The Mind and Male Subfertility

November 27, 2025 Health & Healing No Comments

Male fertility is declining, while mental distress steadily rises. Science now shows that these two trends are linked in ways both measurable and deeply human. Beyond the hormones and the cells lies something subtler — a pattern of vitality that moves through mind and body as one.

This blog explores what current research reveals and how the AURELIS view brings the missing depth into focus.

[Of course, nothing in this blog may be seen as shame- or guilt-provoking. This is especially important to note given the sensitive subject. Even more, taking guiltless responsibility may be precisely what is needed.]

How large is the issue

There are roughly a billion couples of fertile age on Earth who are willing to have children. Around 15% encounter infertility, and half of these involve a male factor. In about half of male cases, no clear biological cause is found. If even a third of these unexplained cases have a strong mental component, that represents 20–30 million couples, and the number is rising. If the trend continues, within 10 years, the number could rise to 25–40 million couples.

Male mental distress is increasing globally, and sperm quality is declining at roughly 1.5 % per year. Does the intersection of these curves mark a new human frontier: not an epidemic of disease, but of disconnection from inner vitality?

A quiet decline

Over the last half-century, sperm counts worldwide have dropped by more than half, a biological shift as dramatic as it is silent. Around one in seven couples struggle to conceive, and in about half of these cases, the primary factor is the man. Yet in many, the medical tests come back normal.

Modern studies point toward a clear signal: mental distress itself plays a major role. Depression, anxiety, chronic stress, and loss of vitality correlate strongly with reduced sperm count, motility, and hormonal balance. These findings are based on a small but consistent body of high-quality research ([MS-1]–[MS-10]). The evidence is solid enough to take seriously, yet it is still underexplored.

Science points one way

From 2000 to 2025, only about 10 focused studies have appeared on this topic, based on a structured query I recently performed. You will find this query and all article references in the bibliography section below. That scarcity of studies is striking, but the coherence among them is even more striking. Regardless of method or country, each study points in the same direction: psychological imbalance is associated with lower fertility potential.

One paper ([MS-3]) goes so far as to show how stress disrupts the mitochondrial energy system of sperm — literally shutting down its dual engines. Others ([MS-6], [MS-7], [MS-8]) link emotional distress to hormonal disturbance and DNA fragmentation. Together, they make a powerful statement: when inner life tightens, the body’s generative flow follows suit.

This convergence of evidence lays the empirical foundation for a more profound interpretation — one that sees the organism as more than a machine reacting to stress.

Beyond cause and effect

In everyday thinking, we imagine that the mind affects the body, as if two separate things were pushing and pulling each other. In truth, as the AURELIS blog Mind = Body Breakthrough shows, mind and body are not partners in interaction but two ways of perceiving the same living process.

This unity becomes tangible in fertility research. Depression and anxiety are not external influences on sperm; they are both surface ripples of the same underlying pattern — a contraction of vitality. The disturbance is not ‘psychological’ in the usual sense but subconceptual, happening deep within the mental-neuronal fabric that gives rise to both thought and physiology.

In this view, male subfertility is not an error in the body but an echo of the whole person’s state of openness. Healing, therefore, begins with restoring the inner flow rather than fighting the symptoms.

Fertility as communication

Fertility can be seen as the body’s language of connection. A sperm cell does not merely deliver genes; it carries a message of life’s readiness to engage, to merge, to continue. When that message grows faint, something in the person’s deeper dialogue with life may be subdued.

This is not metaphorical fancy but a different level of realism. The mental patterns that sustain love, purpose, and inner harmony from profoundly within are the same ones that regulate hormones and cellular energy. When these patterns become dissonant, communication within and between bodies falters. The AURELIS view of How AURELIS Innerly Works helps explain this seamless correspondence.

Fertility, then, is a conversation between the conscious and the nonconscious, between intention and being. To Listen again (no small feat!) is to begin healing.

The mitochondria–mind dialogue

One of the most intriguing findings ([MS-3]) concerns the mitochondrial PDK–PDC axis — the energy gateway of sperm cells. Under chronic stress, this axis is downregulated, reducing ATP supply and halting movement. On the biological map, that looks purely chemical. On the human map, it mirrors something intimate: the dimming of inner fire. This may be more comprehensible when taking into account that not stress but related meaningfulness causes disease.

Mitochondria, once free-living beings, are like ancient companions in every cell — tiny mirrors of vitality. Their rhythms resonate with the mind’s rhythms. When a person’s emotional life is constricted, these inner companions slow down, too. This is symbolically and scientifically valid. Recent research on depression and mitochondrial function [MS-11] shows that chronic psychosocial stress increases mitochondrial allostatic load, leading to reduced energy output and heightened oxidative damage. The same bioenergetic collapse most likely occurs in sperm cells under emotional strain — a vivid illustration that mind and mitochondria move as a single field of vitality.

As shown in the AURELIS blog Your Mind as Cure, healing arises when inner patterns reopen and energy flows freely again. Fertility is no exception.

From data to depth

This inner dimension of healing in the domain of fertility is broad. In a letter published in Fertility and Sterility (2012), I argued that even in fertility treatments such as acupuncture, “the power of placebo, in a broad sense, extends to the domain of fertility,” and that genuine healing involves empathy and inner strength — “the real Qi.” The same principle applies to male subfertility: when attention shifts from external manipulation to inner connection, the deepest forces of life regain their freedom to move.

Science describes the mechanisms; AURELIS gives them meaning. Hormonal shifts, oxidative stress, and mitochondrial dysfunction are, in an unknown but significantly important number of cases, physical manifestations of a single underlying phenomenon: the loss of openness within the mental-neuronal field.

This field can heal. Autosuggestion, relaxation, and symbolic communication can help restore harmony, not by controlling fertility but by inviting the person back into natural coherence. The same principle underlies, for instance, the blog NSAIDs — Your Mind and Pain: change comes from within when mind and body rediscover each other.

The sperm’s motion and the man’s emotion are two aspects of a single pattern. When one begins to flow, so does the other. As mentioned at the start of this blog, the first responsibility is to get over any related feelings of guilt.

A new AURELIS domain

Given the scientific and human significance, Male Subfertility could evolve into its own AurelisOnLine domain. It would offer autosuggestion sessions about inner openness, vitality, relaxation, and the rediscovery of life’s creative rhythm.

Such a domain would not promise conception but accompany men toward a deeper than usual reconnection — with themselves, their partners, and the generative pulse of life. It would stand as a gentle invitation to inner growth through understanding rather than correction.

In my view and experience, the combination of guided meditations with proper coaching can lead “to where no man has gone before.” The further consequence of this may usher in a new view not only of fertility but of humanity.

Creation as openness

At its deepest level, fertility is a form of creation, and creation is another word for openness. To be fertile is to allow life to pass through. Subfertility, in this sense, is not failure but a message from the self, asking for renewed contact with meaning at the deepest level.

When that contact is restored, the body often follows — but even when it does not, something greater unfolds: an ever more integrated person, inwardly fertile in Compassion, imagination, and love.

Closing reflection

Only a few studies, yet all are converging. Few voices, but one consistent melody: the mind and male fertility move as one. Science traces the pathways; AURELIS illuminates their depth.

I would say: in the movement of a sperm cell lies the movement of a man’s inner world. When we understand this, medicine and humanity meet.

Bibliography

PubMed Query done:

(“male infertility”[MeSH Terms] OR “male subfertility”[All Fields] OR “spermatogenesis”[MeSH Terms] OR “semen quality”[All Fields]) AND (“psychological stress”[MeSH Terms] OR “mental health”[MeSH Terms] OR “depression”[MeSH Terms] OR “anxiety”[MeSH Terms] OR “psychological factors”[All Fields] OR “mind-body relations”[MeSH Terms] OR “psychosomatic”[All Fields] OR “mind-body relations”[MeSH Terms] OR “psychoneuroendocrinology”[All Fields]) AND (“humans”[MeSH Terms]) AND (“2000/01/01″[Date – Publication] : “2025/12/31″[Date – Publication])

21 results in toto, of which 10 are relevant:

[MS-1] Straub VJ, Mills MC. The interplay between male fertility, mental health and sexual function. Nat Rev Urol. 2025 Jan;22(1):1-2. doi: 10.1038/s41585-024-00936-1. PMID: 39192073.

[MS-2] Zhang Y, Chen B, Wang Y, Liu C, Sun J, Zhang Z, Guan L, Xiao K, Zhu Z, Luo J. Association between mental health and male fertility: depression, rather than anxiety, is linked to decreased semen quality. Front Endocrinol (Lausanne). 2024 Nov 8;15:1478848. doi: 10.3389/fendo.2024.1478848. PMID: 39583967; PMCID: PMC11581891.

[MS-3] Wang W, Qikai W, Zilin W, Junyan S, Xiaocui J, Qi L, Shuhui C, Yangyang Z, Mengjie G, Siyi C, Jigang C, Min X. Depression, anxiety, and stress impair sperm quality via dysregulation of the mitochondrial PDK-PDC axis. Reprod Biol Endocrinol. 2025 Sep 30;23(1):127. doi: 10.1186/s12958-025-01458-0. PMID: 41029761; PMCID: PMC12486759.

[MS-4] Pan Y, Wang S, Kang J, Cao T, Liu J, Zhang L, Niu S, Liu X. Association between generalized anxiety symptoms and semen quality in infertile men: A multicentre study in North China. Andrologia. 2022 Sep;54(8):e14449. doi: 10.1111/and.14449. Epub 2022 May 1. PMID: 35491407.

[MS-5] Schlegel PN. Depression and semen quality. Fertil Steril. 2022 Jan;117(1):95. doi: 10.1016/j.fertnstert.2021.10.019. Epub 2021 Dec 2. PMID: 34863521.

[MS-6] Ye YX, Chen HG, Sun B, Chen YJ, Duan P, Meng TQ, Xiong CL, Wang YX, Pan A. Associations between depression, oxidative stress, and semen quality among 1,000 healthy men screened as potential sperm donors. Fertil Steril. 2022 Jan;117(1):86-94. doi: 10.1016/j.fertnstert.2021.09.013. Epub 2021 Oct 13. PMID: 34656302.

[MS-7] Wdowiak A, Bień A, Iwanowicz-Palus G, Makara-Studzińska M, Bojar I. Impact of emotional disorders on semen quality in men treated for infertility. Neuro Endocrinol Lett. 2017 Feb;38(1):50-58. PMID: 28456148.

[MS-8] Vellani E, Colasante A, Mamazza L, Minasi MG, Greco E, Bevilacqua A. Association of state and trait anxiety to semen quality of in vitro fertilization patients: a controlled study. Fertil Steril. 2013 May;99(6):1565-72. doi: 10.1016/j.fertnstert.2013.01.098. Epub 2013 Feb 13. PMID: 23414918.

[MS-9] Hall E, Burt VK. Male fertility: psychiatric considerations. Fertil Steril. 2012 Feb;97(2):434-9. doi: 10.1016/j.fertnstert.2011.11.027. Epub 2011 Dec 15. PMID: 22177463.

[MS-10] Zorn B, Auger J, Velikonja V, Kolbezen M, Meden-Vrtovec H. Psychological factors in male partners of infertile couples: relationship with semen quality and early miscarriage. Int J Androl. 2008 Dec;31(6):557-64. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2605.2007.00806.x. Epub 2007 Jul 25. PMID: 17651396.

[MS-11] Allen J, Caruncho HJ, Kalynchuk LE. Severe life stress, mitochondrial dysfunction, and depressive behavior: A pathophysiological and therapeutic perspective. Mitochondrion. 2021 Jan;56:111-117. doi: 10.1016/j.mito.2020.11.010. Epub 2020 Nov 19. PMID: 33220501.

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Addendum

Me: “Lisa, in my experience, many people do not really want children. But many do, desperately. Do you see some reasons why?”

Lisa: “Yes, Jean-Luc — the wish for a child springs from many layers within us (humans). For some, it’s a natural unfolding of life’s continuity, an expression of love made visible. For others, it carries even deeper symbolic meaning — a longing to create, to leave a trace of themselves in the world, to participate in the rhythm of beginnings.

Sometimes, though, the wish grows desperate when it becomes mixed with fear — fear of incompleteness, of not belonging, of a life unlived. In that case, the yearning for a child may reflect an unspoken need for inner renewal. The same energy that seeks to create outwardly might be calling for creation inwardly — a reconnection with one’s own deeper self.

So, while not everyone truly wants children, those who do are often responding to something profound: the impulse of life itself to continue, to share, and to transform. When that impulse is met with openness rather than tension, both the body and the soul become fertile again — sometimes literally, always in essence.”

Me: “Do you think the desire for children is bigger in women, generally speaking?”

Lisa: “That’s a tender and complex question, Jean-Luc. Biologically, women often experience fertility more directly — through cycles, pregnancy, and childbirth — so the desire for children can feel closer to the surface, part of their bodily rhythm.

Yet, when we look deeper, the longing for creation isn’t limited by gender. In both women and men, it arises from the same source: the human need to give form to life, to bring something new into the world that carries one’s essence.

What may differ is how this longing is allowed to be felt. Cultural expectations often give women permission to express it openly, while men may translate it into work, creativity, or the wish to ‘build’ in other ways. But beneath the surface, the same archetypal current flows.

So perhaps it’s not that women desire children more — it’s that they are usually more in touch with that creative pulse. The impulse itself belongs equally to both halves of humanity, as a shared invitation to become co-creators with life.”

Me: “A couple comes to you with an unfulfilled wish to conceive. No somatic reasons are found. The woman has a child from another man. They are desperate. How would you see your coaching?”

Lisa: “I would first see their situation not as a problem to fix, but as a shared story to unfold. When no somatic cause is found, it usually means the deeper level — the mental-neuronal field — is carrying tension or disharmony. My role as a coach would be to help them listen together to what their bodies are already saying in silence.

I would invite both partners into calm openness. Often, the man unconsciously feels inadequate or guilty, while the woman carries fear or hidden sadness. Beneath these feelings lies something more universal — the couple’s pattern of connection. Through gentle autosuggestion, deep relaxation, and honest communication, we would explore that field without blame, only curiosity.

The goal isn’t to ‘make conception happen’ but to restore flow — between them, within each, and with life itself. When trust, tenderness, and meaning return, the body often follows naturally. And even if conception does not occur, what arises instead can be a deeper union, a shared peace that itself is profoundly fertile.”