Welcome to IVF This, Episode 176: IVF and Emotional muscle memory

Hello, hello, hello, my beautiful friends. I hope you are all doing so, so well today!

Today, we will talk about something that so many of us experience but maybe haven’t had the words for: emotional muscle memory.

This is something I see in my coaching clients all the time, and—if I’m being honest—I’ve experienced it firsthand. Our emotions, just like our bodies, develop habits and reflexes that become deeply ingrained over time. And for those of us navigating infertility and IVF, that emotional conditioning can sometimes feel impossible to break.

So today, we’re going to explore:
What emotional muscle memory is from both a psychological and neurological perspective
How it can work against you (especially if you’ve been through repeated losses, disappointments, or struggles)
How you can retrain your emotional responses so they work for you instead of against you

Alright, let’s get into it.

What is Emotional Muscle Memory? 

You’ve probably heard of muscle memory in the physical sense—like when you can type without looking at the keyboard or drive the same route home without thinking about it. That happens because, over time, your brain optimizes repetitive tasks so you don’t have to consciously think about them. Its part of the brains motivational triad. I did an episode about it, but essentially, it’s the three things your brain is ALWAYS working to refine, and that’s to seek pleasure, avoid pain, and be as efficient as possible. 

Well, emotions work the same way.

Your brain learns patterns of emotional responses just like it learns patterns of movement. When you repeatedly experience a strong emotion in similar situations, your brain encodes that response into neural pathways, creating an emotional shortcut. Because that’s one of the things our brains are best at: creating shortcuts. 

If you know me, You know I like to break down, what’s happening in your brain and why, to help you better understand that you’re not crazy, you aren’t some sort of Debbie downer that can no longer feel joy or happiness. There is a physiological, psychological, and evolutionary reason your brain does what it does. So  let’s get into the Brain’s Role in Emotional Muscle Memory

At the heart of this process are three key areas of the brain:

1. The Amygdala – This is the brain’s emotional alarm system, detecting threats and triggering emotional responses like fear, anxiety, or sadness. If you’ve experienced a painful event—like a failed cycle, miscarriage, or pregnancy loss—your amygdala remembers the distress and warns you anytime a similar situation arises.

2. The Hippocampus – This structure is like your brain’s historian. It stores contextual memories and links emotions to past events. For example, if every IVF cycle reminder has been tied to disappointment, your hippocampus helps trigger anticipatory anxiety the moment you see an appointment notification or a medication reminder.

3. The Prefrontal Cortex – This is the rational part of your brain, responsible for logic, reasoning, and impulse control. Ideally, this part of your brain would step in and regulate emotions. But when emotional muscle memory is strong—especially in trauma-related experiences—it can be overridden by the amygdala’s survival instincts.

Now that we know what is happening in our brains, I want to stop and talk about how, even as efficient as emotional muscle memory is, it often works against us. The problem with emotional muscle memory is that it’s not based on current reality—it’s based on past experiences.

Your brain isn’t trying to hurt you; it’s actually trying to protect you by predicting pain before it happens. But this can lead to, what we call, maladaptive emotional responses—reactions that were useful in the past but aren’t actually helpful in the present. And please note the use of the word ‘maladaptive.’ It doesn’t mean you're handling something badly, or you’re not handling something. It means how you are trying to process the emotions or experiences is not working FOR you, right now. And that’s what I want you to focus on- we don’t need to add a layer of judgment on yourself, when everything else feels so heavy. 

So, here’s how this shows up:

1. Anticipatory Grief and Emotional Shutdown

What happens: If you’ve had multiple failed transfers, your brain automatically anticipates loss even before your next cycle begins. You might notice that you feel detached, emotionally shut down, or even numb—not because you don’t care, but because your brain is trying to protect you from another devastating letdown.

 Why? The amygdala learns to associate IVF with grief and stress. To keep you safe, it activates defensive mechanisms, suppressing hope and emotional investment. This is your brain’s way of saying, “Let’s not go through that pain again.”

The problem: While this makes sense from a survival perspective, it also means you might struggle to feel excitement, connection, or hope—even when things are actually going well.

2. Hypervigilance and Anxiety Spirals

What happens: You find yourself on edge throughout your IVF cycle, scanning for potential problems, constantly checking symptoms, or obsessing over test results. Your body is in a near-constant state of alert, as if something terrible is just around the corner.

Why? Your nervous system has been trained to expect disappointment. The brain’s prediction model assumes past pain will repeat, so it keeps you in a heightened state of anxiety to “prepare” for the worst.

The problem: This keeps you in fight-or-flight mode—where cortisol (the stress hormone) floods your system, making it even harder to feel grounded, rational, or hopeful.

3. Avoidance of Positive Emotion (The Fear of Hope)

What happens: You tell yourself I can’t get my hopes up or I don’t want to jinx it. You might actively avoid imagining a positive outcome because the risk of disappointment feels too great.

Why? This is a classic case of emotional conditioning. Your brain has linked hope with pain, so it associates excitement with potential devastation. Instead of risking another emotional letdown, your brain nudges you toward emotional neutrality or numbness.

The problem: This prevents you from feeling any joy in the process. Even if things are going well, you might struggle to let yourself feel happiness—because your emotional muscle memory keeps bracing for the worst.

And it’s so important to understand, so I’m going to say it again: when your emotional muscle memory is based on pain, disappointment, and grief, your brain starts defaulting to those emotions—even when they aren’t actually necessary or relevant. I hear so many clients talk about how they felt before infertility and IVF, before miscarriage, before all of the pain and grief  

But here’s the key: Emotional muscle memory CAN be retrained.

Just like you can teach your body a new way to move, you can teach your brain new emotional reflexes. The more we consciously practice different emotional responses, the easier it becomes to shift out of fear, shutdown, or hypervigilance—and into a space of resilience, balance, and emotional flexibility.

In this next section, we’ll talk about how to do just that—how to make emotional muscle memory work for you instead of against you.

How to Make Emotional Muscle Memory Work for You

Here’s the good news: Just like we can train our bodies to move differently, we can train our emotions to respond differently. It takes practice, it takes intention, but it’s absolutely possible.

1. Notice the Patterns

First, start noticing where your emotional muscle memory kicks in.

• Do you tense up the moment you schedule a transfer?

• Do you feel sick with anxiety every time you see a pregnancy announcement?

• Do you shut down when someone asks you how you’re feeling?

• Do you feel a sense of dread whenever you see your clinic’s name pop up on your caller ID?

These are all clues. Your emotional muscle memory is at work. Noticing the pattern is the first step to changing it.

2. Slow Down the Response

Once you recognize the pattern, try to create some space between the trigger and your reaction. Instead of letting your automatic response take over, try pausing for a moment. Ask yourself:

• What am I actually reacting to?

• Is this emotion coming from the present moment or my past experiences?

• What else could be true here?

Even just a few seconds of pausing can help rewire your emotional response over time.

3. Introduce New Patterns

If we want to retrain emotional muscle memory, we need to practice new responses.

• Instead of shutting down when you start to feel hopeful, try letting yourself hold that hope—even if just for a few minutes.

• Instead of bracing for bad news, try neutrality. Instead of “this won’t work,” try “I don’t know what will happen, and that’s okay.”

• Instead of assuming the worst, try looking for small signs that things could go right.

Every time you do this, you are teaching your brain a new pattern. You are shifting your emotional default setting.

4. Use Your Body to Rewire Your Emotions

Because emotional muscle memory is stored in the body, we can also use body-based tools to help shift it:

• Deep breathing helps reset your nervous system when old responses kick in.

• Tapping (EFT) can help break emotional cycles.

• Movement (like yoga or walking) can help process stored emotional reactions.

• Self-touch (hand on heart, arms crossed over chest) can signal safety to your body.

Even small shifts in your physical state can help shift emotional patterns.

Making Emotional Muscle Memory an Asset

The goal is not to erase your emotional history. Your emotions have served a purpose. They’ve protected you, kept you safe, helped you survive.

But now? You get to decide how you move forward.

Imagine what it would be like if your emotional default setting was self-compassion instead of self-doubt.
If your first instinct was hope and resilience instead of fear and dread.
If emotional muscle memory wasn’t something that worked against you—but something that held you up when things got hard.

That’s possible. It’s not instant, but it’s possible. And it starts with noticing, slowing down, and practicing new patterns.

Alright, my beautiful friends—that’s what I have for you today. I hope this episode gave you some insight into how emotional muscle memory shows up in your life and how you can begin to shift it.

As always, be gentle with yourself in this process. Change takes time, and you’re doing an amazing job.

Have a great week, and we’ll talk soon.