1. Skip breakfast. Better yet, have only coffee for breakfast. Bonus for Starbucks. Deprive the body of food and energy, rev up the nervous system with caffeine, insure that your blood sugar spikes up and then crashes down, and simultaneously dehydrate the body all at once!
2. Be a couch potato. Watch only Jerry Springer, Judge Judy and other high quality television. By all means do not use that time for smelly, sweaty pursuits such as exercise.
3. Make sure your male partner spends a lot of time biking, perching his laptop on his lap, sitting in the sauna/steamroom/Jacuzzi, and wearing tight 70’s Saturday Night Fever pants.
4. Indulge in highly irregular eating and sleeping habits. Carpe Diem! Seize the day! Bonus points for going to bed after Liver time (1-3 a.m.) several nights a week, skipping lots of meals and then pigging out. To make sure the body’s Circadian rhythms are completely confused, add to this mix lots of travel across time zones.
5. Depressed or highly anxious? Avoid getting help at all cost. After all, everyone knows therapy is for crazy people and weaklings. You are strong and will suffer in silence. Nobody understands anyway.
6. Remain in blissful ignorance about the body’s signals and your own cycle. Have no idea when you ovulate. Cringe at words like cervical fluid. Isn’t that the same as discharge?? How could somebody possibly suggest you check for something DOWN THERE? Do not use an ovulation predictor kit. Absolutely do not do a Basal Body Temperature chart. How inconvenient! After all, once you have a child you will never need to wake up before you are ready.
7. Avoid annual checkups with your gynecologist and be certain they do not know you are trying to get pregnant. They might want to do something like blood tests or, God-forbid, that feet-in-the-stirrups exam.
8. Maintain high levels of stress in your life. Run the engine that is your body on nothing but the finest possible fuel: adrenaline. Extra points for minimizing rest, stillness, and sleep. Absolutely do not go near any Yin restorative activities like yoga or meditation. Remember, in our society, if you are not busy and stressed, you must not be that important.
