STRESS, ADRENALS, AND YOUR FERTILITY JOURNEY

Stress and fertility are more connected than most women realize. In this episode, we explore how adrenal health directly impacts your hormones, ovulation, egg quality, and your ability to conceive. 

You’ll learn:

• Why chronic stress and high cortisol can disrupt your cycle and shorten your luteal phase.
• The role of the HPA axis and adrenal fatigue in hormone imbalance.
• How stress “steals” from progesterone and estrogen production.
• Practical strategies to restore adrenal health — from sleep, nutrition, and gentle movement to herbal and functional medicine support.
• A Traditional Chinese Medicine perspective on stress, Liver Qi stagnation, and reproductive flow.

If you’ve been feeling burned out, wired but tired, or frustrated by irregular cycles, this episode will help you understand the missing link between stress, your adrenals, and your fertility journey.

✨ Your body isn’t broken — it’s protecting you. When your adrenals feel safe and nourished, your fertility has the chance to flourish.

Thanks for tuning in to the Restore Fertility Podcast with Stephanie MacKay. Don’t forget to follow the show so you never miss an episode.
Want more fertility and hormone support? VisitRestoreFertilityAndWellness.com Connect with me on Instagram @RestoreFertilityAndWellness

Transcript

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Welcome to Restore Fertility, the podcast where women's health meets holistic healing. Hosted by Stephanie McKay, fertility and hormone expert. With 20 plus years in alternative medicine, we dive into the root causes behind period problems, hormonal imbalances, and fertility struggles. Combining Eastern wisdom with modern functional medicine, whether you're trying to conceive. Navigating PCOS or simply Craving Hormone Harmony. This podcast is your space for support, education, and empowerment. Join us weekly for expert tips, fertility success, stories, and guidance from someone who truly gets it. Hi, beautiful women and welcome back to the podcast. I'm so glad you're here. If you've been on the fertility journey for a while, you already know, it can feel like a full-time job. Tracking, testing, supplements, hope and disappointment, and on top of that, life doesn't pause. You will have work deadlines, family responsibilities, and all of the little stresses that pile up every single day. Here's what most women don't realize. Those daily stressors and the way your body responds to them may be playing a bigger role in your fertility than you think. Today we're going to talk about your adrenals, two tiny glands that sit on top of your kidneys and how they're holding the keys to your energy, your stress response, and your hormones. Think of them as your body's stress gatekeepers. If they're constantly firing, your fertility can take a backseat I want you to hear this. You are not broken. Your body is not failing you. It's protecting you. And when we learn how to soothe the stress response and nourish your adrenals, we tell your body it's safe to create life. That is such a powerful shift. Let's start with the basics. When you're stressed, your body releases cortisol. That's a good thing. In short bursts, it helps you escape danger. But in the modern world. Stress isn't usually a tiger chasing you. It's traffic, emails, finances, or even the stress of trying to conceive. Here's a problem. When cortisol stays high, it competes with your fertility hormones. The building blocks your body uses to make progesterone, the hormone you need to sustain. A pregnancy gets diverted to make more cortisol. That is what functional medicine calls the pregnenolone steel. So what does this look like in real life? Maybe you ovulate late. Maybe your luteal phase is short. Maybe your periods are irregular, or you're just not seeing those positive signs on the pregnancy test. From a traditional Chinese medicine standpoint, stress causes your liver chi to stagnate. Imagine energy that should be flowing like a river through the body suddenly gets jammed up. That stagnation means less blood and energy reaching your uterus and ovaries and fertility thrives on flow, flow of blood energy and warmth. When that flow is blocked, your reproductive system can't function at its best. I worked with a woman who came to me after two years of trying. Her labs looked fine, but her cycles were irregular. She was exhausted waking at three in the morning and living in a constant state of stress once we focused on supporting her adrenals with better sleep, simple herbal support and daily rituals to calmer stress, her cycles became more predictable, and a few months later she was pregnant. It wasn't about forcing her body, it was about helping her body feel safe. Sometimes women ask me, how do I know if my adrenals are overworked? So let's talk about some of the most common signs. If you have trouble falling asleep or awake at 3:00 AM or your mind's racing, which causes you not to go back to sleep, that 3:00 PM crash when you need sugar or caffeine to get you through the rest of the day when you crave salt, especially chips, pretzels, or anything crunchy, feeling exhausted, but somehow wired and restless at night period. Symptoms such as a short luteal phase, irregular cycles, or spotting before your period. Do any of these sound familiar? If you're nodding right now, please don't feel discouraged. These are not signs of failure. They are messages from your body. Your body is whispering. I need care, I need restoration. And the beautiful part is you can respond to that whisper in ways that truly change your fertility story. So what do we do? How do we support the adrenals and in turn our fertility? Let's start with sleep rhythm. Your adrenals love predictability. Try to get to bed around 10 or 10 30. I know that can be hard when you finally get time for yourself at night, but those hours before midnight are golden for restoring your adrenals. Try and have balanced meals. Start your day with protein, not just coffee and a bagel, but something that actually stabilizes your blood sugar. Think about eggs, avocados, chia seed pudding with a nut butter. So when your blood sugar is steady, cortisol won't spike, and your hormones will. Thank you. Try some gentle movement. If you're already stressed and exhausted, pushing yourself through that high intensity workout can actually worsen adrenal fatigue. Swap one or two of those sessions for walking yoga or Pilates. Let movement be about nourishment, not punishment. Try some mind body rituals. Look into journaling, deep breathing meditation or gratitude practices. They're not fluffy extras. They are medicine for your adrenals. Even five minutes a day can make a huge difference. Look into nourishing herbs and nutrients. There are beautiful tools in nature that can help adaptogenic herbs like ashwagandha and Romania, or nutrients like vitamin C, magnesium, and B vitamins. These are building blocks your adrenals rely on. Of course, it's always best to get personalized guidance before adding new supplements, but know that support exists. I want you to imagine your adrenals like a pair of overworked caretakers. They've been running around juggling everything, trying to keep you alive in survival mode. When you give them rest, nourishment, and rhythm, they finally exhale, and in that exhale, your body can redirect energy back to your reproductive system. It can say, okay, we're safe. We can create life. Now, that's the shift we're after. So as we close today, I want you to take away this message. Fertility is not just about your ovaries and your uterus. It's about your whole body's sense of safety. Balance and flow. Your adrenals are part of that story when you tend to them. You're not only reducing stress, you're actively creating the conditions for fertility to flourish. You are not broken, you are not behind. Your body is wise, and it has the capacity to heal and create when given the right support. If you want more guided personalized care with lab testing herbs and a structure plan, I would love to support you. You don't have to do this alone. Thank you for being here, for showing up for yourself. If this episode resonated, I ask that you please share with a friend who is also walking this path, because none of us should walk it alone.