By Kimberly Racic, founder FertilityFlower.com and Editor of Fertile Imagination

I am a week into NaturallyKnockedUp.com’s Naturally Balanced Challenge. The crux of the challenge is to make positive changes in nutrition, exercise and charting but mostly to support each other on our journey to better habits. One of the elements of the challenge is to try something called lunaception. Lunaception is not new. The underlying concept around lunaception is that light pollution associated with our modern lifestyle (specifically lighting around us while we sleep – digital alarm clocks, street lamps shining through our bedroom windows, etc) helps to disrupt our hormonal balance. Significant research happened around lunaception in the 1970s, undertaken primarily by the Couple to Couple League (CCL). By blocking out ambient light by hanging thick curtains over the windows and covering digital clocks – basically eliminating nightlight altogether, they (and others) found that it improved outcomes in these specific areas:

~Women with anovulatory cycles started to ovulate.

~Women with ambiguous cervical fluid patterns started to display more textbook-type patterns.

~Cycles improved for women who had very long or very short cycles – becoming a more standard 27 to 31 days.

~FSH levels became ‘healthier’.

~The occurrence of spotting at odd times during the cycle was diminished.

~Progesterone levels were higher during the luteal phase.

~Women with a history of miscarriage were able to sustain pregnancies.

~During breastfeeding, women can have periods of wet, even fertile-quality cervical fluid (although not be ovulating) that can be confusing- eliminating nightlighting while sleeping returned them to a dry state.

~Likewise, as LAM came to an end – eliminating nightlighting brought about ovulation.

~Symptoms associated with pre-menopause/menopause (such as hotflashes, etc) were relieved.

If not for the source of this research, I would’ve thought it crazy to suggest that eliminating something as (seemingly) innocuous as indoor/outdoor lighting would produce such incredible results. Donielle (of Naturally Knocked Up) prepared a short primer on how to ‘do’ lunaception for those of you wishing to give it a try.

Source: Garden of Fertility, Katie Singer