Why Water is Crucial for Fertility
Like they say, water is life. Water is the simplest, healthiest, most natural and free resource we have available on earth. And, water is crucial for fertility.
Roughly 75% of Americans have chronic, low-grade dehydration. Dehydration side-effects include: constipation, weight gain, headaches, brain fog, fatigue, irregular periods, dry skin, anxiety, stress, and fertility problems.
How Drinking Water Positively Affects Your Emotions (and Fertility)
Staying well hydrated is one of the most effective ways to amplify feel-good feelings and in turn, fertility. How?
Chris Axelrad, a fertility specialist and Traditional Chinese Medicine doctor, whom I am also working with during my own fertility journey, shares that when you are happy, your body secretes hormones and neurotransmitters such as serotonin and dopamine which are transmitted to all your cells via your blood.
Axelrad explains that blood carries our emotions throughout our body. According to Chinese medicine, blood is the bridge between mind, body and spirit: a single drop of blood contains billions of pieces of information about your emotional state. Thus, if you want to amplify or clear emotions, drink lots of good, clean water.
If you dig learning more about how emotions affect our health, check out this article where I explain how our emotions control our gut.
We Need to Talk About Why Water is Crucial for Fertility
Your thoughts and feelings, the foods you’ve eaten, the relative state of vitality of every single tissue in your body- all of these are reflected in your blood and then distilled down into a refined fluid inside your follicle. A follicle is a small sac of fluid in the ovaries that contains a developing egg. Emphasis on fluid!
Staying hydrated is critical to conceiving.
According to Axelrad, chronic low-grade dehydration is one of the most stressful states for your body and blocks fertility. He recommends you follow a perfect hydration plan when trying to conceive because staying hydrated massively boosts your body’s ability to “follow nature’s life-creation blueprint.”
Water keeps your organs and cells functioning properly including reproductive cells (egg, sperm) and reproductive organs (brain, ovaries, uterus, testes, thyroid). Water also flushes out toxins in the body.
In fact, water accounts for more than 70% of a cell's total mass. That includes your eggs and the cells lining the uterus.
For men, dehydration side-effects include less semen volume and motility. If semen is thicker due to dehydration, sperm may have trouble swimming.
Dehydration can affect:
Healthy egg maturation because water is crucial for fertility in that water processes nutrients and hormones which enable ovulation.
Cervical mucus, which is important in transporting the sperm to the fallopian tubes for egg fertilization. Having little to no cervical mucus can be a sign that you’re dehydrated. You should see 2-3 days of egg white, stretchy cervical mucus around ovulation. Without enough water, the cervical mucus that balances vaginal pH also becomes too acidic, harming the sperm.
Implantation - Water is necessary for cell division and metabolism. The cells of the uterine wall must be healthy for the embryo to implant.
How to Get Hydrated This Week While Loving It
Stack your water first thing in the morning; two or more glasses is best.
Mineralize your water
Add a tiny pinch of high quality sea salt into your water. This helps you absorb water for deeper hydration. Add ¼ to ½ teaspoon into a 16-ounce glass of water.Improve water quality
Don’t obsess. Better to stay hydrated then to obsess about quality. That said, if you want to invest in a water filter, go for it! One of my mentors gets into the weeds about water filtration systems. Read more on that here.Stick to plastic-free containers when possible
Again, don’t obsess, but if possible stick to glass or stainless steel water containers.Eat your Water
Water comes in liquid, solid and gas form, right? Well, Ayurveda shares that water has a fourth state where water is “structured” in a gel-like form within food. You find structured water in plump, juicy foods such as mushrooms, melons, aloe vera, most fruit, avocado, celery and greens.Flavor your water with herbs or citrus
Basil, rosemary, mint, lemon, lime all flavor your water and the better your water tastes the more you will drink it. Guaranteed.
The Common Questions that Come Up
FAQ’s drawn from Axelrad’s book Awakening the Seed
What if I’m not thirsty?
When we’re chronically dehydrated we often aren’t thirsty because our bodies build a tolerance to mild dehydration. Most of my clients who start drinking water as I recommend will tell me that they start to feel very thirsty once they start the hydration plan. This thirst does subside after a few days so don’t worry. You may have to “force it” at first, but you’ll rock and roll after that.
What if I don’t like water?
It may be possible you only think you don’t like water. I bet your body LOVES water if you try your best to get busy feeding your body an abundant quantity of the very source of life.
What about black or green tea or using flavor packs for my water?
I don’t recommend this. There is no substitute for plain water. At most, use cucumber, fresh lime, lemon or herbs or a pinch of mineral salt. I just want you to drink good old-fashioned water. Don’t let bottled water companies sell you on the benefits of vitamins and antioxidants they supposedly plug into the water. Nature’s got you. It’s all in the water.