(Breather) We’re wrapping up with the final, fourth part of this series by focusing on stress, sex, and biohacks for increasing testosterone.

STRESS.

Reducing stress is crucial, as too much of it (negative stress, as opposed to challenge-related stress) or worrying will depress the immune system and reduce testosterone production. In fact, when Dr. Ron Sinha was on the show, he said that FOMO (fear of missing out) actually has metabolic consequences! Try to get away from depressive and anxiety-inducing thoughts simply by calling them out – Dr. Ron even suggests saying out loud, “There I go ruminating again!” to yourself, just to make sure you can catch the moment you start to spiral into a loop of thinking and worrying about past or future events. Think of it this way: when cortisol (the flight or fight hormone) is regulated, that gives testosterone a fighting chance at becoming optimized. Cortisol and testosterone antagonize each other, so monitoring your stress is key because when you have high cortisol levels, nothing you do to help regulate your testosterone will work.

Show guest John Gray, author of Men are From Mars and Women Are From Venus, says that males should try their best not to get out of their calm, cool, and collected default mindset. A female’s “deepest biological drive” is to feel safe and protected by her male partner. The dominant male biological drive is, unsurprisingly, to be that hero and keep their partner safe and protected. But, as John notes, while our culture and society has changed greatly since our early days as humans, our biology has not changed. So now, females need to be primarily protected from their partner’s anger, not other, external sources of environmental danger. And how do you protect females from your own anger? How do you avoid those terrible fights that seem to spring out of the smallest issue and stop your relationship from becoming a war zone?

SEX. 

Here’s the deal: having a healthy sex life can either boost or trash your testosterone – it all depends on how you do it. Frequent sex is a good idea, as it is healthy and can boost testosterone. From a physiological perspective, having sex increases testosterone levels, which promote libido, strength, energy, aggression, and competitiveness. From a relationship perspective, it helps you feel bonded and connected to your partner, and also creates a positive feedback loop, because high sexual frequency creates higher desire.

German scientists actually found that having sex or even just having an erection causes your circulating testosterone to rise significantly – and having one in the morning can goose your natural post-dawn testosterone surge.

However, keep in mind that an excess of anything can have harmful effects. There is a big discussion about whether too frequent ejaculation is healthy in the long term, something John Gray also brought up during our conversation, as there is compelling authority that ejaculation control and discipline improves men’s health, vigor, longevity, and sexual vitality.

A study done in Japan and published by the US National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health found that after 7 days of not ejaculating, men’s testosterone levels reached 145.7% of the baseline. The interesting thing is that they didn’t observe significant fluctuations from the baseline on days 2 through 5. The research also showed that the peak levels were at day 7.

Also, after ejaculation, John Gray suggests males actually get up and leave their partners in order to take time for themselves and engage in problem-solving or challenging activities, which actually boost testosterone.

BIOHACKS FOR INCREASING TESTOSTERONE

1. Cold thermogenesis: Invest in a chest freezer or start by taking some cold showers. Make sure to keep your testes cool; wearing loose clothing helps. Dr. Oz suggests sleeping naked!
2. Red light therapy: There’s tons of science (as well as years of use in beauty salons) that back up just how amazing red light therapy is for regenerating skin. It also increases cellular activity in the testicles. Be sure to get a 650nm red laser light, and that it doesn’t get the testes hot! You only need to do this for 10-20  minutes.
3. Sun exposure: Recent research has found that Vitamin D increases androgen receptor activities in men (see my previous episode explaining this concept here), and male reproductive tissue also has Vitamin D receptors, so make sure to go outside to get some sun, even if it’s for 10 minutes!

Ben Greenfield has also got some crazy, next-level things you can try:

• Electro muscle stimulation on your leg muscles: this helps up regulation of androgen receptors.
• PMF therapy (pulse electromagnetic therapy): At a low frequency, this counters the adverse effects from your cell phone and frequent WiFi use. Studies show sperm count is lower when your phone or laptop is near your genitals. If you have an iPhone, an Otterbox case really helps.
• PRP injections, stem cell injections, and GainsWave jackhammer treatment.
• Microdosing testosterone cream to testicles in the morning and evening: this mimics the diurnal variation in testosterone that occurs daily (compared to an unnatural surge in testosterone you’d get with an injection).

MISTAKES TO AVOID

• Plastics: Don’t underestimate the power of plastic. Tests I had done revealed that I had traces of plastic in my blood, perhaps from cheap bottles that I left in the car that got super heated?
• EMF: Try using an ethernet in your office, and unplug your router and use an acoustimeter to measure EMF.
• Chronic cardio: It can destroy your testosterone, among other things.
• Stillness: Don’t let your balls get too warm, get up and walk around!
• Eating too often: Do your usual re-feeds, but don’t snack. HGH and testosterone spike after refeeds.
• Wait for 1-2 hours after a workout to boost adaptive hormones, but then eventually eat.

• Excess ejaculation: Ancient Taoist philosophy says that discipline in this area is the way to preserve the male essence. If you’re in your 30s, 3-4 times a week is ok, and if you’re in your 40s, it’s 2-3 times a week. In your 50’s, it’s 1-2 times a week, and just once a week if you’re over 60.
• Alcohol: 3 drinks a day, max. Alcohol affects the endocrine system, causing your testes to stop producing the male hormone.
• Smoke: smoking can reduce testosterone levels and, according to a recent study by the Boston University School of Medicine, decrease genital size. In the same way that smoking has been shown to damage the ability of the blood vessels in the lungs and heart to retain elasticity, the vessels of the penis may be equally affected. The blood vessels of the penis are much smaller than those of the heart, so constriction in this area may have relatively more severe consequences.
• Weight management: Obese men had a 60 percent higher chance of having a low volume of semen, according to Ghiyath Shayeb of the University of Aberdeen, who presented these research results at a meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology. They also had a 40 percent higher chance of having some sperm abnormalities.

And, if you need to measure testosterone, here are the best ways to do so:

1. With a blood test.

• The con: It’s a snapshot in time (and hormone levels fluctuate throughout the day).

1. Or, test cortisol with a salivary panel (cortisol antagonizes testosterone) or a Dutch hormone urine panel.

Lastly, here are some herbal supplements recommended by Ben:

• Maca powder
• MiCacao
• 75% organic dark chocolate
• Eurycoma Longifolia
• Fenugreek
• Pycnogenol
• Tribulus Terrestris

TIMESTAMPS:

FOMO (fear of missing out) is prevalent in today’s world causing many health problems.  [03:27]

Learn to catch yourself ruminating. Instead, redirect your thoughts to gratitude. [05:24]

Relationship dynamics have a huge effect on stress. High stress crushes testosterone! [07:31]

Males need to be calm. Females need to be protected from male anger. [08:40]

A healthy sex life and boost testosterone. [13:04]

Strategies for enhancing testosterone include cold exposure and red-light therapy. [19:24]

Sun exposure (vitamin D) increases androgen receptor activity. [22:50]

The negative repercussions of electromagnetic field and hormone therapy are discussed. [23:24]

What things need to be avoided to protect your testosterone level?  Get rid of plastic and EMF. [27:51]

Keep moving. Don’t let your balls get hot. [31:11]

Don’t eat too frequently. [32:52]

Excess alcohol, smoking, and obesity interfere with testosterone. [33:59]

LINKS:

• Body By Science by John Little
• The Magnesium Miracle by Dr. Carolyn Dean
• The Multi-Orgasmic Man: Sexual Secrets Every Man Should Know by Mantak Chia and Douglas Abrams. Ben Greenfield says this is required reading for every man!
• Estrogeneration by Anthony Gay will teach you more about the dangerous effects of plastics on hormones.
• Vitamin K2 And The Calcium Paradox by Kate Rheaume-Bleau is an excellent resource for learning about why taking vitamin k2 in conjunction with vitamin d is necessary.
• Ejaculation frequency commentary 
• Jack Kruse circadian clock
• http://www.1vigor.com/article/increase-testosterone-naturally/index.html
• http://www.1vigor.com/article/ejaculation-frequency/

LISTEN:

Get Over Yourself Podcast

Brad (00:00):
Welcome to the get over yourself podcast. This is author, an athlete, Brad Kearns, discovering ways to be healthy, fit and happy in hectic, high-stress, modern life. So let’s slow down and take a deep breath. Take a cold plunge and expertly balanced that competitive intensity with an appreciation of the journey. That’s the theme of the show. Here we go.

Brad (03:27):
Welcome back. You know what we’re talking about on this breather binge. It’s lifestyle tips to optimize testosterone, anti-aging, vitality, virility, everything you need to be the best that you can be and we’ve already covered so much, but there’s so much more to talk about. Quick recap. Part one, we talked about sleep, we talked about sprinting. Part two we talked about strength training, cardiovascular training, and a little bit into diet. Part three we talked about diet and supplements and avoiding the estrogenic influences in our environment. And now we are here to talk about one of the most important ones of all, a little bit esoteric and intangible, but we want to avoid negative stressors in life. These things can trash your tea like nothing else.

Brad (04:17):
So the negativity, the anxiety, the negative emotions, the unhealthy toxic relationship dynamics, the unhealthy thoughts. I had my man, Dr Ron Sinha on the show talking about how FOMO, fear of missing out. He has quantified with actual metabolic consequences among his patient population in the affluent work place environment of California, Silicon Valley. So these people are making bank. They live in the good life, they’re buying expensive stuff, they’re taking their vacations, they’re doing their thing, but they suffer from widespread condition of FOMO, fear of missing out because there’s so much wealth surrounding them. There’s always someone with more and better stuff. And it’s turned into, uh, adverse blood factors with a disease risk, uh, insulin resistance, things like that, that are directly attributed to this high stress mentality and this high stress lifestyle. So let it go a little bit. Get over yourself as they say on the podcast and try to manage stress effectively with an assortment of coping strategies.

Brad (05:24):
One of them, Dr Ron mentions in regard to FOMO is to catch yourself when you ruminate. Ruminate is the unhealthy, a replaying of thoughts over and over in your head whether they be about the past, uh, ruminating about the past, uh, promotes depression and ruminating about the future, playing scenarios over and over again in your head about what’s gonna happen in the future produces. Guess what? That’s right. Anxiety. So we want to get away from depression and anxiety producing thoughts by calling them out, calling them for what they are. Dr Ron asks you to go so far as to say, there I go, ruminating again and trying to get a handle on it and tone it down and instead re direct your thoughts to sensations of gratitude. Be grateful for where you are and what you have today. It always could be worse, right? If you’re listening to the show, it could be worse. So we want to get away from rumination and get into that mindfulness, uh, that wonderful mindfulness movement where we just try to remain calm, not react, it respond instead of react. Put all those skills to work where you know what it’s going to be. Okay.

Brad (06:40):
How’s that? I know it’s easier said than done, right?.

Brad (06:46):
Uh, especially when we operate from flawed subconscious behavior patterns that were programmed into us, uh, during ages zero to seven in childhood. I listened to my breather show or I covered the great work of Dr. Bruce Lipton, author of the book Biology of Belief where he, uh, States with scientific validity that we’re operating from flawed subconscious behavior patterns and reactivity. 93 to 98% of the time in life only when we wake up and become conscious and do things like say, there I go. Ruminating again, kind of looking at yourself from a distance, from a spy camera in the corner of your room and saying, Oh, there goes that guy ruminating again and bring it back to present awareness.

Brad (07:31):
That’s when your stress level goes down, your cortisol level goes down and gets regulated. And we know cortisol is the prominent fight or flight hormone if you’re not familiar. Uh, but when cortisol is regulated, that allows testosterone to have a fighting chance at becoming optimized cortisol and test and testosterone, antagonize each other. So high cortisol, high stress, high stress lifestyle will crush testosterone levels. Nothing you can eat or workout or sleep your way out of. All right. And John Gray talks so deeply about this and our wonderful shows together where relationship dynamics have such a profound influence on your hormone levels because of the interplay between a romantic partners, male and female. So the female’s goal is to nurture and boost her own estrogen levels so that she can be all the woman that she can be. And the male is to nurture and boost his own testosterone levels so that he can be all that he can be. And the partnership, the couple will either compromise these goals or nurture and support them like nothing else, right?

Brad (08:40):
A female can make you feel valued and the hero in the story and the savior and the protector. And by doing so and sharing her appreciation, they will help you boost your testosterone like nothing else. And if you can’t get there, if you feel nitpicked second guessed and criticized, your testosterone will tank and instead you will drift over to what John Gray calls your female dominance. And that is bad news for the male. So getting into, uh, arguing, criticisms, nitpicking, all of that kind of stuff will, uh, spike estrogen in the male and suppress testosterone. Conversely, when the female is trying to, uh, navigate through a life of tremendous expectations are placed on the female now because they’re natural nurturer, caretaker disposition. We’re also asking them to be kick ass peak performers in the workplace and handle all these matters and logistics and go, go, go all day and do it all and be all things to all people that spikes their testosterone to an unhealthy extent where they suppress estrogen and then they’re sort of incapable of receiving, uh, love and support and nurturing from other people.

Brad (09:57):
They’re stuck on their male side and what John Gray calls the female CEO or the household CEO, where you just kind of lose that soft touch that you have for each other and get stuck in a hormone deoptimization or hormone dysregulation. So my goodness, uh, the classic assignment for the male, the life changing assignment that I got from John Gray and have thought about every single day since then was that he wants, he wants the male to be calm, cool and collected in daily life. He wants you to think of yourself as a Kung Fu master. You’re the calm here. The calm in the storm. You’re the measured one, the even keeled one, the emotionally regulated one. You’re not going to get into and get argumentative and cranky and complainy and get sucked into drama and negative relationship dynamics. You’re going to keep your cool to the extent that this is directly from John Gray quote, males: do not speak when you have a negative emotional charge.

Brad (11:06):
Just swallow it, suck it up, be a man about it. Go off and do testosterone boosting activities rather than engage in destructive arguments and then come back to the table refreshed and energized and nurturing that high testosterone man, which represents someone who’s calm, cool, and collected. It’s actually a misnomer. When we think of the, uh, the guy who cut you off in traffic and flipped you off and you yell out the window, you got too much testosterone. Dude, that’s actually someone who has testosterone deficient and estrogen dominant and getting too emotional because estrogen is associated with emotionals females. Biological wiring is more emotional than males, right? Not a criticism. It just being the best you can be and trying to keep things, but especially males must not get out of that. Uh, calm, cool, collected default mindset. In fact, uh, he talks about the female’s deepest biological drive is to feel safe and protected by her male partner, right?

Brad (12:10):
She wants you to be the hero and the protector and the dominant male biological drive is to be that hero in the story and keep the female safe and protected. Unfortunately, as John Gray points out in primal times, that was the physically stronger male protecting the, the, the, the, the partner and the clan from danger, from, uh, the predators that are lurking in the wilderness. Uh, today, that stuff has been neutralized. And so today, the female’s main requirement, the most important thing that she needs to be protected from is your own anger, her partner’s own anger. Dang man, that’s pretty heavy when you think about it, right? So protect the female from your own anger is the least you can do. The number one thing you can do before you can get started down the path to healthy relationship dynamics.

Brad (13:04):
And speaking to that, the next topic is sex and how a healthy sex life can boost testosterone or trash it. Actually, if you, uh, uh, don’t follow the rules, right? Okay, here we go. So first of all, uh, sexual frequency is a good thing, helps you feel bonded, helps you feel connected. And it also creates a positive feedback loop where a high sexual frequency will promote high sexual desire. Uh, maybe people can relate to the opposite example. My friend Suzanne Slosberg wrote a funny as heck book, uh, called a 1001, uh, The True Story of 1001 Nights Without Sex where she talks about a dry spell that she had in her twenties, uh, with tremendous, uh, uh, wittiness and self reflection.

Brad (13:56):
And it’s a great book. Uh, that might be the subtitle. Actually I forget the actual title, but you can find Suzanne Schlossberg great work, uh, talking about how a dry spill kind of, uh, uh, begets a more dry spell right. Then you lose interest, you get disenchanted with the dating scene, whatever’s going on, where you kind of head away from being your best self as both a male and a female. So partnership, a high sexual frequency is a fundamental element of a healthy, uh, longterm relationship. And, uh, some science is coming in here. Uh, some of these are quotes from a Ralph Tellers article and other resources that I’ve gathered. Some of John Gray stuff is leaking in here too. Uh, but, uh, I think Teller wrote that German scientists found that having sex in the morning or simply having an erection in the morning causes your circulating testosterone to rise significantly. So a frequent sex, great idea,

Brad (14:56):
and Hmm, begets more frequent sex. Uh, but there is something that John Gray talked about in the last show and that is, uh, if you have, uh, the excess frequency, you can actually deplete testosterone. And this is sort of a, a thousands of years old Daoist philosophy that preserving ejaculation or moderating your ejaculation rate can, uh, promote longevity and increased health and vitality. So they did a study in Japan. Uh, it was published in the U S National Library of Medicine, national Institute of health, uh, discovering that after a seven day period of, uh, uh, refraining from ejaculation, male testosterone levels spiked to 145.7% of baseline. So 45% spike in testosterone, uh, pretty significant. And that was, uh, measuring from one ejaculation and waiting seven days. Uh, there was no change in testosterone on days two through five. Uh, so this is where John Gray is getting his reference that once every seven days for a male, at least a middle aged male, let’s say from a 35 to 65 or whatever big group, we can lump in and the Daoists have a chart.

Brad (16:07):
So you can look this up if you’re interested, uh, where by decade they want to recommend a ideal, uh, ejaculation frequency. And there’s a difference between a orgasm and ejaculation. So getting into this, uh, uh, Multi-Orgasmic Male, there’s a book of that title, John Grey’s promise to talk about this at our next podcast. Uh, but, uh, being able to orgasm without ejaculating is a, a strong recommendation for the mail to be able to preserve testosterone, not have that testosterone decline that occurs after ejaculation. And that’s been validated by science as well. So your testosterone spikes when you’re, uh, in the midst of sexual activity or about to have sex is also a huge spike in testosterone. John Gray reference that on the first show. So the idea of having sex is going to spike your testosterone, getting into it, getting into the business testosterone levels through the roof.

Brad (17:02):
And then as soon as you ejaculate, uh, you’ve given all you got and you have a long regeneration period ahead of you to, for testosterone. Not long, but I mean, uh, at whatever length that depending on your health and your age, uh, you need to rebuild testosterone. John Gray goes so far as to say that the best idea for the male after ejaculating is to go away and leave the female. That’s probably where we got the classic example of the man getting up to leave after he did his business as a general, uh, human wired response because going away and taking time to yourself and engaging in problem solving or challenging activities that boost testosterone is the way to get it back as quickly and efficiently as possible. And we’re going to get way more into this, uh, in shows about John Grey’s insights. But for here, uh, we’re talking about this general idea that if you can essentially pinpoint your ejaculation frequency to once every seven days, that is the sweet spot to optimize testosterone levels.

Brad (18:07):
Uh, as I said at the outset, uh, less frequently than that, you depart from that positive feedback loop where if you’re, uh, more celibate than that and you have a lower rate than that, you’re probably going to have, um, uh, not as good relationship connection and your testosterone level is going to decline if you don’t ejaculate once every seven days. If you attempt to do so more frequently, uh, you can experience, uh, lower testosterone levels. Uh, these ideas have not gone over, uh, super well with, uh, people I’ve shared with in person. So, um, a lot of people are calling bullshit on that. And, uh, even some respected physicians that I’ve consulted with are challenging the thousands of year old Daoists message that, uh, preserving your ejaculate is a way to longevity. Huh? Very interesting. And I guess you can go see for yourself, but it’s just a some ideas to consider and probably you have some anecdotal experience yourself where uh, excess sexual activity can wear you out. And uh, insufficient sexual activity can cause you to be frustrated and even, uh, get into that mindset of feeling disenchanted or disconnected from your partner, whether you’re single, uh, disenchanted, disconnected if you’re have a partner.

Brad (19:24):
Okay. Now we get into, I guess you get called these the biohacks then little strategies for enhancing testosterone. Um, and this is compiled from some of the stuff Ben talks about as well as some of the stuff that I’ve delved into and integrated into my daily lifestyle, especially cold exposure. Yeah, some good research. They’re showing that cold exposure can help boost testosterone production. Hey, ever wonder why the balls are hanging in a very thin sack dangling around outside your body. It’s so the testicles don’t get too warm because that will compromise healthy testosterone production. That’s why they tell would be fathers to stay out of the jacuzzi and stay out of the sauna when they’re trying to conceive.

Brad (20:12):
Okay. So if you go all the way into a chest freezer, cold plunge or use ice packs to cool down your testicles, especially after a high temperature workouts where your body temperature is elevated, this can be an actual legit strategy. Okay, so more thumbs up for the uh, cold exposure crowd and the chest freezer cold plunge and love it in there man. Get those things cooled off. Also, the red light therapy in a similar refrain, a stimulating the mitochondrial production and you more efficiently clear waste products out of the cells, uh, has tremendous scientific research behind it. I did a whole show with Scott Nelson, founder of JOOVV, so you can learn more about red light exposure therapy. Uh, you want it to have it at the proper wave length. So we have, um, red and near infrared light spectrums and that’s what these wonderful machines are admitting.

Brad (21:11):
Uh, the ideal spectrum of the different kinds of red light that science has shown to be really valuable. So you can check out, um, uh, joovv.com J O O V V and learn more about the science there. Yes, they’re selling products too, but they also have a ton of good scientific research and explanation for how these products work. So I love myJOOVV unit. I hang it off my door. It’s a large full body one. So I’m definitely, uh, exposing the bare testicles to that red light every single day. I also have a handheld device that I use for traveling or for pinpoint accuracy on the certain areas of my body that I’m interested in. And of course these have also been used. The red light therapy has been used in beauty salons, uh, to help, uh, against wrinkles with great success, great support. And that’s because they’re helping with collagen protest production in the skin.

Brad (22:04):
Uh, so in improving your, uh, your, your wrinkle situation when you get a red light treatments, I was even in Honolulu, Hawaiian walked by a storefront that was a red light, uh, therapy center where you could go in and pay for some red light exposure. So when you’re talking about a membership where you’re doing 30, 40 bucks a pop, uh, spending a grand on a really nice JOOVV light, uh, it doesn’t seem so bad. So yeah, go check out that whole scene. I’m a big fan. It’s pretty cool. And um, it feels good man. Stand in front of the red light. I got my laptop set up right next to it so I don’t have to uh, lose productivity while I’m naked. Standing there, uh, getting, getting all the red light absorbed, uh, both on the surface and then the more penetrating waves of the two different light wavelengths.

Brad (22:51):
Okay. So, and then we talked about the cold exposure, uh, can have that benefits to testosterone among all the other, uh, hormonal benefits it has. And then also probably on this list and even cheaper than buying a cold tub or a JOOVV light is sun exposure. So I talked about that in a previous show, but a nice research reveals that vitamin D increases the androgen receptor activity. The same thing that doing the compound lower body strength training sessions do is bumping up those androgen receptors so that the testosterone in your bloodstream will have some place to go. Uh, Ben Greenfield gets into some, uh, way more crazy stuff. So I’m going to put these on the, uh, on the crazy list and the other ones on the reasonable possibly consider list. But Hey, if you want to go deep, uh, listen to Ben cause no one goes deeper than that guy and I mean no one.

Brad (23:42):
So he was talking about, uh, using electro muscle stimulation on your leg muscles. The same ones that are rich with androgen receptors and that’ll help upregulate androgen receptors, uh, without necessarily having to do the workout. I would probably say just go do the workout, man. Go do some squats. But if you want to up your game in that level, you can get these, uh, inexpensive units that they use in the healing centers, right? If you have a sore muscle and you get the pulse machine, you put the pads on, it causes the muscle to twitch. Uh, there’s also pulse electromagnetic therapy. So this is a low frequency, uh, EMF, unlike the harmful EMF that comes from your, uh, your cell phone or your wifi router. Uh, this is sort of the idea is to counter the adverse effects of these electromagnetic fields that we’re exposed to in daily life.

Brad (24:34):
And mounting research is showing this stuff is no joke, especially the new 5g technology that is extremely destructive to human cellular health. Listen to some shows from Dr Joe Mercola, one of the most respected resources in the alternative health scene. And he is a huge, uh, advocate for, uh, EMF exposure, danger and you know, taking, taking opportunities to, uh, to mitigate that. And same with my show with Brian Hoyer. He gets deep into the science and they have meters to show the negative effects of this stuff. So you might consider things like, uh, pulse, electromagnetic therapy, uh, even doing something as simple as putting your cell phone into a nice case. I love the OtterBox case and that actually cuts it down a little bit cause it’s encased, however, right? So thumbs up for OtterBox. Uh, another thing that Ben was doing was, is interesting to me.

Brad (25:29):
Uh, he’s younger than I am. Uh, but you know, here in the 55 plus category, uh, you start to open your mind to all possibilities. I never once thought about introducing a foreign agent into my body my entire life, especially when I was an athlete. Uh, you know, you’re, you’re getting a drug testing and all that, but I always thought that the straight and, uh, clean path was always going to have more benefit than the path of introducing outside injection or agent that was overriding your normal genetic function. Uh, until that point comes when, I don’t know when that day comes, when I’m feeling old and my blood levels are down, uh, maybe that’s what I’m going to cross over into the “dark side” and look at hormone replacement therapy, which is so popular, uh, in today’s world. So, uh, open-minded about everything. And, uh, Ben, the open-minded guy is actually experimenting with microdosing, uh, testosterone applying right to his balls, uh, in the morning and the evening with a cream, but a very small dose as opposed to the injections that deliver a lot of testosterone when you’re on an official hormone replacement regimen.

Brad (26:38):
And so his idea here of doing morning and evening is that a compares the, uh, uh, the natural cycles of testosterone where your body is, uh, spiking higher in the morning, in the evening. And he’s seeing how that works. Uh, I’ve talked to a few of my peers that are extreme health enthusiasts, athletic types that have dabbled in, uh, testosterone replacement and they, uh, exclaim that they didn’t really notice much, uh, effect. And so probably if you’re already doing a lot of healthy things, eating healthy, honoring all the lists from all these shows, um, there is probably no magic bullet. And if there is, for example, if you were to, uh, put high doses into your body as seen in the bodybuilding community and, and the, the strength and power sports where they’re abusing, uh, these anabolic agents, of course you’re going to have massive, massive, uh, uh, side effects and negative repercussions. So do the best you can do and, uh, we’ll check back later in 10 years or 15 or whatever, when you start to, um, uh, look elsewhere when you’re doing everything you can do and still not good enough, I guess would be my, my take on that right now.

Brad (27:51):
Okay. So that brings us to, we’re getting, uh, we’re getting close to, um, the end here of this four-part awesome series. Uh, but here’s a whole list of things, uh, to avoid. So mistakes that can really screw up your testosterone production. And we’ll just summarize cause some of this stuff we’ve talked about, but I want to hit you with, um, some don’ts here to frame the discussion of all the good things to do. Uh, so number one is this plastics that’s so easy to get rid of those. And, uh, talking from a guy who thought he was healthy and was just so alarmed to see plastic residue in my bloodstream is kind of a scary thought. So get rid of plastics, touching your food and drink. Next electromagnetic fields. Ah, I know we have so much to worry about and be concerned about these days and EMF seems like just another thing on my long to do list of ways to protect against adverse health influences in the environment, but we don’t want to turn a blind eye to it anymore. So the least you can do, as I mentioned, get a case for your phone, talk on the speaker phone or with a wired, um, uh, earbud rather than putting the giant device up next to your head or even, uh, Bluetooth. I know it’s not great, but the, the true exposure is exponentially worse the closer and closer you get to the device. So if you’re talking on a phone right up to your ear and that’s your habit, you can change that to something that’s a little bit less offensive.

Brad (29:21):
Uh, same with, uh, sleeping with your head right next to, uh, your wifi router for the entire house. Let’s take some mitigation opportunities here and at least, uh, you know, create a bedroom that’s a little bit cleaner than just complete oblivion to the effects of wifi and EMF. Okay. Number three is that chronic exercise. Oh my gosh. Nothing can sabotage your progress. Destroy your T more than overdoing it on the exercise scene. Go look on my blog where I talk about doubling my testosterone. It’s a good, happy ending. But the first part of it where I was locked into that chronic exercise pattern and trashed my T to the point where I was clinically low, uh, that’s some bad news. Um, some interesting commentary from Ben Greenfield here because as you know, he’s been on the extreme athletic scene doing Ironman doing the, the crazy obstacle and Spartan race stuff.

Brad (30:14):
Uh, and he says, multi-sport ultras, CrossFit, Spartan race, obstacle, race, concurrent strength and endurance workouts. Most of this flies in the face of building testosterone. I competed in iron man’s for 10 years, and that was the lowest my testosterone ever was. I saw a steep rise in my own blood testosterone values after I quit racing Ironman. Okay. Brad current’s here talking to a, when I was a professional triathlete from the ages of 20 to 30 in my peak testosterone peak hormonal function years, I routinely delivered blood values, uh, ranging from 200 to 300 on the serum testosterone scale, which, uh, generally, uh, has the, the normal range is 200 to a thousand. And again, normal, uh, nothing impressive about normal in today’s day and age. So we want to be hanging out on the high end of the range rather than the low end.

Brad (31:11):
So I was routinely on the low end due to the extreme nature of my training, the exhaustive nature of my day to day workouts and jet travel all over the world. Uh, now in my fifties, and I’m starting to measure it more and more. I routinely fall in the 600 to 850 range. So, you know, quadrupling my testosterone after aging 30 years can tell you just how bad things things are for the, uh, extreme athlete. Next on the list is prolonged periods of stillness. Bad deal. So many ways. One of them is that market increase in insulin resistance you get from being still for as little as 20 minutes. So you want to get up and move around, live an active lifestyle, find ways to move more throughout daily life. That’s going to optimize your hormone function. Another adverse effect of sitting around too much is you balls get warm. I remember the MMA fighter, the classic interview quote that he gave to Joe Rogan after winning the heavyweight title of the world, this guy, Derek Lewis, one of the greatest clips you can find on YouTube. Uh, so look it up. He, um, finishes the fight, beats the guy and then, uh, proceeds to, uh, take off his fighting shorts and stand there in the ring in his underwear. So Rogan of course, of being the comedian at heart as well as the announcer for MMA. Uh, he, he gets the mic up and he says, uh, Derek, why’d you take your pants off? And Derek said, my balls got hot. No, there’s, there’s a real athlete for you, man. So don’t get your balls hot, get up and move around.

Brad (32:52):
Next is eating too frequently. Snacking too frequently. Uh, remember that your insulin will spike when you eat anything. You’ll shut off fat burning and spike insulin, even if you eat a high fat snack. So insulin is produced in response to any calorie consumption. And when you’re spiking insulin, even a little bit with even with a little snack here, a little snack there all day long, that’s going to have an adverse effect on your circulating testosterone. Okay? Okay. Uh, now, uh, just proposing on the list here, excess ejaculation, honoring the ancient Daoists philosophy of preserving male essence. And Oh, here’s the charts. Uh, the rates communicated in Daoists uh, scripture. So in your thirties, you are allowed to have three to four orgasms, three to four ejaculations a week. In your forties, it goes down to two to three in your 50s, once or twice a week. And in your sixties, once a week, okay, there you go. Now you’ve been exposed to the Dao. You can decide for yourself. Uh, and then we go into the duh category of things not to do.

Brad (33:59):
And one of them is to, uh, consume alcohol to excess because that will interfere with the, uh, the, the, the source, the root, uh, of testosterone, which is your testicles making. The agent, uh, alcohol interferes with all that as well as smoking. Um, a study by the Boston university school of medicine revealed, and I do mean revealed that smokers have a decreased genital size. Oh, man. Uh, this is from the, uh, the article by Ralph Teller, uh, more, uh, quoting in the same way that smoking has been shown to damage the ability of the blood vessels in the lungs and heart to retain elasticity. The vessels of the penis may be equally affected. The blood vessels are much smaller. The penis blood vessels are much smaller than those are the heart. So constriction in this area may have relatively more severe consequences. And finally, uh, manage your excess body fat because obesity is a huge, uh, factor in, uh, trashing testosterone.

Brad (35:03):
A study by Dr Shihab from University of Aberdeen, Scotland, uh, which was presented at European society of human reproduction, says obese men had 60% more likelihood of low semen volume than men of regular weight and also 40% more likelihood for sperm abnormality. So if you’re trying to get pregnant, especially get that excess weight off if you’re trying to boost testosterone. Uh, same thing. All right.

Brad (35:33):
And so I guess one more thing to mention, uh, the best way to measure it and track it. Uh, you can get a blood test now I go to Ultra Health Labs.com. There’s also Direct Labs.com. These online resources where you can go on, go shopping, add a blood test into your shopping cart. You don’t have to make a doctor’s appointment or go through all that red tape. And for a fraction of the normal prices that are charged in the mainstream medical scene, you can go get your testosterone, uh, with a quick and easy trip to the nearest lab in your area. They have blood draw labs where you walk in with your paperwork that you print out and they draw your blood, you go home, you sit by your computer, you wait about three days and your results are posted. So I like to go in there all the time and look how different, uh, lifestyle behaviors and patterns in my life are affecting my testosterone levels. In fact, uh, I think I might’ve gamed the system one time because I went and did a sprint workout and then rode my bike right over to the blood draw lab to, uh, measure my testosterone. And that, uh, number was, uh, skyrocketed from my previous a few tests. It was like 850 or something. I remember on that scale of 200 to a thousand. So at age 55, I was pretty stoked to see that my serum testosterone was up in the 95th plus percentile.

Brad (36:52):
Uh, but maybe it was artificially raised in the aftermath of that sprint workout. Who cares? It’s still high, right? So I want to go back again and again, maybe I’ll do another show. Uh, if I, if I can go every day for two weeks and track all that, but it is something like 50 or 60 bucks to test a free testosterone and serum testosterone, which I would recommend. And you can also do a more comprehensive male hormone panel and comprehensive blood panel if you want to spend a hundred or 200 bucks once in a while, at least once a year. Great idea. And another thing that, uh, Ben Greenfield mentioned you can do is to get a salivary panel on cortisol. That’s the prominent stress hormone that’s been mentioned throughout this conversation. One that antagonizes testosterone and measuring cortisol at several times a day, uh, with a saliva sample, uh, will show you whether your stress levels are dysregulated, which is associated with a suppressed testosterone function.

Brad (37:50):
So it just kinda coming at it from the other side, uh, seeing if you’re overly stressed and you can do something about that as well. Same with the uh, Dutch hormone panel, which is a urine panel where you give a few urine samples, I believe, and it tests your, uh, metabolites of stress hormones and also androgenic hormones. So what you’re excluding. So if you have high levels in your metabolites, maybe you’re not using it efficiently, you’re excluding it and that can point to, uh, problems that you can go try to solve. But, uh, if you’re not into that, uh, self quantification and frequent testing, basically what you do is you, uh, you know, follow the path man. Do your thing, honor the suggestions in the last four show.

Brad (38:35):
So really, really quick recap of everything we covered in the four shows. We covered sleep, optimizing sleep, especially in the middle of the night when the hormones come out to play. Uh, the exercise components are doing those high intensity explosive sprint workouts, very short duration with long rest, uh, engaging in regular strength training, putting your body under resistance load, especially the compound lower body movements, the all stars of dead lift and squat, getting that cardio in, uh, especially with your heart rate and the proper aerobic zone of one 80 minus your age, uh, recovering properly, uh, nothing else can kill your hormones. Uh, then nothing worse than getting into a chronic pattern. Uh, and also added in this, uh, area is doing a competitive and challenging things in life. Not necessarily all fitness or athletics related. Uh, but again, video games counts here. Anything that gives you that little burst of energy and inspiration that you’re problem solving and trying to conquer your environment. Then we went into the diet. We talked about the super foods like the Oregon meets the pastured eggs, the oily cold water fish, the mono unsaturated fats.

Brad (39:45):
Uh, talked a little bit about the role of carbohydrates and the experimentation that you can do if you’re active and fit and you don’t carry excess body fat or if you do carry excess body fat. A few different decision making parameters there. And we’ve talked about this feast and famine idea that’s getting more popular where when it’s time to a fast and give your body a rest, you do so when it’s time to eat, maybe take in a few extra carbohydrates to make sure that your hormones are optimized and you’re recovered and glycogen is restocked. Then we went into an assortment of supplements that might help, uh, starting first and foremost with the wonderful pure Oregon meats supplements that I’m standing behind with the male optimization formula with Oregon’s mofo and then putting in some of the other popular ones that are easily, uh, deficient among many people, magnesium, zinc, vitamin D, creatine, and then a bunch of herbal supplements that are popular that you could consider if you want to go deeper.

Brad (40:42):
Then the next section was avoiding the estrogenic influences in the environment, especially plastic touching your food or drink, finding the all natural skincare products like Dr Bronner’s and staying away from the high estrogenic foods, which are soy, corn, and flax most prominently. Then we talked about managing stress, especially the stress of your love relationship. Dr. John Gray. More there. Protect your female from your own anger MOFO. Okay. The next section was sex and sexual frequency. A saying that was a good thing, but it’s possible to overdo it by the Daoist philosophy ideas and once a week was believed to be the sweet spot for optimal testosterone levels, and that was from a respected Japanese study. Then we had some of the strategies, advanced strategies, the biohacks for boosting testosterone. We talked about red light therapy. We talked about cold exposure and we talked about the less expensive one of getting adequate sun exposure and vitamin D production. We got into some of the more advanced stuff like microdosing and doing pulse electromagnetic fields, and then we went down the list of mistakes to avoid. Oh man, get the thing right, don’t drink, don’t smoke. What do you do? Don’t drink, don’t smoke. What do you do? Don’t put on excess weight. Don’t do chronic cardio. Get away from those EMF. Get away from those plastics. Don’t sit too much. Get out and move and there you go. That wraps up a beautiful four-part series. Thank you so much for listening.

Brad (42:20):
Thank you for listening to the show. We would love your feedback at getoveryourselfpodcastatgmail.com and we would also love it if you could leave a rating and a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to podcasts. I know it’s a hassle. You have to go to desktop, iTunes, click on the tab that says ratings and reviews and then click to rate the show anywhere from five to five stars. And it really helps spread the word so more people can find the show and get over themselves cause they need to. Thanks for doing it.