5 Tips to Train your Mind for Better Mental Health

Do you have anxious thoughts constantly racing through your mind, like "will I ever get pregnant?", "should we have done IVF instead of an IUI?", “Was there something I did wrong to cause my miscarriage?” or feelings of shame, guilt, and disappointment leading you deeper into disappointment and depression? Going through infertility or a miscarriage is hard on the mind, body, and spirit. These feelings of constant ups and downs can consume our minds. While we probably will still have some negative thoughts and feelings as we go through our struggles to have a family, I want to share five tips that can help us train our minds to have better life satisfaction as we go through infertility or pregnancy loss.

1. Mindfulness Meditation

2. Practice Self-Compassion

3. Journaling

4. Speaking Slower

5. Goal/Mission

Note: This is the first in a three-part series that will discuss ways to train your mind, body (part II), and spirit as we cope with negative emotions due to infertility, miscarriage, or stillbirth. The tips shared here will also affect the other two because the mind, body, and spirit are closely connected. I also want to note here that I am not a trained professional. These are simply tools that I have personally found helpful.

Our mental health can be like a fast looping rollercoaster on a replay

The mind is an incredible part of our brain. It is where we think, feel, and experience life. Anxiety and depression may make us feel like our mind is on constant thought replay loops, like a giant rollercoaster. However, the mind is also moldable. We can train our brains to think in new and different ways.

1. Mindfulness Meditation -

Think about how much of your thoughts dwell on some future unknown or a disappointment of the past? As compared to the here and now. I tend to have a very active mind that races back and forth from anxiety to feeling depressed. Mindfulness meditation is my favorite tool to train my mind. And even if you don't have clinical anxiety and depression, mindfulness is still helpful in training your thoughts. As I've begun to practice mindfulness, I'm finding that it helps bring my anxious mind out of the future, "what if's," and my past "regrets" into the present moment.

Being present is the greatest gift you can give yourself

Starting mindfulness meditation can be challenging. I remember my first attempts, my mind would wander (monkey mind), but it has become easier with practice. There are many mindfulness meditation training resources available, but I will share with you several resources that may be helpful as you begin learning how to do mindfulness meditation. (Note: these are not affiliate links but resources I've personally found useful)

• Fitbit App - The Fitbit app has many features available for physical and mental well-being. Depending on if you have a premium or the free version, you will have access to different features. Both versions have mindfulness meditations, but the selection will vary depending on which version you have. And both versions have a good selection you can choose from based on where you are, what you are doing, and how much time you have. Are you trying to get ready for sleep? They have a meditation for that. Are you sitting at a desk at work? They have a meditation for that. Do you have 3 minutes, 10 minutes, or more? They have mediations for varying lengths of time, depending on how long you have available. In my experience, the free meditations are just as good as the premium. However, the premium version opens up a more comprehensive selection if you prefer more variety.

• Happify App - When we first got our Progyny fertility insurance, they gave me access to a particular track on Happify called "How to Survive the Emotional Rollercoaster of Infertility." However, I'm not sure if this track is available to the public. Regardless, Happify has many tracks to help with stress, anxiety, and depression. As far as I can tell, they incorporate some form of mindfulness mediation into all the tracks. I like tracks by Sharon Salzburg, an expert in the field of mindfulness meditation. Each track will guide you on mindfulness meditation and teach you many other skills to apply to improve your mental health. Each task in a track is designed to be quick, so it doesn't take a lot of time out of your day. The best part of the Happify App is that you can access it for free or upgrade for additional features.

• Kym Campbell's Beat PCOS 10 Week Program - After I was diagnosed with PCOS through research, I found this program created by Kym Campbell. While I bought the program for improving my diet and exercise, it included a section on emotional well-being that taught me a lot of skills to further my mindfulness meditation and other skills such as CBT (Cognitive Behavior Therapy). This program may not be in everyone’s budget (I was able to get a discount through her free 30-day program), but if you have PCOS and are looking for a well-rounded and science-based program, I can testify that it will pay for itself!

Since I’ve begun doing mindfulness meditation, it has become my favorite tool for helping to train my mind to find calmness and peace. And I hope that as you practice the skill, you will find it helpful for increasing your life satisfaction.

2. Practice Self-Compassion -

What is sweeter than self-compassion?

Early on my infertility journey, I would feel guilty for feeling jealous of someone who had a baby, and I would shame myself for having those feelings. However, I've since learned that making myself feel guilty for having a normal feeling did more harm than good. A healthier way to approach our negative emotions is to allow ourselves grace and self-compassion as we validate our genuine emotions so that we can process them and then let them go. If you feel guilty for being jealous, sadness after the start of your menstrual cycle, disappointed from a canceled cycle, anger from a loss, whatever feeling it might be, let yourself accept what you are feeling for as long as you need without judgment. You will feel an improvement in your mood and life satisfaction. Note: Some wonderful mindfulness meditations focus on self-compassion and self-acceptance.

3. Journaling -

Journaling is a great way to train your mind to have greater life satisfaction. There are many types and forms of journaling; I think there is value in any format that you find helpful or healing. Getting my racing thoughts onto paper helps stop them from ruminating uncontrollably in my head. Here are a few journaling ideas that you may wish to try:

• Mindfulness Journal - Similar to mindfulness meditation, a mindfulness journal may be beneficial to document precisely how you are feeling in the present moment. "Present, Not Perfect: A Journal for Slowing Down, Letting Go, and Loving Who You Are" (not an affiliate link) by Aimee Chase is a mindfulness journal that I enjoy. I enjoyed the simple structured activities on each page.

• Blogging - I'm not usually the most consistent writer in my journal. However, I view this blog as a type of journal documenting many of my thoughts and feelings about past, present, or future events. I've found that writing has been very healing as I validate and affirm what is in my heart and mind. Honestly, if no one ever read my blog, I would still write on it because it is so healing for me emotionally to process my thoughts.

If anyone feels that writing a guest post or two on my blog about their experiences with infertility, miscarriage, stillbirth, or adoption would help them on their healing journey, please send me a message.

• Gratitude Journal - If you don't have a lot of time for journaling, a gratitude journal only takes just a minute or two each day to write down something you are grateful for. Showing gratitude has been shown to help "people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships." (harvard.edu) You can easily create your gratitude journal in any notebook, or if you are like me and like more structure, my mother-in-law gave me this "52 Week Gratitude Journal For Women" (not an affiliate link) that I love! The artwork, scripture verses, and inspirational quotes bring me joy as I read them and express my gratitude.

• Poetry, Lyrics, Art, etc. - After losing each of my babies, I found poetry to be healing as I formulated thoughts into rhymes and schemes. I don't know if my poetry is any good, but the important thing is that it helped me express my mind physically. Even American singer-songwriter Beyonce has found writing music helpful as she experienced her miscarriage,

“I was pregnant for the first time and I heard the heartbeat, which was the most beautiful music I ever heard in my life. I picked out names, I envisioned what my child would look like … I was feeling very maternal. I flew back to New York to get my check up — and no heartbeat. Literally the week before I went to the doctor, everything was fine, but there was no heartbeat. I went into the studio and wrote the saddest song I’ve ever written in my life. And it was actually the first song I wrote for my album. And it was the best form of therapy for me, because it was the saddest thing I’ve ever been through.”(Beyonce, Life Is But a Dream, January 2013) Writing poetry, lyrics for music, creating art, or many other forms of expression can help you navigate negative thoughts and emotions, resulting in greater life satisfaction and personal peace.

• Diary - While I'm not the most consistent at writing in a personal diary, I have found that, on occasion, just letting thoughts flow onto the paper has helped me document my emotional state. Though a word of caution as you write in your journal is to use this opportunity to grow and heal with less focus on ruminating on all the negative feelings.

As you can see, there are many forms of journaling. Different types can help us train our minds' thoughts in different ways. If journaling is something you’ve never done before, I encourage you to try it! And if you have journaled before, keep going and maybe try a new format to see if you like it!

4. Talking & Thinking Slower -

Intentionally slow thoughts and speech down

When I'm anxious or excited, I think and talk fast. Not unlike a rollercoaster, if you are like me, you may appreciate this training tool's simpleness. Just a few months ago, I learned about actively talking slower. If you find yourself talking (or thinking) fast due to rapid anxious thoughts, note in your mind that you are doing so and then purposefully try to slow your speech (or thoughts). Doing this will trigger something in your brain to slow down your thought process, and you can then think more clearly. It's simple, but I think it works incredibly well!

5. Goal/Mission -

If anyone knows me well, they will know that I love goals! For me, mentally, one of the most complex parts of infertility and pregnancy loss is that they feel so out of our control! My ultimate goal is to have a big family and be a stay-at-home mom. However, when I place all my happiness and life satisfaction on this one goal, I realize I will probably fall short. Over the past six months, I’ve had a shift in my perspective on life goals. Goals help us work towards something; yes, it feels good to achieve a goal. However, goals are a means to an end. Goals help us to become someone different and hopefully better than before.

Confessions of a Pineapple - Your Infertile Friend

I’m finding that the more I work towards a goal that will help me become a better person and help others, the greater my life satisfaction. Over the past few years, I’ve done a lot of research into hormones and how our bodies function. While I began this research, trying to improve my chances of getting pregnant. I found that I enjoyed my research and wanted to share what I was learning with others. So, I set a goal to do so. My first plan to accomplish this was to look into becoming a medical doctor so I could help patients with their struggles to live the life they were trying to live. After looking at this path, I realized that given my family's current life situation and other goals, this probably isn’t the direction I’m going towards right now (but perhaps in the future). In the meantime, I can still work on my goal of increasing awareness and support for infertility and pregnancy loss. I realized a few months back that I could start a blog, and the more I thought about it, the more this desire grew. So, as you can probably guess, is how I got here writing about pineapples, hormones, and rollercoasters.

I’m trying to show with this experience that we can spend all of our time trying to get pregnant, but the reality is maybe we will and maybe we won’t. It stings that fertility is not something we can control 100%. However, we should try to find a goal/mission that will bring us life satisfaction to impact the results directly and become a different and better person because of the experience.

Takeaways for Training Your Mind

Infertility and pregnancy loss can impact our mental health. The longer it takes, or the more losses we experience, the harder it can be to find life satisfaction and happiness. However, the mind is moldable, and we can train it in new and different ways to help us through our infertility, miscarriages, and stillbirths. As you've read through my five tips, I hope you've found some that you can try and use to help train your mind for better happiness and life satisfaction. I invite you to pick just one to work on this week. Please let me know in the comments below or on social media if you found these helpful! What other coping skills have you found beneficial for your mind?

1. Mindfulness Meditation

2. Practice Self-Compassion

3. Journaling

4. Speaking Slower

5. Goal/Mission