When considering ways to increase testosterone naturally, people often focus on your diet, lifting weights and supplements. What people don’t tend to focus on or even consider effecting their testosterone levels are the chemicals they are exposed to on a daily basis and how a lack of rest effects testosterone production.
In this article we’re going to look at how ensuring you get enough rest is one of the “unsung” ways to increase testosterone 
naturally. If you want to see more about how chemicals (in shower gels, shampoos, toothpaste etc.) lower your testosterone production, I advise checking out this article on Things That Lower Testosterone – What to Avoid – In this article, we will be covering why getting enough rest is one of the ways to increase testosterone naturally and how this can be accomplished, as it may not be quite as obvious as you think!
Why Getting Enough Rest Is One Of The More Effective Ways To Increase Testosterone Naturally
Getting enough rest is one of the key ways to increase testosterone naturally for two main reasons. These are the majority of testosterone is actually released in to your body while you sleep and when you don’t rest your body enough you go in to a state of stress.
Your body releasing testosterone while you sleep is fairly self-explanatory, you obviously need to make sure you get enough sleep and that it is of high quality. Ideally you also want to be asleep by 11 in PM, as this is approximately when the main hormone release takes place. In terms of testosterone production and your health as a whole, I recommend 7 – 9 hours of sleep each night, in regard to ensuring you get this volume and that is of high enough quality, as I mentioned above I will be covering at a high level some methods to achieve this. I’m also going to be publishing an article going in to ways to improve sleep in some depth, so keep an eye out for that!
In regard to getting enough rest as an aside to sleep, this is a bit more complicated. So when your body becomes “exhausted” or is tired out too much, your body goes in to a state of stress. This stress leads to the release of cortisol, this is an issue as cortisol production inhibits testosterone production. This is why making sure you get enough rest is important, it stops the body going in to a state of stress, which is vital as far as T production is concerned.
How To Get A Better Nights Sleep
- Increase sunlight/ bright light exposure during the day
- Reduce/ Eliminate Light Exposure while trying to sleep
- Reduce Exposure to blue light (light from mobiles, computers, TV’s etc.) throughout the day/ before bed
- Have a cool room temperature/ sleeping conditions
- Take supplements that aid with sleep
- Reduce the effects of snoring/ sleep apnoea
I’ve listed some ways you can get a better nights sleep, this isn’t an exhaustive list and I have’t gone in to great details, as I’ll soon be publishing an article focused purely ways you can improve your nights sleep. The key take away is to aim for 7 – 9 hours per day and ideally be asleep by 11, as that is when the main release of hormones takes place. If you want to see some tools/ products that can aid with reducing light exposure and snoring, check out this other article on Ways To Increase Testosterone Naturally
Other Ways To Avoid Exhaustion
There are other ways to avoid “exhaustion” and your body reaching that point of stress, not all of them are necessarily going to be relevant to you as they are “situational” but have a read and see which ones apply to you.
- Have down time from work and stressful situations (at least one day a week)
- Swap out steady state cardio for HIIT (high intensity interval training)
- Allow ample rest times between weight lifting sets (2 minutes plus)
- Have at least one rest day a week from resistance training
- Avoid working out to the point of failure
- Try to keep each work out below an hour
As I’m sure you will have noticed, most the things that lead to exhaustion mentioned in this list relate to the gym. This is because a lot of people who workout aim to increase their testosterone production but the irony is their gym efforts are potentially lowering T and in some cases quite severely and lower T will lead to reduced muscle mass gains and fat loss. I’ve done a couple of articles looking at the relationship between Testosterone And Muscle Building and the Best Ways To Increase Testosterone Naturally Weight Lifting so give them a read!
The main take away from this article should be, that essentially any scenario where you deprive your body of suitable rest leads to it going in to a state of stress, this leads to the release of cortisol which inhibits testosterone production. Whether you are constantly working, working out to exhaustion, not taking time to just rest, this all leads to the body being stressed, which means lowered T.
Final Thoughts & Future Articles
I hope you have found this article useful and understand why making sure the body is suitably rested is one of the more effective ways to increase testosterone naturally. As I mentioned above I’ll be publishing an article specifically looking at ways to improve your sleep volume and quality, so keep an eye out for that in the near future. If you have any queries in regard to this article, ways to increase testosterone naturally or just on testosterone as a whole, just drop me a comment below and I’ll get back to you.
