Testosterone is known as the chief male hormone. It’s usually associated with “being a man”, muscle gain, and general… manliness?

I often struggle to talk about testosterone in conventional ways and in terms of machismo because my interest and concern usually has to do with optimizing health and performance. While some woke-minded folks may say that testosterone is fueling machismo and ruining society, low levels of testosterone is associated with a plethora of health problems ranging from poor sexual health, decreased lean body mass (and an increase in fat), low energy levels, and even cognitive issues.

When you leave pop-culture pseudoscience and read into the true health implications of testosterone, you will figure out that low testosterone is a true problem with real consequences.

While testosterone levels are normally associated with male health and well-being, both males and females need healthy and balanced levels to maintain optimal health.

So, here are 5 ways to naturally increase your testosterone levels.

1. Get enough sleep

Sleep is going to remain a regular theme of this blog. It is the true foundation of your health, as all aspects of your life will be affected by the quality of your sleep. For a detailed look into the effects of sleep on your health, take a look here.

I don’t think it would take much to scare dudes who want to maintain optimal levels of testosterone. Just a week of poor sleep (5 hours or less) can lower your levels of testosterone by 10-15 percent. That is a drastic drop in terms of endocrine health.

Levels of T tend to drop by 1% each year after the age of 30 in both males and females. This means that if you don’t get enough sleep, you will have the levels of testosterone of someone 10-15 years older than yourself. Yikes!

2. Lift heavy weights regularly

It is well known that heavy resistance training increases levels of anabolic hormones including growth hormone and testosterone. This has been mostly observed in the short term (immediately after training) and speculated in the long term.

A bout of training increases the levels of serum testosterone. Back in the day, Eastern Block scientists found that on average, serum T peaks at about 27 minutes into a heavy workout and comes back down to baseline at about 42 minutes. Beyond that, it begins to drop below baseline. This is likely where the old adage of not working out past an hour came from. This acute increase in testosterone from lifting heavy weights has been reproduced and validated by modern studies.

In the long term, there is a bit more of a complicated relationship between heavy weight training and testosterone. Testosterone helps build muscle but also decreases body fat. Muscle is highly metabolic tissue, and more muscle will increase baseline metabolic rates, which will also help with burning fat. Decreasing levels of body fat will improve testosterone levels since fat tissue metabolizes testosterone into estrogen. Keep in mind that hormones have a push-pull relationship to each other. As estrogen levels increase, testosterone levels will decrease.

Put a stop to this endless cycle by making heavy weight lifting a part of your normal routine.

3. Get enough sunlight in the morning and supplement with vitamin D3

It is well documented that vitamin D deficiencies correlate very well to low testosterone. Studies that looked specifically at men who had both low testosterone and vitamin D deficiencies showed that testosterone levels returned to a healthy level after supplementing with vitamin D.

Supplementing with vitamin D3 and making sure your levels stay high can ensure that testosterone levels remain at healthy levels.

Surprisingly, sunlight and UV exposure and its correlation on testosterone levels is less documented (unless it’s that my researching skills have rusted over that much). There is an obscure article from UC San Diego that shows that bright light exposure (up to 1000 lux) early in the morning can significantly increase the levels of luteinizing hormone (up to 69%), which in turn can increase testosterone levels.

However, we can also make a few intuitive leaps here. It’s well documented that sun exposure in the early morning can help with maintaining normal circadian rhythms, which will in turn help with healthy testosterone levels. It’s also no mystery that sunlight exposure produces vitamin D in the body.

4. Control your stress levels

We all know there are two types of biological stressors. For the sake of simplicity, let’s just call it good stress and bad stress. Good stress includes things like exercise and events that urge our survival. Bad stress is more of the modern, chronic stress of work, family, societal, and emotional stress.

Stress is inevitable in life. In fact, low levels of stress is actually good for us. It’s been shown that exposure to low levels of stress can actually increase testosterone in men. However, it is the chronic stressors that lead to burnout that we need to watch out for.

Chronic stress has been associated with increased levels of cortisol, and chronically elevated levels of cortisol is not good for testosterone levels.

A few things to help you out… Go on vacation. Meditate. Exercise regularly. Make sure that you are socializing with people you enjoy and do things that you enjoy. And of course… get enough SLEEP.

5. Maintain good nutrition

This is a complicated one that can turn into an entire research paper on its own. This is due to the fact that diet and nutrition contain so many factors like style, macronutrient content, micronutrient content, timing, ketogenic diets, high fat diets, low fat diets, processed foods, vegan vs non-vegan… the variables are endless. However, there are a few things that we know for sure that we can start with.

• Excessive levels of body fat is associated with lower levels of testosterone due to the altered hormone profiles of these individuals. Fat tissue metabolizes testosterone into estrogen.
• Diets with high amounts of processed foods tend to lower testosterone levels.
• Extremely low fat diets tend to lower testosterone levels.
• Conversely, diets with high levels of fat tended to increase testosterone levels.
• Strict and extreme calorie restriction can lower testosterone levels.
• Alcohol abuse lowers testosterone levels, among many other health issues.

The bottomline here is going to be super boring…

Balance is key. Make sure you are consuming a diet that is mostly whole foods and limited in processed items. Don’t cut out a single micro or macro nutrient based on half-baked pseudoscience. Once a good and balanced plan is achieved that has enough calories to work towards the individual’s goals, small deviations or specific foods are likely to make insignificant changes to testosterone levels.

Wrapping Up

Low testosterone is not something anyone wants (except the excessively woke-minded). It can cause a plethora of health issues, and many of them can be easily avoided with simple habits.

Remember that with hormone health and general fitness and performance, small habits done consistently will have a much greater impact than grand gestures done once in a blue moon.

References

Leproult R, Van Cauter E. Effect of 1 week of sleep restriction on testosterone levels in young healthy men. JAMA. 2011;305(21):2173-2174. doi:10.1001/jama.2011.710

Vingren JL, Kraemer WJ, Ratamess NA, Anderson JM, Volek JS, Maresh CM. Testosterone physiology in resistance exercise and training: the up-stream regulatory elements. Sports Med. 2010;40(12):1037-1053. doi:10.2165/11536910-000000000-00000

Lee HK, Lee JK, Cho B. The role of androgen in the adipose tissue of males. World J Mens Health. 2013;31(2):136-140. doi:10.5534/wjmh.2013.31.2.136

De Pergola G. The adipose tissue metabolism: role of testosterone and dehydroepiandrosterone. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord. 2000;24 Suppl 2:S59-S63. doi:10.1038/sj.ijo.0801280

Nimptsch K, Platz EA, Willett WC, Giovannucci E. Association between plasma 25-OH vitamin D and testosterone levels in men. Clin Endocrinol (Oxf). 2012;77(1):106-112. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2265.2012.04332.x

Pilz S, Frisch S, Koertke H, et al. Effect of vitamin D supplementation on testosterone levels in men. Horm Metab Res. 2011;43(3):223-225. doi:10.1055/s-0030-1269854

University Of California, San Diego. “Bright Light Exposure Increases Male Hormone.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 April 2003. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/04/030421084040.htm>.

Brownlee KK, Moore AW, Hackney AC. Relationship between circulating cortisol and testosterone: influence of physical exercise. J Sports Sci Med. 2005;4(1):76-83. Published 2005 Mar 1.

Afrisham R, Sadegh-Nejadi S, SoliemaniFar O, et al. Salivary Testosterone Levels Under Psychological Stress and Its Relationship with Rumination and Five Personality Traits in Medical Students. Psychiatry Investig. 2016;13(6):637-643. doi:10.4306/pi.2016.13.6.637

Hu TY, Chen YC, Lin P, et al. Testosterone-Associated Dietary Pattern Predicts Low Testosterone Levels and Hypogonadism. Nutrients. 2018;10(11):1786. Published 2018 Nov 16. doi:10.3390/nu10111786

Wilson JM, Lowery RP, Roberts MD, et al. Effects of Ketogenic Dieting on Body Composition, Strength, Power, and Hormonal Profiles in Resistance Training Men. J Strength Cond Res. 2020;34(12):3463-3474. doi:10.1519/JSC.0000000000001935