Fertility Physicians of Northern California - Stress Reduction for Fertility 8 Week Program

FPNC offers a condensed 1-Day Program and a full 8-Week Stress Reduction for Fertility Program. The 1-Day Program is ideal for individuals and couples preferring a shorter program or wishing to experience the benefits of Mind-Body before committing to a longer program. Participants in the 1-Day program receive a discount toward the 8-Week Program. For full information on the 1-Day program, click here.

Through the Stress Reduction for Fertility 8-Week Program, you will develop new perspectives and cultivate qualities that will not only support you through your fertility challenge, but through the rest of your life. Each week presents a new practice, skill, and topic including mindfulness practices, cognitive skills, coping strategies, and life-style behaviors to reduce stress and enhance well-being. The supportive group environment will improve feelings of sadness or isolation.

Designed for:	Women attempting to conceive and/or participating in fertility treatment. Partners are invited to participate in some of the sessions. Open to patients of all fertility programs.
Cost:	$560 - The program fee includes a book with 2 companion CDs to guide practices and skills learned throughout the program, a workbook, availability to the leader throughout the program, and 25 hours of learning, support and counseling. Statements will be available to forward to insurance for possible partial reimbursement.
Details:	Palo Alto – Starting September 20 Leader: Mary Rodocker, PhD FPNC Palo Alto Office 540 University Avenue, Suite 200, Palo Alto Group meets Monday evenings, 6:30 – 9:00 pm; plus one all-day Saturday session 10:00 am to 4:00 pm. sign up here Dates may change depending on registrations. Please contact the program contact or leader for further details and updates.
Registration:	Please register early as space is limited (12 participants for San Jose groups, 6 participants in Palo Alto groups). Registration is required to participate, and considered final with receipt of payment. Cancellations within 5 days of the first session will result in a $135 cancellation fee. No refunds will be given for cancellations after the program start. For information, call 800.597.2234 or sign up here.
Contact Person:	Janetti Marotta, PhD - (800) 597.2234 or (650) 494-2347
Special Info:	Please wear comfortable clothing and bring a mat, blanket or big towel for experiential exercises.

Mind-body medicine focuses on teaching you how you can lower stress and care for yourself. What we know about stress is that a sense of control makes stressors less stressful. Self-care allows you to take some control back, and take action to improve your wellness and fertility.

It has been said that complete medical care is balanced like a three-legged stool: pharmaceuticals, surgery and procedures, and self-care. Optimal self-care for fertility concerns uses mind-body principles to help manage the stress of fertility treatment through relaxation and awareness tools, cognitive skills, coping strategies, and life-style behaviors.

Central to Mind-Body medicine is the practice of Mindfulness. Simply defined, Mindfulness is moment-to-moment non-judgmental awareness. It is the practice of paying neutral attention to what is happening right now. Why is Mindfulness helpful for infertility? Infertility tends to overshadow everything else in life, keep us focused on past and future events, cause us to become excessively self-judgmental, and keep us on red-alert mode. By cultivating Mindfulness, we can develop new perspectives out of which better strategies and stronger options emerge.

Through the eight weeks, we explore different ways to come off “automatic pilot” and cultivate the qualities of compassion, patience, acceptance, non-judgment, trust, and non-striving. These attributes will not only support you through your fertility challenge, but through the rest of your life. Each week presents a new practice, skill, and topic. These include:

Practices	Skills	Topics
Abdominal Breathing Meditation, Body Scan Yoga, Chi Kung Working with difficult thoughts and emotions Building compassion, gratitude and trust Day-to-day Mindfulness	Communication Assertiveness Self-nurturance Cognitive skills Relationship building Coping strategies Journaling	Stress, infertility and the Mind-Body connection Role of resistance vs. acceptance to “dis-ease’ Third-party reproduction panel Fertile life style recommendations and alternative treatments

We invite you to learn these time tested ways to manage stress, enhance well-being, and find your inner strength!

Research shows that participants in these types of programs experience significant decreases in stress-related physical symptoms (such as insomnia, abdominal pain, shortness of breath, back/neck pain, etc.) and increases in pregnancy rates.

Preliminary FPNC results show an average pregnancy rate of 65% for FPNC 10-week participants, within 6 months of the 10-week program, as well as significant decreases in depression and physical and emotional distress.