Neuroscientist: Increase Testosterone PERMANENTLY in Minutes | Andrew Huberman

poor efficiency of breathing leads to buildup of carbon dioxide which then decrease testosterone in negative ways get your breathing right it reduces apnea has positive cosmetic effects it increases lung capacity which allows you to produce more testosterone in the proper ratios the effects of apnea on these hormones are dramatic and terrible and the positive effects of getting breathing right on these hormones are dramatic and wonderful we have to be breathing properly one of the main behaviors that's been shown to be associated with lower levels of testosterone is apnea apnea has everything to do with under

breathing and the buildup of too much carbon dioxide in the body there are other effects of apnea as well but if there's a consistent literature in this whole story about aging and reductions in hormones and General Health and reductions in hormones it's apnea in every case you could find multiple papers that showed that apnea or poor efficiency of breathing and buildup of too much carbon dioxide in the body was a problem mostly sleep apnea although apnea in general was shown to be an issue negatively impacting hormones now that was true for males and females but

what's really interesting is that there are very clear ways in which patterns of breathing especially patterns of breathing in sleep can modulate hormones in ways that are immediately actionable and can serve to optimize both estrogen and testosterone regardless of whether or not you have ovaries or testes so what is apnea apnea is under breathing or mainly cessation of breathing during sleep so people are holding their breath and then they they'll suddenly wake up actually I've talked about the physiological sigh on previous episodes of this podcast of this pattern of double inhales followed by exhales that

one can do consciously to reduce stress and anxiety and offload carbon dioxide that pattern of breathing is actually what kicks in spontaneously anytime we have an apnea episode in sleep although in many people who have apnea they don't engage the physiological sigh people who are dramatically overweight also suffer a lot from apnea during sleep there's actually a lot of buildup of carbon dioxide in the body and that can lead to excessive sleepiness during the day inability to access the deeper phases of sleep and it's well established that going into deep sleep and getting the proper

patterns of slow wave sleep and REM sleep are important for hormone optimization but the issue of breathing itself can be adjusted in the daytime waking hours in ways that can powerfully impact both sleep reduce incidents of sleep apnea and apparently from some emerging literature can also help to optimize various hormones even just by breathing in particular ways while awake so here's how this works there's now a lot of literature showing that breathing through the nose not through the mouth is powerful for for improving lots of things first of all it improves cosmetic features of the

jaw and face this was first well established by my colleagues at Stanford in a book called Jaws the story of a hidden epidemic this is by Sandra Khan and Paul Erick who are both faculty at Stanford has a forward by Robert spolski the great Robert spolski and it also has a heavy endorsement up front by Jared Diamond the author of Guns Germs and Steel the pulit are winner so a lot of Heavy Hitters on this book Jaws it's not a book that a lot of people know about unfortunately but it really describes the benefits of

nasal breathing and the terrible things that happen when people in particular children but adults also are heavy mouth breathers so mouth breathers have changes in the Cosmetics that their face and jaw that are really bad um in terms of attractiveness and this was done in twin studies you can look in the book and see some of this it's really dramatic how being a mouth breather tends to make the chin drop back be behind the upper mandible there's a lengthen pinning in the face a drooping of the eyes it can be quite dramatic or modest depending

on how much mouth breathing now sometimes we have to breathe with our mouths but there's also a lot of data and studies described in this book Jaws that describe how nose breathing in wakefulness and in sleep promotes all sorts of positive things related to not just Cosmetics but also the Improvement of gas exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the body and as well it can modify level of different neurotransmitters and neuromodulators in ways that positively can impact hormones so believe it or not being a nasal breather and avoiding being a mouth breather can actually

positively impact hormones and in particular the hormones testosterone and estrogen although the way that it does that is by making you a better sleeper which allows you to produce more testosterone so what does this all mean this means we have to be breathing properly it almost sounds kind of uh you know uh like kind of new Agy like oh you have to breathe properly to get your hormones right but no you have to breathe properly to get your breathing and sleep right so that your sleep can actually be deep enough and you're not entering apnea

States and then that will support gonad function and I wouldn't be putting this out as one of the main behavioral tools up front if it weren't for the fact that the effects of apnea on these hormones are dramatic and terrible and the positive effects of getting breathing right on these hormones testosterone and estrogen are dramatic and wonder wonderful and the way that it works is very interesting apparently it works by reductions in cortisol now cortisol is a stress hormone that is released early in the day as we wake up and serves healthy roles in protecting

us against infection reducing inflammation Etc but you don't want cortisol to be too high and you certainly don't want it elevated too long throughout the day and night and so we all know because now we've been told a lot in the last decade or so that getting proper sleep is important for all these aspects of Health getting proper sleep can um really offset all the reductions in testosterone and estrogen and reductions in fertility that occur if we don't get enough sleep so the simple version of this is getting your breathing right during the waking hours

meaning primarily unless you're working out really hard or there's some other reason why you're maybe eating or speaking that you need to be breathing through your mouth you should be a nose breather there's really good evidence for that now and in sleep you also want to be a nose breather because that's going to increase the amount of oxygen that you're bringing into your system and the amount of carbon dioxide that you're offloading there are other positive effects of it as well but you're basically reducing apnea breath holding in sleep leads to buildup of carbon dioxide

and leads to increases in cortisol which then decrease testosterone and decrease estrogen in negative ways across all Sexes okay so the simple version of this is get your breathing right so how do you do that how do you get your breathing right well for some people that have severe sleep apnea they're going to need the CPAP machine this is a machine that you actually put on your face and it helps you breathe properly and sleep many people however are starting to do this thing of taping their mouth shut now this sounds a little bit extreme

you certainly don't want to uh do this in any way that's dangerous James Nester talked about this in his book um breath the new science of a lost art that simply taping shut the mouth with some tape that uh will allow you to open your mouth if you really need to during sleep can allow people to shift over from being mouth breathers and snorers uh to nose breathers in the daytime the best way to get good at nasal breathing is to dilate the nasal passages because a lot of people have a hard time breathing through

their nose and one way to do this is to just breathe through your nose more and one way to do that is that when you exercise in particular cardiovascular exercise most of the time provided you're not in maximum effort you should be nasal breathing now for a lot of people nasal breathing during exercise is hard at first but as you do it because the sinuses have a capacity to dilate over time you'll get better at it the sinuses um if you haven't ever held a skull I've for because of my job as a neuroscientist I've

held a lot of skulls taking a lot of brains out of a lot of skulls um teach herur anatomy and have done that for goodness uh God knows how many species I've done that for including human but what the sinuses are is they're actually what you've got are you got these little portals in the bone that run you know up here and down here behind the behind the nose and into the jaw if you ever had a cold in your sinuses are stuffed up you feel like you have congestion here and here and around your

ears and in your cheeks and in your face and that's because the sinuses are actually portals where the bones are are fused together kind of interdigitated like this but they're lined of course with mucus membranes and as you start to nasal breathe more the nasal passages will start to dilate more don't worry you're not going to get giant nostrils but what's going to end up happening is you're going to have an easier time breathing through your nose just from waking so my advice would be breathe through your nose while exercising unless you're in maximum effort

pretty soon what you'll find is you actually can create more output than you would if you breathing through your mouth and of course there are exceptions to this if you're swimming follow that breath protocol for Fighters and martial artists there's reason to do the kind of exhale breathing through the mouth the sh kind of thing you know there are reasons to do that sort of thing for particular sports but for most people who are kind of recreational athletes or exercisers learn to be a nasal breather has positive cosmetic effects it reduces apnea it offloads carbon

dioxide it increases lung capacity it dilates the sinuses and it prevents apnea in sleep so unless you have severe apnea and you need the CPAP Nas becoming a nasal breather can have all sorts of positive effects by reducing cortisol reducing apnea and indirectly raising testosterone and estrogen in the proper [Music] ratios [Music]