I’ve been writing about testosterone on this site for over a decade because testosterone is an important part of a man’s overall health and wellness. It helps with strength and muscle mass, strengthens your bones, improves your sexual health, and boosts your mood.
You’ll find a lot of information out there on the interwebs about how to increase your testosterone naturally. Cold showers, taking testosterone-boosting supplements, and even exposing your balls to red light.
But after talking to experts on the podcast about testosterone and reading a ton of research on the topic, the conclusion I’ve come to is this: hormone health comes down to consistently doing the boring stuff.
Several years ago, I spoke with fitness coach Vic Verdier on the podcast about how men can combat the fall-off in vitality that can come with aging, including the natural decline in testosterone. His answer was taking care of the fundamentals.
Vic uses an acronym he calls SEEDS to capture the basics of what you need to do to keep your T-levels healthy. It stands for Sleep, Exercise, Environment, Diet, and Stress.
Let’s talk about each of the testosterone-improving components of the SEEDS framework:
Sleep
A large portion of daily testosterone production happens during sleep. So if your sleep consistently sucks, your testosterone drops. When researchers at the University of Chicago restricted young men to five hours of sleep a night for one week, their testosterone levels fell 10-15%. Aim for 6.5 to 9 hours a night.
If you’re looking for ways you can improve your sleep, check out these AoM articles and podcast episodes:
- What Every Man Should Know About Sleep
- 22 Ways to Get a Better Night’s Sleep
- 45 Tips — That You Haven’t Heard a Million Times Before — to Improve Your Sleep
- What to Do When You Can’t Sleep
- How to Fall Asleep in 2 Minutes or Less
- The Importance of Building Your Daily Sleep Pressure
- Podcast #661: Get Better Sleep by Stressing About It Less
- Podcast #1,055: Sleep Like a Caveman
Exercise
Exercise helps to boost testosterone by increasing muscle mass and decreasing body fat. Carrying around too much body fat isn’t good for T because body fat converts testosterone into estrogen; the less fat we store, the more T we have.
Two forms of exercise are particularly helpful for increasing testosterone. The first is lifting heavy weights with compound lifts that target large muscle groups, such as the squat, deadlift, and shoulder press, and taking adequate rest between sets. The second is HIIT or “High Intensity Interval Training,” which calls for short, intense bursts of effort, followed by periods of less-intense recovery.
But beyond regimented exercise, Vic recommends just staying active throughout the day. Your body wasn’t designed to do 45 minutes of structured exercise while being parked in a chair for the other 15 waking hours. Walk. Do yard work. Play catch with your kids. All those little “movement snacks” can keep your body running like a finely tuned machine, including the parts that manage hormones.
Environment
Vic’s specific point here is about sunshine and vitamin D, which is closely linked to testosterone production. If you’re spending most of your waking hours under fluorescent lights and only seeing the sun through your windshield on the commute, you’re probably falling short. So get outside more. Eat lunch in the sun. Take your phone calls on a walk. If you live somewhere that gets dark for months during the winter, use some tactics to get more sun during this cold and dreary season. It may be worth supplementing with vitamin D3. But actual sunlight on your skin is the goal.
Besides helping with vitamin D production, getting outside can also help manage stress, which, as we’ll see in a second, is another important factor in hormone health.
Another factor to think about when it comes to your environment and healthy testosterone levels is to make sure you’re not bathing in T-killing chemicals. Pesticides and industrial chemicals can dampen testosterone (and can cause cancer), so definitely limit your exposure to that stuff. Wash produce thoroughly, eat/drink from glass or stainless steel containers when possible, and limit use of products with heavy chemical fragrances or pesticides around the home.
You also want to reduce your exposure to xenoestrogens that are found in a lot of consumer products. Xenoestrogen is a chemical that imitates estrogen in the human body. When men are exposed to too much of this estrogen-imitating chemical, T levels can drop. The problem is xenoestrogen is freaking everywhere — plastics, shampoos, gasoline, cows, toothpaste. You name it, and there’s a good chance there’s xenoestrogen in it. I wouldn’t spend too much mental bandwidth trying to buy products that are completely xenoestrogen-free. Just don’t microwave your food in plastic containers and don’t lick your CVS receipts, and you’ll probably be fine.
Diet
You don’t need to do any special T-boosting diets like eating Ron Swanson amounts of eggs or consuming three Brazil nuts before you go to bed because the selenium will boost testosterone production while you sleep.
Just eat a balanced and varied diet. Get enough protein. Get enough carbs to fuel workouts. Get a moderate amount of fat for hormone health. Research suggests that about 20% to 40% of your calories should come from fat for healthy testosterone levels. Eat plenty of fruits and vegetables to get the micronutrients your body needs for hormones. If your diet is solid, you’ll probably have no reason to supplement.
Diet can also help with fat loss, which will help reduce estrogen and increase T. For help with nutrition, check out these articles and podcast episodes:
- How I Used the AoM Podcast to Lose 20 Pounds in 3 Months
- How to Eat What You Want and Still Lose Weight
- Podcast #1,011: Lose Weight and Keep It Off With Flexible Dieting
- Podcast #721: The Psychology of Effective Weight Loss
- Podcast #636: Why You Overeat and What to Do About It
- Podcast #475: How to Lose Weight, and Keep It Off Forever
Stress
Cortisol and testosterone compete for resources in your body. When cortisol is jacked up all the time from work, doomscrolling, or a schedule crammed too full, testosterone suffers. I think managing stress is particularly important for guys in their 30s, 40s, and 50s who are running hard and wondering why they feel depleted. Vic’s prescription is to build a life with some margin. Give yourself some time to chill the heck out. Take up a hobby. Become a cinephile. Download the Headspace app and meditate if you have to. Getting better sleep will also help with stress, so make that a priority.
None of these are exotic interventions for boosting T-levels. They don’t require a lot of time or money or exposing your balls to red light. Do them consistently, and your hormone health should be fine.
But…
If you’re doing all of this consistently and you still have symptoms of low T (low energy, brain fog, declining strength, low libido, low motivation), get your levels checked and talk to a doctor about whether testosterone replacement therapy makes sense. But make it the last option, not the first. Get the basics right and your body will usually handle the rest.
More testosterone-related AoM podcast episodes:
For more tips on maintaining your edge as you age, listen to our whole podcast with Vic Verdier:
