A 2007 study by the journal of clinical endocrinology and Metabolism found that testosterone levels in men have been dropping by one percent on average across the globe.
Since the 1980s this is a problem because testosterone is extremely important a deficiency often leads to lower muscle mass, lower energy, lower confidence, increased mood swings, increased anxiety, and a decreased desire to pursue potential mates.
Today I want to go over the top three ways you can boost your testosterone so that you can live a more enjoyable life a lot of this information is repackaged from Andrew Huberman’s work there’s a two-hour-long podcast that I will link to in the Comment box below for those that are interested.
The first way you can increase your testosterone is to make sure that you are sleeping properly you see the majority of your testosterone is produced during the REM stage of sleep.
This means that anything that interferes with your sleep can negatively impact your levels.
I know a lot of people like to smoke a joint or drink a beer before bedtime as they think it helps them fall asleep faster.
But these habits have been shown to reduce the amount of REM sleep that we have which in turn can negatively affect the production of our testosterone.
On top of that, you want to make sure that you are getting good uninterrupted sleep, see it turns out that 25 percent of men have sleep apnea.
Which is when you stop breathing properly while you’re sleeping if you snore loudly or catch yourself waking up in the middle of the night over and over again.
There’s a decent chance that you might have sleep apnea. how do we address this well?
- The way to prevent sleep apnea is to lose weight if you are overweight you’ll have extra deposits of fat around your neck which causes your Airways to compress while you’re laying down and sleeping so losing weight has been drastically shown to reduce the occurrence of sleep apnea.
- The way to prevent sleep apnea is to make sure that you are breathing through your nose instead of your mouth nose breathing provides up to 20 more oxygen as compared to mouth breathing simply isn’t as efficient missions and has been shown to lead to significantly higher occurrences of sleep apnea.
- The best way to train yourself to breathe through your nose while you sleep is to place some tape on your mouth it doesn’t have to be very strong tape just a little piece in the middle of your mouth and this will psychologically influence you to avoid breathing through your mouth throughout the night and finally when you do wake up in the morning.
- You want to make sure that you get sunlight first thing in the morning for at least 10 minutes which can be done by standing next to your window and looking outside although it is recommended that you go outside for a 10 to 30-minute morning walk this helps your body release cortisol at the right time in the morning which ensures that cortisol levels are lower during night time while you’re sleeping which leads to better sleep
Next, I want to tell you about what I believe gave me a 200 ngdl boost in testosterone.
- The way to increase your testosterone is to work out a study conducted in 1983 found that testosterone levels of men increased by 21 right after a workout most of you already know this but the question remains what is the best way to work out when it comes to maximizing testosterone well according to Andrew Huberman the best thing to do is to lift heavy weights using compound exercises this includes exercises like squats and bench press which Target multiple larger muscle groups at once is.
- When lifting weights you should aim to end up pushing somewhere between 80 to 95 percent of your maximum strength of course after doing warm-up sets and when you are doing your heavy lifts you should only do one to eight reps never pushing yourself to failure.
- Doing all of this will increase your testosterone levels for up to 48 hours after the workout and if you want to do cardio it’s best to do it after lifting weights or on days where you don’t lift at all and ideally you should not do cardio for more than 75 minutes as it’s been found to drastically increase cortisol levels which in turn decreases testosterone.
- Finally, let’s talk about the one thing that managed to boost my levels the most a study was conducted by the University of Queensland in 2010 they sent researchers to a skateboard to interview and record 96 male skateboarders doing tricks afterward they took saliva samples to measure their testosterone levels the study found that skateboarders were being filmed by female researchers had a whopping 30 percent higher level of testosterone than those who were being filmed by male researchers which suggests that being around and performing in front of potential mates drastically increases your testosterone levels.
- Just how effective is this well a couple of years ago when I first got my levels tested I had an 850 ngdl during this time I was single and I was actively going out every day talking to girls everywhere at the mall at restaurants randomly on the street I was constantly engaging with potential mates and in a way, I was also performing because I would almost always end up bringing my dates to the club to show off my dance moves.
- Something interesting to note is that I was also drinking quite a lot this year which should have decreased my testosterone levels the next year I got tested again and my levels dropped to roughly 650 ngdl during this year I drank less than once a month on average and I was also lifting heavy weights much more consistently both of which should have given me higher testosterone levels yet I scored 200 points lower now.
- I believe this is because during my second year I was in a long-term relationship which means that I was no longer going out every day and interacting with potential new mates this sounds a bit crazy but Studies have found that men in long-term relationships have significantly lower levels of testosterone.
- compared with single men now I’m not saying that you should break up with your partner just to try and maximize your test what I am trying to say is if you are single you absolutely should be going out and interacting with potential mates as much as possible this will give you a huge boost in testosterone
- This would actually make it easier for you to succeed in the courting process with the added confidence and the improved physique and if you happen to get a girlfriend or boyfriend and you really like them then you can still maintain high levels of testosterone by using the other methods mentioned.