There are, in general, three "tiers" of health remedies.
The first tier, which we'll call Tier 1, is what you get if you go to a doctor. Modern medical science is very advanced and very cool. Synthetic drugs can take a compound from a plant and isolate it, synthesize it, study its chemical structure, figure out how it works within the body, and refine it into a highly effective medication.
Medical science has a few drawbacks, though. It's often very expensive (at least in America), and new drugs can take a long time to go through the testing and approvals process. The Food and Drug Administration needs to review and approve every new drug that hits the market, so you might often read about promising new treatments discovered by scientists that vanish.
Some conspiracy theorists call this suppression, but honestly 90% of the time it's just a study discovering that the drug didn't work, or that it worked but had serious side effects that made it not worth producing. Rarely, it might be because of a lack of funding into research, so there's never an adequate study performed to prove efficacy, so it never gets approval.
Tier 1 medical science, in terms of fertility, include things like IVF, doctor consultations into fertility, studies into egg and semen quality, sperm motility, and so forth. It can include drugs that boost fertility, direct implantation of fertilized eggs, and a variety of other treatments. Some are more invasive than others, and some have more side effects than others, but they're all proven to work, at least to some degree.
The second tier of health treatments we'll call Tier 2. These are your health remedies, supplements, and holistic treatments. Herbal remedies taken from ayurvedic or traditional native American or traditional Chinese medicine are another example. Teas, vitamins, vegetables, diet plans; are all Tier 2 health remedies.
Now, there's nothing inherently wrong with these remedies. Many of them can be Tier 1 with the right level of scientific study. In fact, many modern medications are simply refined versions of Tier 2 treatments. Penicillin was just bread mold that was discovered to fight biological infections, and Aspirin was initially an herbal remedy found in willow bark.
The only difference between a medicine and an herbal remedy is testing, in general. Something like aspirin is synthesized rather than harvested from trees because it's easy to do, it gets you a more pure and concentrated version of the drug, and you can control dosage and strength much more accurately.
In terms of fertility, Tier 2 remedies include things like the herbs we list here, the products we sell in our fertility kit, and a string of dietary adjustments you can make to improve your chances.
Many of these remedies are proven to be at least somewhat effective, either in a specific "this increases fertility" sense or in a generic "this increases bodily health and minimizes toxins that prevent or damage pregnancy" sense. After all, a healthier woman has a better chance of becoming pregnant and bearing a healthy child than a woman who eats a lot of junk food and smokes.
The third tier, the Tier 3 remedies, are largely what you might call snake oil. These are things like feng shui, reiki energy treatments, and crystals and stones.
None of these work. None of these do anything. The only way a stone can affect your body is if it hits you with force (damaging you), if you eat it (causing digestive issues), or if it's radioactive (causing all manner of problems.) Crystals don't do a dang thing to impact your fertility, your health, your luck, your job prospects, or anything else.
How Do I Know Stones Don't Work?
So how are we so serious in claiming that stones and crystals don't work? Well, the answer is science. The fact is, a lot of what stone peddlers say is based on a misunderstanding of how science works. Take a look at something like this:
"Healing crystals emit delicate energy that boosts your vitality, and eventually, your fertility. Crystals used for fertility have their own frequency, dependent on the element arrangement within their chemical composition. Every element vibrates at a particular frequency and subtle healing energy is released by this vibration. The energies emitted by crystals rely on the special way their components vibrate in the inner crystalline structure."
Do stones vibrate? Sure; every molecule has some motion to it. That motion is what we perceive as temperature, among other things. It's the motion of atoms, electrons, of particles in our universe.
Does that vibration affect your body? No, not really. If you touch and hold a stone close to you, your vibration might slow and the rock's vibration might speed up. Why is that? Temperature. Your molecules slow down as they impart energy on the rock, cooling you and warming the rock. All it does is impact some of the cells around where the rock is touching your body. It has less of an impact than standing in the sunlight for a few minutes or holding an ice cube.
If rocks could affect the body, we'd be able to see it in scientific machinery. We have machines so sensitive they can detect individual particles traveling near the speed of light; do you think we wouldn't be able to detect some mystical energy vibrating from every-day rocks and minerals?
Moreover, hundreds if not thousands of studies have been performed into the efficacy of crystals on various health ailments. People with fertility issues are not any more fertile because they have rocks nearby. They aren't going to respond better to cancer treatment or lose weight faster either. Rocks are rocks.
The only way a rock, crystal, mineral, or other kinds of stone can affect your body in any tangible way is if that mineral is biologically active. These exist! But they don't work how you think. For example:
- Asbestos is a mineral. It doesn't do anything when rubbed on your skin or held close to you, but if you breathe in the fibers, it causes asbestosis and mesothelioma.
- Uranium is a rock. In fact, there is a wide range of rocks in the same vein as uranium, like plutonium, which is radioactive. These DO emit energy, in the form of radiation. Different kinds of radiation can affect the body differently, but generally, all they do is cause cancer. Of course, very targeted radiation can also kill cancer, as part of radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Let's call it a wash.
- Salt is a mineral. Salt definitely affects the body, since you need at least a little bit of it to survive, but too much of it can lead to anything from dehydration to organ damage due to excess sodium levels.
Holding a piece of quartz next to your torso, wearing necklaces full of jade and turquoise, or bathing in gemstones isn't going to do anything for you but look pretty.
What Can Rocks, Crystals, and Gemstones Do?
Alright, so, we shouldn't be quite so harsh on gems in general. The thing is, they can have an impact on your body. There are two ways this can happen.
The first is aesthetics. Stones look pretty. They can have interesting colors and shapes, they can reflect and refract light in interesting ways, and they can make your room a more pleasant place to linger.
This pleasantness has a minor effect on your body and mind through one mechanism: relaxation. The more pleasant your surroundings, the more likely you are to be relaxed and stress-free. Lower levels of stress reduce the stress hormone cortisol in your body, and lower levels of cortisol are associated with a wide range of beneficial effects.
Now, are the stones doing the heavy lifting here? Probably not. You can get the same benefits from buying a new comfy pillow, getting a nice massage, or eating some foods that reduce stress hormones. The rocks are just an accessory, and while they may be a pleasant accessory, that's all they are.
The second mechanism is the placebo effect. The placebo effect is a verified, real effect wherein someone is told they are getting medication with X effect, and they experience that effect when in reality they were just given an inert pill made of nothing more than a bit of sugar.
It's a demonstration of mind over body. When you believe that something is going to happen in reaction to an action you take, it can happen, even if the action didn't do what it was supposed to do. A fake pill can have real results.
This is why studies for a medication (to kick something from Tier 2 to Tier 1, for example) require double-blind, placebo-controlled studies. Medication is only brought to further research if it can be demonstrated to have a better, stronger, or more consistent effect than a placebo. Otherwise, it's not doing anything, so there's no sense in studying it.
So, if you truly believe that a rock has some mystical energy to it that will help you conceive a child, well, who is to say that it won't? All of medical science, all of the science of mineralogy, sure, but not you. The placebo effect is real, but unfortunately, we've just ruined it for you.
See, as we mentioned, the placebo effect only works if you're being given treatment from an authority figure and told it will have a particular effect, such that you believe it will have that effect. If you don't believe it, it's not going to happen, and by debunking healing crystals here, we're kind of ruining that for you.
Now, you can see some reflection of this in the advice given to people who recommend crystals for fertility. Look at some of their claims and recommendations:
"Pay attention to moon cycles and live in harmony with the moon." Okay, well, that's not going to do anything to your body, but you know what it might do? It might help you sync up your bodily cycles and track your ovulation, to help you attempt to conceive in the right window.
"Bathe in a bath of gemstones, bath salts, and essential oils." We already mentioned this: relaxation. A nice hot bath with some aromatherapy and some salts to soften your skin? That's great! It's pleasant, it's relaxing, and it helps prime you for a romantic evening.
"Keep X stone under your pillow when you get a full night's sleep." That stone isn't doing anything, but you know what is? The sleep! A full night of sleep is restful and is necessary for your body to heal and stay strong and healthy. It helps with stress reduction as well.
"Use this stone roller up and down your spine to stimulate your chakras." Nah. That stone roller is a nice way to get a bit of a massage to loosen up your muscles and relax you, and it can be an intimate bit of foreplay with your partner before giving conception a try, but it's not going to affect some mystical energy, just your libido.
So it goes. Investigate the claims made by Tier 3 stone peddlers and you'll find a mixture of nonsense (stimulating chakras, resonating vibrations, etc) and real benefits like relaxation.
In our opinion, stones are fine for aesthetics, for creating a relaxing environment, and for collecting as a hobby. They don't really have enough of an impact on fertility to be worth spending the all-too-often exorbitant fees, however. You'd be much better off spending that money on a fertility kit (like ours), on adjusting your diet to be healthier for conception, or on talking directly to a fertility doctor and getting IVF or more direct fertility treatments.
Buy your stones if you want to have some pretty stones to look at and handle. Don't buy them if you're hoping they'll help you conceive. You're more than likely going to be disappointed.
What are your thoughts on fertility stones? Have you used them before? Let us know in the comment section!
