How to Increase Testosterone for Optimal Performance

When it comes to testosterone, it’s more than just a hormone that helps with your sex drive. It helps your heart make new red blood cells, increases blood flow, promotes bone growth and density, increases muscle mass, aids in distribution of fat around the body, and other processes in the body [1].

It’s important to understand how you can increase your levels naturally. Here are 4 tips on how to naturally increase your testosterone levels for optimal performance.

Catching Those Quality ZZZ’s

In order for your hormones to be balanced properly, you’ll need to ensure you’re getting enough quality sleep each night. When it comes to testosterone and sleep, there may be a correlation. In fact, one study took data on over 2,000 teenage boys and men and found that impaired sleep was linked to lower levels of testosterone [2].

While there is no magic number for how many hours you should sleep, there was a small study that showed only sleeping five hours per night reduced testosterone by 10-15%, so we definitely recommend more than that [3]. Most research suggests at least seven hours of sleep per night, so make sure to aim for that severe to eight-hour mark [4].

A Balanced Plate

What you eat and the quantity also plays a role in testosterone production. It is important to remember that constant dieting can negatively affect your hormone levels including testosterone [5].

Instead, you want to make sure you are properly balancing your macronutrients (proteins, carbs, and fats). Protein helps limit sex hormone-binding globulin and when you limit this, it helps your body produce more free testosterone to do its job [6]. Carbohydrates help play a role in controlling cortisol levels which affects testosterone. In a small study, researchers found that low-carbohydrate diets do negatively affect cortisol and testosterone levels [7]. As for fats, there is some research that shows low fat diets can lead to decreased testosterone [8].

At the end of the day, you want to have a nutritious, well balanced diet consisting mainly of whole foods. A healthy balance of your macronutrients will help ensure your hormone levels are optimized for performance and support overall health.

Loosen Up

Stop stressing! When it comes to testosterone levels, stress can have quite a large impact. We’ve mentioned it before, but cortisol levels and testosterone have a direct correlation. When you have a lot of stress, especially prolonged amounts, it diminishes your testosterone levels [9].

Not only does stress impact cortisol levels, but it also causes other behaviors like increased food intake. Like mentioned above, you want to have a well balanced diet. If you increase food intake excessively, you will gain fat, especially around your organs. These factors could also negatively affect your testosterone levels [10]

Move and Pick Up The Weights

Last but not certainly not least, you need to move. Studies show that active men compared to sedentary men have higher testosterone levels [11]. What training should you do and how intense? It depends. In one review, they studied these questions and the effects on testosterone. While more studies need to be done, it does show the majority of any exercise and training intensity does raise testosterone levels [12].

Now, there are studies out there that show resistance training like weightlifting can have a remarkably positive effect on testosterone [13]. Because of this, it is recommended that you do some type of resistance training if you’re looking to increase testosterone and optimize your performance.

Knowing Where You Are

While you can follow these 4 tips and assume your testosterone levels are where they need to be. You will not truly know unless you get tested. Luckily, we have LetsGetChecked’s male hormone tests. Want to know the best things about these tests? You can complete them from the comfort of your home, you get results within 2-5 days of shipping it back, and they have follow-up care available. Go check them out now and don’t forget to use BODYBUILDING25 for a little extra savings.

References

https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/24101-testosterone
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30225799/
https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/1029127
https://www.dovepress.com/sleeping-hours-what-is-the-ideal-number-and-how-does-age-impact-this-peer-reviewed-fulltext-article-NSS
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/13/10/3375/htm
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10634401/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35254136/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0960076021000716
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0018506X16301775
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/oby.21790
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22234399/
https://www.mdpi.com/2411-5142/5/4/81/htm
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28224307/