been linked to the female reproductive system.  According to Ayurveda some foods have a soma quality such as milk, coconut or ghee, as they have a cooling effect on the bodily tissues and digestive system.  Too much heat on the other hand can lead to conditions such as endometriosis, chlamydia, or heavy menstual flow, all of which can affect a woman's chances of conception.  Ayurveda can also help to get rid of these condtions, avoiding the more radical methods of treatment such as hormones, coils, or a hysterectomy.