In this episode 37 protocols
▶ 13:58 Consult an endocrinologist for hormone testing Behaviors “if you want to examine your hormones, you should do that in conjunction with a medical doctor, ideally, an endocrinologist can help you sort out that information,” ▷ 20:18 Competition Behaviors “however, in the short term, just competing increases testosterone independent of whether or not you win or lose, so the short version of this is that competition increases testosterone,” ▷ 25:10 Sex Behaviors “whereas when people participated in sex, so they actually did this study where people had blood draws and they had real sex with their partners, and they had 70% increases in testosterone,” ▷ 26:04 Abstinence from ejaculation Behaviors “however, abstinence or sex without ejaculation for a week or more will increase testosterone levels up to 400%, so the answer is actually complicated,” ▷ 27:54 DHEA Supplements “DHEA will increase both testosterone and estrogen, and the extent to which it increases one or the other will depend on whether or not you're starting off with more estrogen than testosterone or whether or not you're starting off with more testosterone than estrogen and whether or not you have a lot of aromatase,” ▷ 44:12 Address sleep apnea Behaviors “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.” ▷ 46:16 Physiological Sigh Behaviors “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,” ▷ 46:54 Optimize sleep Behaviors “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.” ▷ 47:45 Nasal Breathing Behaviors “there's now a lot of literature showing that breathing through the nose, not through the mouth, is powerful for improving lots of things,” ▷ 53:05 CPAP Machine Tools “Well, for some people that have severe sleep apnea, they are going to need the CPAP machine, this is a machine that you actually put on your face and it helps you breathe properly in sleep.” ▷ 1:02:09 Morning and Daytime Light Exposure Behaviors “but it means getting anywhere from 2 to 10 minutes of bright light exposure in your eyes early in the day,” ▷ 1:02:22 Bright Artificial Light Tools “if you can't get sunlight for whatever reason, you want to use bright artificial light, but that is absolutely critical for timing the cortisol release properly,” ▷ 1:02:39 Avoid bright light exposure in the middle of the night Behaviors “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,” ▷ 1:11:44 Deliberate Cold Exposure Behaviors “so the most plausible explanation for why cold exposure, either through 1 to 10-minute ice bath or cold shower or the ice underpants thing, would increase testosterone or increase estrogen” ▷ 1:11:44 Ice Bath Tools “so the most plausible explanation for why cold exposure, either through 1 to 10-minute ice bath or cold shower or the ice underpants thing, would increase testosterone or increase estrogen” ▷ 1:17:57 Heavy Resistance Training Behaviors “what you find is that heavy weight training, but not weight training to failure where completion of a repetition is impossible, leads to the greatest increases in testosterone.” ▷ 1:22:50 High-Intensity Interval Training Behaviors “and it's very clear that high-intensity interval training, sprinting et cetera, which somewhat mimics the neural activity that occurs while moving heavy weight loads, is going to increase testosterone” ▷ 1:23:06 Limit endurance exercise to 75 minutes or less Behaviors “and that endurance exercise that extends beyond 75 minutes is going to start to lead to reductions in testosterone, presumably by increases in cortisol,” ▷ 1:26:32 Supplemental Estrogen Therapy Supplements “one of the most common ones is that physicians will prescribe supplemental estrogen, so this is hormone therapy where somebody takes either their oral estrogen or they'll use a patch or a pellet, some way to secrete estradiol into the system,” ▷ 1:29:42 Black Cohosh Supplements “and almost all of them lead to modest increases in estrogen and modest decreases in menopause-related symptoms.” ▷ 1:30:28 Panax Ginseng Supplements “The other one is Panax ginseng, so P-N-A-A-X ginseng, has been shown to decrease some symptoms associated with menopause, mostly related to libido, although the other effects were unreliable.” ▷ 1:30:41 Maca Supplements “Other things, like maca, which is known to increase dopamine actually, had minor effects,” ▷ 1:30:46 Valeriana officinalis Supplements “things like Valeriana officinalis has shown that there can be some improvement in the hot flash symptoms and some of the insomnia associated with that, so that might be worth exploring,” ▷ 1:31:26 Pueraria mirifica Supplements “and there are four studies on this compound that show, in every case, it to be very potent, in fact, comparable to estrogen therapy, estrogen replacement therapy, in reducing the symptoms of menopause,” ▷ 1:33:39 Magnesium Supplements “it's very clear that certain collections of nutrients are useful for promoting testosterone and estrogen production in their proper ratios, and those things are what I would call the sort of usual suspects, vitamin D, which is important for so many biological functions, including endocrine functions, zinc, magnesium, et cetera,” ▷ 1:33:39 Zinc Supplements “it's very clear that certain collections of nutrients are useful for promoting testosterone and estrogen production in their proper ratios, and those things are what I would call the sort of usual suspects, vitamin D, which is important for so many biological functions, including endocrine functions, zinc, magnesium, et cetera,” ▷ 1:33:39 Vitamin D Supplements “it's very clear that certain collections of nutrients are useful for promoting testosterone and estrogen production in their proper ratios, and those things are what I would call the sort of usual suspects, vitamin D, which is important for so many biological functions, including endocrine functions,” ▷ 1:35:29 Get blood work done Behaviors “And that's why I'm a proponent of getting blood work done because that's how you know whether or not your androgen levels, as well as things like vitamin D levels, et cetera, are sufficiently high,” ▷ 1:35:40 Ensure adequate zinc, magnesium, and D3 intake Diet “the takeaway from these studies looking at what deficiencies cause in terms of deficits in testosterone and estrogen really point in the direction of, make sure you're getting adequate zinc, magnesium, and D3 unless you want these steroid hormone levels to be reduced for whatever reason.” ▷ 1:36:09 Avoid opioids Behaviors “but the opioids dramatically reduce levels of testosterone and estrogen, and they do that mainly by disrupting the receptors on gonadotropin-releasing hormone neurons,” ▷ 1:38:48 Creatine Supplements “One of the ones that has really good evidence for it is creatine, it's very clear that something about creatine, although the mechanism isn't exactly clear, either increases 5-alpha reductase or makes the testosterone molecule more susceptible to certain enzymatic reactions that leads to increases in DHT,” ▷ 1:42:17 Tongkat Ali Supplements “this has been shown in several studies, and you can find these on examine.com, or you can go to PubMed if you like, I've looked at these, that it does seem to have some pro-fertility, pro-free testosterone, and subtle aphrodisiac effects, it does also seem to be a slight anti-estrogen,” ▷ 1:43:25 Stinging Nettle Supplements “one of the things that's been purported to free up testosterone in the blood are things like nettles, stinging nettles, although I should point out that the literature points to stinging nettle also having some fairly potent effects on the prostate and on the liver,” ▷ 1:43:51 Boron Supplements “that boron, there's some scientific support for it freeing up more testosterone, and again, freeing up testosterone may be exactly what you want,” ▷ 1:52:14 hCG Supplements “and the prescription version of increasing luteinizing hormone is something called hCG, or human chorionic gonadotropin, which has been synthesized and is now available as a prescription drug, it's taken in various contexts for increasing fertility both by males and by females,” ▷ 1:54:32 Fadogia agrestis Supplements “and one of the more well-documented one is Fadogia agrestis, that's F-A-D-O-G-I-A, separate word, A-G-R-E-S-T-I-S, which, at least according to the literature that I was able to find, can increase levels of luteinizing hormone and thereby levels of testosterone or levels of estrogen,” ▷ 1:56:51 Monitor hormones when modifying them Behaviors “and blood draws are one way to do that, monitoring cycles for ovulating females is another way to do that,”