How Sleep Affects the Hormone Testosterone

Dr. Marissa went LIVE on August 16 to give you another reason to keep your health front and center as a business leader: your sleep habits affect your testosterone levels!

Watch the LIVE here:

The sleep-testosterone connection is another blind-spot we have that affects our energy levels, vitality, recovery from stressors, muscle tone, and of course, our libido.??

Here’s 3 things to keep in mind when you’re deciding whether to head to bed or to finish up one more work project:

#1: Sleep is the lowest-effort performance enhancer we have.

As leaders, we are always looking for the competitive edge in our business. But we overlook that our health and our PEOPLE’s health–the ability to focus, to bring energy to the table, and to show up with vigor day after day– altogether make the competitive edge. This resource is not infinite, in fact creativity, memory, energy, and focus REQUIRE good sleep to be restored each morning.?

We challenge you to change your sleep, and watch it change your LIFE. Sleep is a pain killer, an appetite regulator, a hormone optimizer, a therapist, a mood booster, a focus aid, a stress manager, an anabolic steroid, and an anti-inflammatory pill all wrapped into one. And this performance enhancer demands no effort, except to dedicate TIME to it and practice some habits to ensure the sleep we get is restorative.?

#2: How Sleep affects Testosterone

Testosterone levels need sleep to replenish each night. Your testosterone starts off high in the morning and slowly drops throughout the day, with regular smaller bumps throughout the day. But when we fall asleep, testosterone levels rise to their peak (as long as we’re not disturbed) and start to fall again as soon as we wake up.?

Without any sleep, we miss that boost entirely. And when we chronically fail to prioritize our sleep and get less than we need, our testosterone levels remain sub-optimal, sometimes on the scale of 15-20% lower if we’ve accumulated a sleep debt over as little as one week.

#3: There are other ways to boost testosterone, but sleep is the easiest.

We’re not even talking TRT here. We’re talking about fixing the ROOT CAUSES of chronically low testosterone: like indoor lighting, lack of exercise, eating a diet of convenience vs. a diet of performance, and poorly managed stress. You MUST take ownership over these to reach your highest physical and mental potential. Bright outdoor light, not indoor light, can give you a boost in testosterone if you’re a little low from bad sleep. Follow that up with some heavy resistance training (strength) training 3-4 times per week paired with a diet rich in healthy fats, zinc, magnesium, Vitamin D, train your mind to respond to stress cool and calm, and you’ve got yourself a recipe for higher testosterone, better energy, and even higher quality sleep.

So ask yourself how YOUR sleep habits are affecting your testosterone levels?

• Are you in front of your laptop to work right before sleeping??
• Are you waking up early with an alarm clock interrupting your final sleep cycle?
• Is stress causing you to wake up with a racing mind unable to get back to sleep?
• Are you indoors all day with office lighting and no consistent exercise?
• Are you in a cycle of emotional exhaustion, burnout, and non-restorative sleep?
• Is your body cranking out stress hormones at the expense of your testosterone??

See what can happen physically, emotionally, and financially when you take control of your wellbeing and your sleep.

We founded Movement Rx to help companies and leaders like you make your health your business. We know that when YOU and your leaders show up for your people in a healthy way, your organization’s culture changes, your people are physically healthier, not burned out, they’re more productive, and they stick with the company.??

We ensure that we meet your people where they are at, and show them the most actionable steps to make the change for their own health and wellbeing AND that of your organization.?

Reach out to me: [email protected] to request a free gift. For your company AND you!?