Neuroscientist: "TRIPLE Your Testosterone Levels" | Andrew Huberman

the major effect of testosterone is to make effort feel good that's what testosterone does the real question is are you enjoying what you're doing when effort feels good life just gets way better so there's something about these molecules that in an ancient way are linked to the will to live they're linked to effort and making effort feel good that's the Holy Grail there's a very interesting relationship between testosterone and dopamine so dopamine and testosterone are closely related in the pituitary system and obviously uh testosterone comes from the adrenals and from the testes but the the

major effect of testosterone is to make effort feel good that's what testosterone does it has other effects too right reproductive effects androgenization parts of the body Etc but it makes effort feel good the testosterone molecule is synthesized from cholesterol cholesterol ol can either be made into cortisol a stress hormone or testosterone but not both so you have a a limited amount of cholesterol and it gets diverted towards stress or this pathway where effort feels good mhm that's the pathway you want to get into the anger pathway if we were to just kind of play a

mind experiment here the anger eventually is going to divert more of that cholesterol molecule to cortisol and stress and you will be slowly depleting testosterone now going into this you'll have plenty of testosterone but after a couple days there have been very interesting studies showing that testosterone doesn't necessarily drop with sleep deprivation that's a bit of a myth the real question is are you enjoying what you're doing if you can just convince yourself or ideally if you can just enjoy yourself you are going to maintain or maybe even increase testosterone stores which will make effort

feel good and to me aside from neuroplasticity where everything becomes automatic after this experience to me that's the Holy Grail when effort feels good life just gets way better and we're not talking about achieving the reward I'm not talking about the end of this thing I'm talking about the process of it feeling really good and so there's something about these molecules that in an ancient way in all organisms all mammals as far as we know are linked to the will to live they're linked to effort and making effort feel good which has been fundamental to

the evolution of our species I always say people think that the opposite of testosterone is estrogen but it's not the opposite of testosterone is Prolactin which makes us feel quiescent and not in pursuit of things Etc testosterone makes effort feel good estrogen makes emotions feel okay so it is the case that increases in testosterone promote competitive and foraging type behaviors in in humans and in non-human mammals but it's also true that competition itself can increase Androgen such as testosterone 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 but seldom is it discussed how sleep actually adjusts things like testosterone and estrogen 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 decreases testosterone and decrease estrogen in negative ways across all Sexes okay so the simple version of this is get your breathing right and

many of you have heard me talk about this before and I'm not going to belabor the point that viewing Bright Light Within the first hour of waking whether or not it's from artificial light or ideally from sunlight has these powerful effects on sleep and wakefulness this translates to the protocol of if you want to optimize testosterone and estrogen you need to get your light viewing Behavior correct it's not just about optimizing your sleep which is also important it's about getting sufficient amount of light in your eyes so you have sufficient levels of dopamine so the

simple protocols for that I've reviewed before but it means getting anywhere from 2 to 10 minutes of bright light exposure in your eyes early in the day it is not sufficient to do this with sunglasses unless you have to do that for safety reasons it's fine to where prescription lenses in contacts if you can't get sunlight for whatever reason you want to use bright artificial light the other aspect of light viewing Behavior that's extremely important is to avoid bright light exposure to your eyes in the middle of the night if you're viewing bright light in

the middle of the night you are suppressing dopamine release if you're suppressing dopamine release you are suppressing testosterone levels heavy weight training but not weight training to failure where completion of a repetition is impossible but where basically people are working at anywhere from like 70% to 95% of their maximum or sometimes even going right down to their one repetition maximum leads to the greatest increases in testosterone there's clearly a influence of hard work at the neural level and then at the muscular level for increasing testosterone so now let's talk about the role of specific compounds

some of which many of which can be taken in supplementation form or extracted from diet and nutrition in order to optimize sex steroid hormones and again I just want to emphasize that I'm not suggesting anyone take anything or stop taking anything this is purely for informational purposes but some of the data on these is quite striking and impressive it's very clear that vitamin D which is important for so many biological functions including endocrine functions zinc magnesium creatine it's very clear that something about creatine although the mechanism isn't exactly clear either increases five Alpha reductase or

makes the testosterone molecule more susceptible to certain en enzymatic reactions that leads to increases in DHT DHT dihydrotestosterone it has this dramatic role in creating a a a kind of masculinization of the brain prenatally it also U defines the primary sex characteristic of the growth of the penis Etc and Beyond infancy and early childhood and later in life it has powerful effects in creating balding in beard growth Etc and it has a much higher affinity for the androgen receptor then does testosterone there are a few other things that can increase testosterone in particular Tonga Ali

and another one which is very interesting it's a Nigerian shrub called fogia agrestis and it mimics luteinizing hormone which is the hormone that comes out of the hypothalamus that stimulates the testes if you got those and the ovaries if you've got those to make more testosterone or estrogen and so those two herbal supplements together can give a significant boost in free an active testosterone you said Tong God Ali can give you 100 to 200 what does the other one give you fogia is usually taken at about 600 milligrams um and that can the the most

dramatic effect I've ever seen with somebody who had his testosterone down in the low twos or I think it was like low twos and it he got it up to the 700 range which but that's but that's an outlier right most people are going to see about a 3 to 400 Point increase and that's what the two of them synergistically FIA will actually make the testes grow it's a noticeable difference so everybody wants [Music] that