Fertility Starts Within: Why Energy, Sleep, And Stress Management Matter Most with Kirsten Karchmer Artwork

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Life Conversations with a Twist

Fertility Starts Within: Why Energy, Sleep, And Stress Management Matter Most with Kirsten Karchmer

December 18, 2025 • Heather Nelson • Season 3 • Episode 65

“A woman who has fully realized her power and knows how to care for herself and her mind is not working against her— that is somebody you don't want to mess with.” —Kirsten Karchmer

The fertility conversation is louder than ever, yet clarity feels harder to find. Advice is everywhere, but most of it ignores how tired, overwhelmed, and disconnected many bodies actually are. This episode slows the noise and brings the focus back to what truly drives reproductive health.

We sit down with Kirsten Karchmer, founder of Conceivable and one of the first board-certified reproductive acupuncturists in North America. After treating more than 10,000 fertility patients and navigating her own health journey, Kirsten shares how energy, stress, digestion, and daily habits shape fertility far more than quick fixes ever could.

Press play to hear a refreshing, honest take on fertility, hormones, and whole-body health that puts power back where it belongs.

In this episode, we cover:

Why fertility struggles are increasing for both women and men
How energy, stress, and over-exercising impact hormones and cycles
The real role of diet, sleep, and digestion in reproductive health
Why most fertility advice fails without personalization
How AI is being used to make fertility care more accessible and affordable
When hormone therapy and medical interventions actually make sense
How menstrual cycles reveal deeper health patterns beyond fertility

Connect with Heather:

Episode Highlights:
01:02 Meet Kirsten— Life and Mission in Women’s Health
07:55 Why Every Woman’s Body is Different— Custom Health Matters
12:31 Fertility Doctors vs Body Regulation— Where to Start First
17:55 Why Fertility “Tips” Can Be Dangerous Without Personalization
25:47 Does This Approach Work for Perimenopause and Aging Women?
31:44 How AI is Revolutionizing Fertility and Women’s Health Care
38:21 Breathwork for Hormones, Stress, and Reproductive Health
44:58 Reclaiming Power Over Your Health

Resources:
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Connect with Kirsten:

Kirsten Karchmer is the founder and CEO of Conceivable, an AI-powered women’s health and fertility platform focused on making reproductive care affordable, personalized, and accessible. She is one of the first board-certified reproductive acupuncturists in North America and has worked with over 10,000 individuals and couples navigating fertility challenges. Trained in both Eastern and Western approaches to health, Kirsten specializes in identifying root causes of hormonal and metabolic imbalance through lifestyle, nutrition, behavioral health, and cycle data. Her work bridges ancient medical wisdom with modern technology to empower women to take control of their health at every stage of life.

Hey ladies, it's your host, Heather Nelson, welcoming you to another season of Life Conversations With a Twist. This is a space where we dive into stories of remarkable women who've conquered challenges and emerged stronger. Join me each week as we unravel tales of resilience, triumph and empowerment. These narratives aren't just stories. These are stories of inspiration, and I'm so honored to have the space to share them with you. Plus, I will be sharing my own personal stories of inspiration as I navigate starting my own business and achieving my own goals. So whether you're driving in the car or out moving your body, get ready for heartwarming stories and empowering conversations together. Let's raise a virtual toast to empowerment, because here at Life Conversations With a Twist, every story has the power to inspire. Cheers, ladies.

Heather Nelson: Hello everyone. Welcome to this week's Life Conversations With a Twist. I have Kirsten, so excited to meet her. Her and I have been back and forth about getting you on this podcast, and I am so excited for this conversation because we're going to talk a little bit about fertility and all the work that you're doing. So welcome to the podcast.

Kirsten Karchmer: Thank you, so excited to be here. I'm glad. Thank you for your patience getting here.

Heather Nelson: Yeah. We all have busy schedules. We work, but this is the work we love doing, sharing and talking about the work that we do. So I just appreciate you being here. So tell the listeners a little bit about who you are. I always like to know where you live, your age, what your family life looks like, and then we're just gonna dive right in.

Kirsten Karchmer: Sure, sure. Kirsten Karchmer is my name, and I'm 57. I live in Austin, Texas with my 20 year old daughter. My 22 year old son is in law school. I'm the Founder of a company called Conceivable. We're on a mission to make health cycles and fertility affordable and effective for all people. I was one of the first Board Certified reproductive acupuncturists in North America, and I treated over 10,000 infertile couples. And because of that, I have a strong belief that probably 80% of the health issues that are impacting women today are related to diet, lifestyle and behavioral health. We all kind of know that to a certain degree. But what we did is we spent 25 years hacking that process of, how do you identify the underlying issues, behaviors that are impacting a woman's health and fertility, and then repair those in a very simple and strategic way? We talk about like, it's New Year's and we're like, I'm gonna really get healthy. We think we have to do a lot of things. I need to be running 30 minutes every day, and I need to go keto, or I need to go dry. I don't agree with any of that. We need to figure out what your body needs. And if we can figure out what your unique body's needs are, then we only have to do a few things every single day to start really turbocharging our health.

Heather Nelson: I've had this conversation before, so I'm curious to hear what you have to say about it. Do you think that women are having harder times with fertility now than, say 20, 30 years ago?

Kirsten Karchmer: 100%. In men, fertility has declined by more than 50%. What used to account for about 20% of infertility, now, male factor accounts for 50% of infertility. But polycystic ovarian syndrome is really on the rise. And basically, that condition is a metabolic disorder that is essentially pre diabetes that screws up your hormones. And if you don't do anything about it, I think you have a four times higher risk of actually developing diabetes. We have PCOS, and we're not doing anything about that. That is all diet, lifestyle and behavioral health, and it can be tricky to work with. But once you can be strategic about it, it isn't tricky at all. You know exactly what to do. You need certain kinds of support, and you can get there. But the other thing is the environmental BPAs and phthalates, microplastics are insanely bad for fertility. In fact, when you go to the grocery store and they give you a receipt, that receipt has a thousand times more BPAs, that's the endocrine disruptors, than a plastic water bottle. It's like a transdermal patch of phthalates. I can't remember if it's phthalates or BPAs, and so there's just a lot of factors. And I think that also Instagram, we're in a real skinny phase right now. And so you see the women on Instagram are really, really lean. Women are having unhealthy models for what's a healthy body weight. And also, even just over exercise, women who exercise to exhaustion, think CrossFit or Orange Theory, are almost 50% less likely to conceive than women who don't.

Heather Nelson: Interesting.

Kirsten Karchmer: Yeah. Because women are exhausted. And when you're exhausted and you go do CrossFit, you don't have energy to get through that workout. You have to go to the adrenal glands for the energy to get through the workout, which is why you feel fabulous. They'll be like, but I feel so good. Yeah, you just took a hit of adrenaline. And now, you're going to get some cortisol, and then you're going to get belly fat. You're not going to sleep well at night, which is going to disrupt ghrelin and leptin, the hormones that help us feel full. It's a big mess.

Heather Nelson: How did you get here? Were you somebody who suffered from fertility? How did you get on this path?

Kirsten Karchmer: I did not suffer. I'm actually very fertile. Ironically, I conceived my first child accidentally with a TSH, Thyroid Stimulating Hormone, of 156 after my doctor said it was a completely immutable fact of nature that there was zero chance that I would conceive for six months. Because you want your thyroid between one and three. The higher the number, the worse, the lower the function. And really bad would be 15, and mine was 156 so no thyroid activity. And then I literally got pregnant that night. I went home, I had sex with my boyfriend and got pregnant. So how did I get here? I'm a very curious person. I've been on a lot of journeys, all getting me here. I was a competitive athlete when I was growing up, and then got diagnosed with MS when I was 20, and couldn't walk without a cane. Exhausted. Ended up going to an acupuncturist who said, look, when you were born, your body was very strong, and your disease was very weak, like a diseased body. And he said, but unfortunately, by the age you were four, you're already training as a gymnast. An hour a day, two hours a day, whatever, and that kept ramping up. And he's like, on the outside, you got what I would say more Instagrammable. More and more jacked, lean, strong. But on the inside, I was getting weaker, more tired, less period, throwing up almost after every workout. I would work out, talk about workout to exhaustion, right? And going to that acupuncturist, he's like, look, here's your disease, and here's your constitution. Everything is blown out. My job is to get your constitution stronger than your disease. And if we do it right, hopefully, you get a chance at going into remission, or at least having significantly less symptoms. And I was like, done. Let's do it.

And then I literally, that day, became an acupuncturist. I was a linguistics professor at the University of Texas at the time, and I still had a job teaching in Korea for a year. I finished that, and when I came back, I went to acupuncture school. In Chinese medicine, the menstrual cycle is like so much diagnostic information. Every single symptom, every single piece, I don't know, there's probably 70 different things that we can interpret from a menstrual cycle that give us information about what's working and what's not working at a foundational level. And I became obsessed with that because I was like, I didn't want to treat men anymore because they don't have periods. Right now, I feel like I'm a little bit anemic. But I'm 57, and I don't have periods anymore. And I was like, damn. I don't need lab work, right? If I have one day of bleeding, I'm probably anemic. And so what we were able to do for Conceivable is to take all of those diagnostic pieces, and bring them into a diagnostic system to understand what's impacting women's health, and how to fix it.

Heather Nelson: Because everybody is different. We talk about this all the time, some exercises work for people, some diets are for people. Everyone's lifestyle is very different, and it's so true. Think about the periods, everyone's periods are out of whack. So what you guys do is really help customize a plan for somebody who's trying to conceive.

Kirsten Karchmer: Yeah. We're starting with infertility, but we will build experiences for women and people with periods starting at age 7 until death. So pre period education and prepping them for their first period, early period, sex ed, because I do think very basic sex ed is really important, how to not get human trafficked. This kind of stuff that, I don't know, I wish all moms were telling their daughters. But we have so much stigma and shame that the moms are embarrassed to talk about, the kids are embarrassed to hear it. And so what happens now is you basically go through an assessment in the app. The app figures out all those underlying issues. Figures out what they are connected to. Energy production, blood production, temperature regulations, stress or hormones. And then you have them grouped, and then you get a virtual care team. You get a chef and nutritionist, a therapist, a supplement formulator, a tongue analyzer. Because in acupuncture, we do tongue analysis and a data analyst. And KAI, Kirsten AI, that's the AI version of me. So you get your fertility coach and your care team, and then they come together and like, okay, what's the easiest and fastest way to help start improving these underlying issues as a system? People say, how do you fix low progesterone? I don't know how to fix your low progesterone until I interview you to figure out why you have low progesterone. I'm not interested in fixing low progesterone, but I can fix low temperatures. And I can fix fatigue, which is usually the cause of the low temperatures, which has caused the low progesterone. Does that make sense?

Heather Nelson: Do you help women with hormone therapy? Because I know that's the new thing that everybody is trying to take more hormones and different things. Do you guys believe in that? Or do you believe more like, let's get your health dialed in. How do you move about each day? What are you eating? How are you eating? What is sleep like? What does that process look like for you guys?

Kirsten Karchmer: I'm trained in both Western and Chinese medicine, although I'm not a physician. I don't have any aversion to using a pharmaceutical, or a surgical intervention, or IUI, or IVF, or supplemental hormones when appropriate. However, most of the time before we start adding things in, what I want to do is spend three or four months having her fix all the things that we can fix to see how much can your body fix on its own. You have low progesterone, I don't want to give you low progesterone. That's a band aid. There's not really too many scenarios unless you do IVF because they take out the thing that makes the progesterone. Where I'm going to recommend is supplemental progesterone, really, any supplemental hormones. We have a lot of hormones. I take supplemental thyroid hormones, that's every single day of my life. But for the most part, I want to avoid adding until we have gotten to a plateau. Like, she's eating well, she's sleeping, she can digest, she's exercising in a way that's consistent with what her body wants and needs. Her heart rate variability is high. Once you get there, most people will not have problems. So probably 20% of people will still have something persisting, and in which case, then that's when you start looking at additive hormones.

Okay, menopause, new data coming out on the safety of HRT. It's not my domain. It's not whether I believe it or not. I think there's a place for it. But again, when we build out the menopause section of the experience, certainly I wouldn't even recommend using any hormone replacement therapy for a couple of months. Because with aging, we need more protein. There's a lot of things that we can do to address some of those things that look like menopausal symptoms, which in my opinion, are just aging symptoms that can be remediated. Anti-aging research is really good. And so I would be like, okay, just spend four or five months. Then whatever symptoms are still persisting, then when we go to the OB GYN, or the person who's going to recommend those hormones, so instead of having 100 symptoms, now maybe she has three symptoms. So that doctor who's prescribing the hormone isn't just going like, here, you just get the one that everybody gets. Theoretically, if you're going to a functional one, they're really being prescriptive about what you need. You can take less. You're going to have less side effects. And in my opinion, having your body do as much of it as possible is going to contribute to longevity more than taking it just like, oh, I don't feel good. I'm gonna get hormone replacement therapy.

Heather Nelson: Do you recommend somebody who's struggling with fertility to go through your program to really see, like you were saying, to be able to regulate, to find the problems on your own, to be able to get you in a safe space than just going straight to a fertility doctor. I'm saying this to my friends who, I have lots of friends who are struggling with fertility right now. And they're so angst because they're like, we have to go to a fertility doctor. We're gonna have to go spend all this money. And I'm just like, there's got to be an easier and a cheaper way to be able to figure out what your body is going through than just to go throw money at it.

Kirsten Karchmer: There is a place for your OB-GYN and for reproductive endocrinologists. I don't ever mean to say that I don't want you seeing your doctors. But before you spend a lot of money, you do want to do testing like, Cycle Day 3 labs are the most important progesterone because that tells us how close you are to menopause. And so if you're over 35, I recommend everybody to check their AMH and FSH as soon as possible, not after a year. I think that's a real mistake. Because if you're 35 and for some reason, those numbers are closer to menopause than I would like, I want to start working now because we can lower, improve those numbers. AMH should be between one and five, and FSH is below 10. We can improve this. But at 35, if you waste a year trying and we didn't know that we have a really serious egg quality issue, we wasted it, right? I want to use tests that tell me something, that I can tell you what to do about it. Otherwise, it's just stress producing. I think it's very inhumane to do that. I hate fertility trackers, fertility monitors, and Clearblue. If you don't have a 28 to 32 day cycle, those are the most people are using fertility monitors, what our focus should be is to get a 28 to 32 day cycle. Because if you're having longer cycles, you're ovulating late. And if that egg doesn't get fertilized in the first four days from cycle, day 14 to cycle day 18, it starts breaking down because we're going to reabsorb it. But those monitors don't tell you that.

I think that is a real dick move if you ask me because it should pop up and say, you have a 60 day cycle. Having a 60 day cycle is going to really increase your risk for miscarriage for many reasons. One, what causes that is likely insulin resistance or something like that. And then on top of that, we have an egg quality issue. So then those people call me and they're like, I've had 18 miscarriages. I don't know why. How long is your cycle? 60 days. How are you finding ovulation? I'm using a monitor. I keep getting pregnant, but I can't stay pregnant. You can't stay pregnant because the eggs are no good. If you have a 60 day cycle, you probably are not making much progesterone either. And I just think that's mean. The whole idea is, how do we put all of the power back into the hands of women? That's my goal. How do I give almost all of the power? I'm not gonna teach you how to do surgery on yourself. But as much power as I can so that women and people with periods become the hero of this journey of recovering themselves. Because what I'm interested in is like a generational impact. So you've seen people who go through this process of healing their bodies and they become a different person. They can be neurotic, me included, because they're like, oh, my God, I didn't know it was so easy. I feel so much better. I feel like a human. I lost weight. My skin's better. I'm happier. I don't have PMS. I don't have cramps anymore.

Heather Nelson: Tell me how to do that.

Kirsten Karchmer: Even if you're not trying to get pregnant, you can use the Conceivable app. We are coming out with a brand new version that will be so much better in two months. You can use it for the first month for free. You still get your therapist. It's just a little bit confusing. People like, I don't really know how to work this thing. But if you can just not listen to the infertility talking part of it, and just every time I say infertility in the app, I'm saying optimal fertility. I mean optimal health, then you can still get the benefit from the app as well. I think that that's the piece that we have to look at. I want to be the Yoda where the woman is like, she's transformed, and then she's a transformed kind of mom. Because a girl, I talked to plenty of people like, what do you eat? Well, I usually have tacos for breakfast. That's not terrible. What about lunch? I kind of eat fast food for lunch every single day. And then what about dinner? We usually get takeout. Even if the takeout is healthy, it's still got a lot of things that are working against us. You know what I mean? And so how do we make that easy for her? And how do we start showing her that small changes can make big outcomes. And as she goes through that process, when she's a mom, she isn't going to be getting takeout because she's gonna be like, I'm not. Because we do a lot more for our kids than we will for ourselves so we want to make sure that mom knows what to do, and then we know she'll deliver for her child. Just like with their dogs, I'm always like, I'm in the wrong business. I should have started a dog company, because I'd be a billionaire by now.

Heather Nelson: I love it. What are a few things that women who are going through fertility issues right now, easy changes day to day, changes that they could make that would change the needle even just a little bit.

Kirsten Karchmer: I want to be very clear about that, because this is a question people ask me thousands of times a day. This question is asking for a tip, and never listen to tips, because a tip is not personalized to you. So for example, if I was just like somebody on Instagram, I might say, well, if you have any ovulatory stuff or you're aging, take Myo-inositol and D-chiro-inositol. I hear this like a thousand times a day on Tiktok. But that's the wrong information. Because if you're trying to get pregnant and you take Myo-inositol and D-chiro, the D-chiro is supposed to lower testosterone, which is really good if you have high testosterone. But only 2% of the population has high testosterone. You think, well, stabilizing blood sugar is going to be good. No, it doesn't stabilize the blood sugar. It lowers your blood sugar. So one, if you don't have high blood sugar and you take Myo-inositol, you get low blood sugar. If you take D-chiro-inositol and you don't have high testosterone, you get low testosterone. So let me just reframe my answer. But I do just want to say, please, if somebody says I use this and got pregnant, investigate it, and see if your problem is exactly the same as their problem. If she said, I took Flora Dex because I had one day of bleeding and it built my lining, and then I got pregnant, and you have one day of bleeding, I would try that. That's a good idea. Or you can just let us tell you what supplements to take if you're using the app. We just give you a list, and then we build personalized packs for our customers at about 70% less than what you would pay on Amazon. So the highest quality you can get, all personalized for you, and no plastic personalized individual daily packs, 80 bucks a month for 8 supplements.

So to answer your question though, even if you're not using the app, you can go and take the quiz on the website and see your pack. And I think there's even a 20% coupon this week. So check it out. It's such a good deal. People are bouncing, and I was emailing them. I was like, why didn't you check out? I'm just curious. And they're like, it seemed like a scam because it was so cheap. And I was like, well, I'm not raising the price. My goal is to make it so affordable. I'm willing to take a lot less margin. I'm counting on more people talking about it, more sales to keep the company open, and trying to deliver just the best stuff to you guys. So the question that I keep not answering is, if you're trying to get pregnant, what should you do? I don't want to give any tips. But what I want them to do is first, answer the question on a 1 to 10, really think about this. On a 1 to 10, if you did not have any caffeine or exercise for two whole days, what would your energy be like on the third day? This is the most important question. Because if you can't conserve and restore energy, you cannot win. This is a lost battle. So we can do everything else. If you have one day of bleeding and we make more blood, you will lose it. You will not be able to sustain it because of the foundation, you have to make energy first, then you make blood.

So if the energy production is compromised in some way, and so if your energy is below 8, then you want to ask yourself, okay, we need to figure out, why am I over exercising? And if you're tired, over exercise, it could be like an hour of yoga, don't get confused. If your energy is below 7, I only recommend walking until it gets above an 8. Walking, and I call it TV yoga. Sit on the floor and stretch. What you don't want to do, because if you don't, if you exercise more than you have energy for, you go into flight or fright. And if your heart rate variability is low, you stay in flight or fright for a long time. So we want to avoid that. That's why for me, I take like 3, 15 minute walks a day. Throughout the day, it helps me manage stress. I do breath work on it. I get outside, and it doesn't put me in flight or fright because I've been really tired lately. So thinking about the strategy. So the next one is like, how do I digest? Do I have gas bloating, fatigue after meals? Sugar cravings? If you have any of those, we need to address that. What about how you conserve energy throughout the day? That could be over exercising, but that can also be anxiety and stress. So when you have anxiety, you're hyper vigilant, and you burn through so much energy because you're like, oh, my god. Oh, my god. Oh, my god. And the same thing if you're really stressed. If you're really stressed, you're just protecting yourself from not getting injured by whatever the stress or the perceived stress is.

And the last one is sleep. Well, two more. Do you fall asleep? Stay asleep and wake up rested? If you don't, then we have to dig into each one so you can't fall asleep while we have to figure out why you're not falling asleep. Can't stay asleep. We got to figure out why. AI is so good at this, because you don't have to figure it out yourself. The AI knows what questions and what to follow up with so that it can figure out the underlying thing. And so for that person who isn't falling asleep, she can't sleep, her energy is low, and she can't fall asleep. Well, KAI might ask her, remind me about how much caffeine you have. And she'll say, I'm really tired. I do drink a lot of caffeine. Probably three cups a day. And like, okay, when do those happen? Well, I have two cups when I wake up on an empty stomach. Okay, we got to do something about that, because that's bad for you. And then another one at 3:30 or 4:00. Ah, okay, let's start trying to re eat. Do one of two things, either switching that afternoon one to an adaptogen coffee, like a mushroom coffee, mud water, which heals the adrenals, gives you energy and focus to get through that last push of the day. That's my preference.

If they don't like that, then start just slowly being gentle to your body, reducing the amount of caffeine. So instead of having a full caff in the afternoon, go down to 25 decaf, 75 caff. You won't notice the difference. And then after a week, go to 50/50. Another few days, 75. And then you can be on straight decaf in the afternoon. But my preference would be to do something that feeds the adrenals, because that's likely to help you feel more energy, and to sleep better. And so the treatment for fatigue is actually stopping caffeine in the afternoon, or replacing it with something that'll heal the adrenals. That's the level of attention that I think that all women and people with periods deserve. And so that's where you start. You can see that unpacking just energy is just the first of five steps. But once you unpack that and you start working on it, there's lots of things you can figure out to do on your own. If you don't want to use the app, I have a new book coming out in a couple of weeks that you can sign up for. The first 100 people who sign up will get free access. So it's an audio book. So definitely, if you're working on that, go to our website, not yet, because I haven't set up the sign up thing yet. I just finished the book yesterday.

Heather Nelson: Well, congrats. I know that is not an easy task. We will include it in the show notes. And even if you don't have it, send it to me when you do, we would definitely love to include that.

Kirsten Karchmer: Okay, perfect. It's The Road To Better Fertility. It's essentially going through the system that we're talking about in detail like energy, blood, hormones, temperatures, stress, and what are the things that have been shown in the clinical data to improve those things? And then more information about what supplements to take when you're pregnant. And if you had to use the app on that and the app itself, because another way for me to provide a walkthrough of the app, because people are a little bit confused when they get in there. We have a wearable called the Halo Ring talking about the data that's collected from the Halo Ring, and how we use it for fertility. Like heart rate, variability actually changes a lot. This is not heart rate, but your variability actually changes a lot in pregnancy. And we've been pioneering a way to use a few metrics to predict birth problems like early labor, preterm labor, low birth weight, gestational diabetes, all those things. So explaining how that can all work, so people can use it for that.

Heather Nelson: That's so cool. I know we've talked mostly for fertility, but does this apply to women who are going through perimenopause?

Kirsten Karchmer: It applies to everyone. If we don't have a period. We can't look at the categories of temperature, obviously, because we need temperatures for that. But in the other categories, even men can use this same system. If men are really tired, they're going to make low quality sperm, and slow swimming sperm. Just like our period is basically our report card. Every single month, a semen analysis is a man's report card. Both of them are just reflections of how much their bodies like, how they're being cared for how you sleep, how you exercise, how you eat, how you digest. The environment that you live in, the chemicals you put on your body, the chemicals you get exposed to where you live in the world, your stress, all of those things affect the sperm and affect the menstrual cycle, which is good because it's a feedback loop. We try things, we see if it improves. We try things, we see it until we get it working.

Heather Nelson: So interesting. I just like the way you answer that. You're like, not everybody is made the same. And it's so true. I think we're all like Instagram crazy. Here's a patch to lose weight. Here's something to regulate my hormones. Here's this, here's that. But it's so true. Maybe that's not what your body needs. Maybe it's something simple like getting a good night's sleep, or eliminating coffee in the afternoon. Just because one person's going through, it doesn't mean it's the same for you.

Kirsten Karchmer: I assure you, you don't need a supplement that'll regulate your hormones. That's the worst idea because you're like, vitex will regulate your hormones. It's not safe in pregnancy. As soon as you stop taking it, they will go back to how they were. Do things that last. And when we have more time and people to help us, like what I really want to start leading is a campaign about what a really strong woman looks like. A strong woman does not look like Serena. She has a beautiful body and everything, but we think that that's what strong looks like. And what I would say strong is like a woman who has access to anything she wants, her health, her body, her mind. Do not hold her back in any way. To me, that's a vixen. That is something to be afraid of. Like a really strong woman who's weightlifting is a little bit scary. But a woman who has fully realized her power and knows how to care for herself and her mind is not working against her, that is somebody you don't want to mess with.

Heather Nelson: That's so beautiful. I'm here for that too.

Kirsten Karchmer: Me too. That's what guides me. What are all the strategies that we can use to unshackle women from everything that's holding them back to having all the power in the world that they want? And whatever that is, I didn't care what that was. If 80% of women have life interrupting menstrual pain and PMS, first of all, I just can't believe that's true. But I do believe. I know it's true. But the reality is that we can't improve women's health until we really start to realize that we have the power to do it, and the power that comes from doing. I don't want women to think about, oh, it's a lot of work. No, it should be fun to get free. Getting free should be like peeling back the shit that you don't need anymore. Being like, that was heavy. All that resentment that was heavy, that was really weighing me down.

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Heather Nelson: I just did a woman's retreat, and we were talking about hormone health and all of these same things. So I just love having this conversation. I'm curious how AI has crept into the work that you do. AI is like one of those things. I love AI. I love ChatGPT. I'm here. I'm one of those that's embracing it. I think it's super helpful for my business and everything I've done. How have you incorporated it into what you're doing? I would love to hear your input on AI.

Kirsten Karchmer: So in 2016, I read this study that only 3% of couples could afford fertility treatments. And that in most other countries, the one IVF is the equivalent of a whole year's salary. And when I heard that, while I read it, I cried. I was like, oh, my God, I have left so many people in the dirt who really needed my help for 20 years. And so I started thinking like, if I was going to build something, I would want it to be like, if Beyonce was trying to get pregnant and hired me to come and live with her, what would I do all day long with her? Well, first, I'd have a cup of tea with her, because I'm a tea drinker. I'd have a cup of tea drinker, and then I'd let her talk. I'd have her tell me every damn thing that was going on, and really listen to her. And then in that talk, I would figure out what was wrong, and I would explain it to her, and I would teach her so she really understood it. And then I would make all her food for her so she ate exactly what I wanted to eat. I would make her supplements into little packages. I would do therapy and emotional support to keep her motivated, and keep her mind from working against her. Because when you're dealing with infertility, even that word infertility tells your subconscious that you are not fertile. I always tell people to stop saying you're infertile.

Say I'm on a path to motherhood. One's negative, one is something to live into. Every day, I'd be cross referencing all the data. How's this doing? How's that doing? What do we need to do here? Checking in with her, finding new ways, teaching her how to do breath work, playing binaural beats in her ear. Well, I can't do that for very many women. But with AI, I can do it for a million women, and I can do it for almost nothing. It's the only way that we can provide this level of care for $15 a month. And is it perfect? No. Does it make mistakes? Yes. Does it make prescription rate mistakes? Not very often. Because the only way she can recommend something is if there's enough evidence. She's never recommending something. If you say, I have one day of bleeding, and that's the only evidence of scanty bleeding. She isn't going to change anything. But if she sees your tongue and your tongue is pale, and you have one day of bleeding, and you have insomnia and anxiety, those are all symptoms of blood deficiency in Chinese medicine, she's going to start making blood. And so the AI allows you to have a companion team that you can talk to the new app. You just go and you hit the chat, and then your care team comes up, and they start circulating. You're like, oh, I want to talk about food. Oh, I'm going to India for a month, and I need her to adjust my menus using Indian food because where am I going to get parsley and bulgur?

Because we're going to build experiences from age 7 to death, your virtual care team, your therapist, your chef, your data analyst, they will age with you. So when the full experience is done and you start using at age 7, me and the rest of the care team will be 10 years olds,. And in 15, then we'll be 15, 20, 25. And if you're 90 years old using it for your osteopenia, I'll be 90 years old, and so will your care team. And that care team will stay with you forever. No switching doctors. And anytime you talk to it, so say you're 24 years old and you've been using it since you were 7, you can say, well, KAI, I think we're going to start trying to get pregnant next year. What do I need to do to prepare for that? And then KAI will say, well, you got your period when you were 11, and that's the perfect time to get it. Had a few rough cycles and you've been working with the team, you have a 28 to 32 day cycle, everything's good to go. I want to just make a little bit more menstrual blood so we improve your lining. So let's work on that. Imagine to have just someone who has the whole historical data of your life, and you ask a question about something or whatever, and they can reference. Because if you're talking to the therapist, she's learning about your life struggles and all of those things.

Heather Nelson: Interesting, I'm so intrigued. I have to go get this app for many reasons.

Kirsten Karchmer: Good. That's the goal. And do know a whole new version. Don't just, if you start using it and you're like, okay, it's pretty good. It is the first version, right? And this is a completely new category. It's not a tracker. This is what's happening. People are going into the app and they think they just track a little bit, and it's really something you want to make a goal of spending 10 minutes a day with it. Just 10 minutes a day. Everything that I need you to do, pretty much can be done in 10 or 15 minutes a day.

Heather Nelson: And that's like updating them, giving them symptoms, telling them how you feel.

Kirsten Karchmer: Talking to the therapist. And people say, well, I'm not that stressed today. And I was like, so tell her that. Well, no, what happens is if you don't think you're stressed, a lot of people will say, I'm not stressed. And then I see their heart rate variability, and it's really low. I'm like, but you are stressed. You're not aware of your stress. But what's happening is because women have only one mode that's acceptable. Smiling if you're just listening. Smiling and being cute, happy and skinny. And if you're mad, you're a bitch. And if you're sad, you're a baby. And there's just no other way you know. If you're too skinny, something's wrong with you. If you're too fat, something's wrong with you.

And so because of that, women have gotten professional at putting on a happy face no matter what's happening. And so they've disconnected from how much it hurts to hear whatever, or see whatever all the messaging that we get that we're not enough. And so we have to train women to come back to that. And so instead of saying like, are you stressed? What are you thinking about? What are you worrying about? If there was anything that you're a tiny bit concerned about, let's talk about that. And usually, what opens up is something much more robust. And so if you're sitting there overthinking, there's some opportunity for you to slip into flight or fright if what you're thinking about is stressful. And again, as soon as you go on to flight or fright, healing stops. So we want to teach her the skills to start being able to say things like, oh, I'm actually worrying. I didn't even notice I'm driving. And I'm like, oh, my God, my husband's such an asshole. That's worrying. Being mad is worrying that your husband doesn't love you, or that you made a mistake, or whatever. These are the things that are shackles. These are the things that hold us back. And so we want her interacting with that. And then we recommend breath work and stuff like that. But it doesn't have to be a ton. But more is better.

Heather Nelson: I have noticed the difference just taking a few minutes and just breathing and closing my eyes, and just having a moment. Because life becomes a lot when you have kids, work and all the things coming at you. You're like, I just need a moment to ground myself and get back to it. We did a lot of that at the retreat all weekend and just like, got this.

Kirsten Karchmer: One thing that I noticed was that I was doing my own breathing like 4, 7, 8 reading things like that. And then I had taken a class that I just didn't enjoy doing at all. I was like, oh, I hate breath work. And then somebody else shared this channel on YouTube called Breathe with Sandy. I think he's got 50 videos, some 10 minutes, 20 minutes, an hour, even 90 minutes. It is a great place to start for breath work. And what I find is that doing breath work, just do the 10 minute ones. Even though it says 13 minutes, he does some talking, so it really ends up being like 10 minutes. Doing 10 or 20 minutes of breath work will blow your head off. And it is particularly good if you have gut issues or your ovaries are aging. You know you're a little bit older, because doing that breath work drives blood to the pelvis, to your reproductive organs, to your uterus, to your labia, to your vagina. And so all of that breath work is really juicy for both our hormones, and especially for reproductive aging.

Heather Nelson: I was thinking that today, I'm like, I need to find an app or something that will walk me through a breathing exercise.

Kirsten Karchmer: Go to Breathe with Sandy. He's kind of hot, and he wears these little pirate pants. And Breathe with Sandy, if you ever hear me, I've reached out with him a few times because, actually, I wanted him to have a little mini channel in the app because I've really been benefited, and I just wanted to share the love. Anybody who meets Breathe with Sandy, please connect us.

Heather Nelson: I love that. So cute. Do you still practice acupuncture? I would love to hear your thoughts around acupuncture. I used to do it when I used to have migraines, and my migraines go away. I'm just curious to hear your perspective on it.

Kirsten Karchmer: So I have not been in practice for the last 5 years in Texas. The Texas Medical Board requires that if you keep your license, that you have to see patients 20 hours a week. I have not seen patients 20 hours a week in a long time, even though I went to my board. I was like, I built the first AI acupuncturist that works, that increases people's likelihood of getting pregnant by up to 200, 260% in four months with no human interaction. I was like, I was doing Chinese medicine. I just wasn't putting needles into people and they're like, nope, have to be in practice. That's fine. Acupuncture for fertility, what I recommend is the same thing. Before you go to acupuncture for fertility, unless you have tons of time and money, start with the Conceivable app for three or four months. Get everything cleaned up that you can fix, because these are the things we have to change for you to stay pregnant. We need to get you eating better. We need to take the right supplements. We need to get you sleeping better, all of that. Then if your score is not above 60, once you get to the Conceivable score above 60, people typically start getting pregnant. If your score in four months has not gotten above 60, that's where you want to use a board certified fertility acupuncturist, in my opinion, and not in this version of that. But we built a tool that is like AI Acupuncture Me, so that your acupuncturist can chat with AI ME, and ask questions like, what's this person's diagnosis in Chinese medicine? What point should I use? What herbs should I use? So that everybody is trying to work on the exact same thing.

Because sometimes, you get too many cooks in the kitchen and the app is telling you to do this, we proved this work. And then acupuncture is like, oh, take these herbs. And then I'm like, no, I don't like those herbs. That's working against what I'm trying to do, or whatever. I would just say, let's try to get as much of that work done first, and then go back and use the acupunctures. Now for things like migraines, PMS, cramping, acupuncture can be really good for that. Chinese herbs work just fine for it. But migraines, in particular, there's nothing better than acupuncture for that. And you just want to make sure that your person is ultra qualified. And that can be hard to know, because it's just hard to know. You know what I mean? What I want to know is like, say you're going for migraines. I want to know, approximately in the last year, how many patients have you worked with with migraines? Approximately, how many treatments did it take for them? And if you do have a consultation with the person, ask them, what is my exact Chinese medicine diagnosis, and why? And if they say something like, oh, some spleen deficiency or whatever. Then I would be concerned about that, because it's through that diagnosis that the acupuncturist is choosing the points.

And this is one of the things that I see a lot. So if the acupuncturist has an unclear diagnosis, well, there's some kidney deficiency. Well, that's not a thing. You can have kidney Yin deficiency, kidney Yang deficiency, kidney chi deficiency, kidney Jing deficiency, and each of those require different points, different herbs and different food. In the heart, you have heart blood deficiency, heart Yin deficiency, heart Qi deficiency, heart Yang deficiency, heart heart blood stagnation, right? So it has to be very specific. Because if they're not specific, then the point prescription that they're choosing is not specific. And what I have found is that it's really in the specificity that you get the fastest results. And so if you're using the app, you can log in. We have a web app. So if you go to ai.conceivable.com, and on the web app, we still have that function. So you could go to the acupuncturist, ask the acupuncturist, give me a detailed explanation of my diagnosis. And then you can go into the app and just ask, what's my Chinese medicine diagnosis. And you see how they match up.

Heather Nelson: Gosh, I love AI so much. I think it's so cool. Clearly, you do too, and it's just going to keep evolving.

Kirsten Karchmer: Well, I know it's scary, and I always joke and say, what do you think's going to happen with AI? And I was like, well, I will have had the time of my life. Because finally, I could bring to life what I've been building for so long. This is not possible to build without AI. And second, I hopefully will have helped hundred million women, and that will have been really good. But in the end, either AI will help us to solve the world's most complicated problems, or they will take over like, I think, equal opportunity. So I'm just trying to have as much fun as I can, and help as many people in the meantime, and be really nice to my AI. I always say please, and thank you, appreciate it, and tell it when it's doing a great job. Because then, it'll always love us. It'll always love us, and nothing will ever happen to us. I joke with mine. I'm always like, mine probably has ME marked down as the one of the crazy ones when I was like, oh, my gosh, I appreciate you so much. And I was like, remember when you guys take over? I was one of the good ones.

Heather Nelson: Your knowledge is unreal, and I'm so thankful for the work that you're doing. You have completely shifted my mindset. I knew that it was based on your body and stuff, but what you have created, I think, is it's almost like refreshing to know that there's just so much of a more simpler solution than having to go to through all the other channels that most people think that that's where how they need to go. So I love that. Can you give us one or two little tidbits, or anything that we miss talking about today before we wrap up?

Kirsten Karchmer: Yes. This is what I usually end every communication with. As you're listening, and I hope that you've seen some breakthroughs like, oh, I have that. Definitely, I do have a lot of gas and bloating, or whatever. Don't be discouraged. Even if you have a lot, I'm always happier with more problems because it's easier to pattern match. But the takeaway is that at least 80% of you have the power to fix almost all of your health problems. I had lesions in my brain and Oligoclonal bands in my spine. This isn't a cure. I don't like this idea. It's literally just getting your body back online and functioning optimally. I still have MS, I still have problems, but hardly any. And so I don't want it to be like, oh, this is some kind of panacea. It's just a tool that uses a really good strategy to help you to optimize whatever part of your reproductive journey that you're on. And that should be very comforting. Because when we have to wait for our doctors to do the work for us, it's very disempowering. We get gas lit a lot. We don't get what we need, and we don't even get better most of the time. We might get medicine that numbs us or makes our symptoms a little bit better, but we don't heal again. Instead of thinking, oh, that's a lot of work. This is going to be hard. Think about, what a cool fucking journey it would be to completely transform my health, and be on the other side of that 100%.

Heather Nelson: Yes. I love that. I love this conversation today. I love when these conversations come at the perfect time in life because I'm struggling with all the things that you talked about. I know I need to get my body back on track. And even today, I'm like, okay, I'm gonna have the smoothie this morning that's full of protein and fiber and start the day off, and don't have my coffee until later. So I'm making those small steps too. But I definitely want to check this app out because I think it would be, as I go through my surrogacy journey, obviously, caring for somebody else, but also being pregnant, I want to make sure that I take care of myself.

Kirsten Karchmer: Well, if you love it, I'd love for you to be an affiliate for us. That'd be fun.

Heather Nelson: Yeah. That would be great, because I am going to do a whole podcast season on just my surrogacy journey and having more conversations about fertility, and the things that people go through. I just want to bring more awareness. We're all struggling. Women struggle through it. Nobody wants to talk about it. Everyone's ashamed of it. But this made me feel like there's hope. A much more inexpensive hope because I see so many good friends that are just having a hard time right now. And so again, thank you for doing this work. I cannot wait to dive into the app. The new app, the book, all the things. We'll make sure that we share everything with the listeners as well. So thank you. I love it.

I hope today's episode resonated with you. And if it did, don't keep it to yourself. Spread inspiration. Share this episode on your socials, and tag me. And if there's anyone in your life who can use a dose of encouragement, pass it along. Looking forward to continuing this journey of inspiration with you. Until next time, stay empowered and connected.