Did you know that your sleep patterns can greatly affect your testosterone levels? Testosterone is a hormone found in men and women but is usually referred to as a ‘male hormone’ while estrogen is classed as the ‘female hormone.’ However, testosterone plays an important role in effectively producing healthy reproductive tissues and bones in men and women.
Your overall health and testosterone levels are dependent on quality sleep. Lack of sleep can deteriorate your testosterone levels, leading to multiple unhealthy side effects like reduced sex drive and erectile dysfunction.
Good quality sleep has numerous benefits for our overall health and wellbeing, and a healthy level of testosterone is no exception to this rule. As we get older and our lives get busier, we can take our beauty sleep for granted without realizing the severe side effects on our health. Read on to find out more about the interconnection between sleep and testosterone.
How Important is Sleep?
Sleep is essential for your body and brain to rest and recharge. Improper sleep and lack of quality sleep can leave your brain deficient in its ability to function adequately in normal day-to-day tasks that one might usually find easy after a good night’s sleep.
There are four stages of sleep, and all four stages play an important role in a healthy sleep cycle that benefits your wellbeing. Disrupted sleep cycles, caused by several factors, can subsequently result in undesirable health conditions.
How sleep benefits your health:
A good night’s sleep is crucial to the condition of your overall well-being. Proper sleep will enable you to focus better in your daily life and motivate you to focus on your mental and physical health.
- Boosts your mood
- Provides brainpower that assists in holding and recalling information
- Reduces blood pressure which gives your heart rest while you sleep
- Increases the ability of immune cells to defend your body against infection and illness
- Reduces recovery time if sick
- Provides time for your blood sugar levels to drop to a sufficient level
- Can increase your sex drive through sufficient hormone production during your sleep cycle
Lack of sleep has been associated with the following health concerns:
Experiments have been conducted on sleep deprivation and how a lack of sleep causes physical decline. One such example is Randy Gardner, who stayed awake for 11 days. Although this is an extreme example of sleep deprivation, it’s still good to understand Randy’s health decline was due to not getting a satisfactory amount of sleep or any at all for that matter.
- Heart disease
- Reduced bone mass
- Delayed reactions and accidental injury from poor balance
- Obesity and diabetes
- Stroke and high blood pressure
- Mood changes
- Weakened immunity
- Low testosterone levels, lowered libido, and erectile dysfunction
What is Testosterone?
Testosterone is a hormone found in humans, in men than women, and is the primary sex hormone. It largely makes the development of male reproductive tissues possible – such as the prostate – and is also hugely responsible for men’s increased muscle and body hair growth.
Testosterone is a hormone that controls and regulates a healthy libido in men and women. This same hormone, testosterone, also controls red blood cells and sperm production in men while normalizing healthier moods in women, among other functions.
What testosterone does for men:
Testosterone is a common term used for the overt-masculinity or rage in a male. You might hear people often saying, “that’s just the testosterone,” but testosterone plays a much bigger role than just altering and controlling moods.
- Generates bone strength and growth
- Develops the male penis, testes, and prostate
- Produces sperm
- Voice development during puberty
- Produces hair growth
- Masculinity progression
- Stabilize moods
- Controls sex drive
What testosterone does for women:
Many people don’t know that women also have testosterone and that low and high testosterone levels in a female body can cause as many health side effects as men. It is normal and healthy for women to have testosterone, and here’s why:
- Stabilizes mood
- Controls sex drive
- Produces bone strength and muscle mass
- Maintains bone health
- Produce healthy ovarian tissues
How and Why Sleep Affects Testosterone Levels
As well as the natural aging process, lack of quality sleep and a small number of deep sleep cycles have been connected with low testosterone levels.
Sleep deprivation should be avoided by everyone, young and old, to live a healthier lifestyle. Sleep deprivation should be avoided in general because of the multiple health concerns linked to a lack of sleep, as mentioned above. Our beauty sleep is needed so that our bodies continue to work functionally.
One of the many reasons we should avoid sleep deficiency is its effect on our testosterone levels.
Here is how a lack of sleep affects your testosterone levels:
- Lowers the body’s ability to burn fat
- Men, in particular, suffer from low libido, but women can suffer from this too if they have low levels of testosterone.
- Erectile dysfunction
- Lethargy, fatigue
- Inability to reproduce healthy ovarian tissues and sperm, infertility
- Incapacity to preserve muscle mass and growth
- Decrease in red blood cell production, resulting in a higher risk of bone injury.
- Increased breast size in men
- Reduced and loss of body and facial hair
- Poor concentration
Not many people associate testosterone with so many poor health side effects. If you’re experiencing any of the above symptoms, you might ask yourself if you are, in fact, getting a sufficient amount of sleep every night. You might also consider seeing your local GP.
Conclusion
So why does sleep affect our testosterone levels? Because sleep affects every aspect of our body’s ability to function properly, including testosterone and its ability to reproduce healthy tissues and bones in both men and women. Adults need at least 7 – 9 hours of appropriate sleep every day to maintain their emotional and physical well-being and to continue producing healthy testosterone levels. Although there are many natural sleep aids you can use, it is still recommended to get your test levels checked.
Are you seeking to improve the quality of your sleep? Our team of qualified bioidentical hormone replacement therapy (BHRT) specialists can balance your testosterone levels to optimize your body and mind. Let us help you find a healthy and effective solution for a great night’s rest! Contact EVOLVE patient care today!
