Meditation and Testosterone: Increase Your Manliness With Meditation
Meditation and Testosterone
Meditation might seem on the surface to be the least likely of all the activities a man should do to boost his testosterone.
But make no mistake about it meditation can have a powerful effect not just on testosterone but on your overall physical and mental health.
You see when it comes to naturally boosting testosterone there are some important areas you have to work on optimizing. These areas include;
Most guys work on the first 3 areas but neglect the important area of rest and relaxation. This is a big mistake because learning to meditate teaches us the great skill of how to relax at will.
This relaxation that we learn through meditation will help us to lower a big enemy of testosterone which is high cortisol levels.
Let’s now get into why meditation and testosterone go hand in hand.
Meditation Lowers Cortisol
Research clearly shows that meditation lowers cortisol levels in the body.
And researchers have also discovered that the levels of cortisol not only drop when the person is meditating but carry on for hours after.
Studies also show that the longer someone meditates the greater the reduction in stress hormones.
It’s also interesting to note that high levels of cortisol have been shown to contribute to the body storing fat in the abdomen area which is another testosterone killer.
Here are just a few of the negative side effects of high cortisol
- This study shows the relationship between cortisol and fat distribution in the abdomen. To read the study click here.
- This study shows the relationship between cortisol and a reduction in the size of the brain. To read the study click here.
- This study shows the relationship between cortisol and testosterone. To see this study click here.
But these side effects such as weight gain and low testosterone are not the only negative consequences of high cortisol levels.
Stress actually puts us at a higher risk of many diseases including heart disease, depression, Alzheimer’s disease and even cancer.
So, in conclusion, anything we can do to lower cortisol, is going to help increase testosterone levels, and lower the risk of many major diseases.
Meditation Benefits the Brain
Another interesting reason that meditation and testosterone are linked is that meditation has the ability to put your brain into a helpful and restorative brain wave state.
When in this state the ability to focus and concentrate as well as the ability to think creatively is heightened.
People who practice meditation regularly have better neural connections between the different parts of the brain.
A person who practices meditation will have significantly more neural synapses and this can lead to an increase in the size of the brain.
This has been proven by researchers in a study using magnetic resonance images before and after 8 weeks of meditation.
Scientific studies have also shown that another way that meditation helps the brain is how it helps to shrink the amygdala.
The amygdala is the region of the brain that is responsible for fear, and the fight or flight response.
This is an area of the brain that any reduction in size will have the positive effect of lowering stress levels and improving health.
But how does all this relate to testosterone?
All of the benefits meditation can have on the brain can also help men be more successful in other areas of life like career and relationships.
And it has been proven by science that men who are successful in these areas have higher testosterone and dopamine production.
This alone shows the very real link between meditation and testosterone and how it is something that has benefits for anyone.
Meditation Benefits Sleep
As discussed at the start of this article there are four major areas that lay the foundation for naturally boosting testosterone.
But one area that is often overlooked and should be made a priority is recovery and sleep.
The reason it’s so important is because when you are in REM sleep you are actually boosting the ability of the testicles to produce testosterone.
This is the reason men experience morning wood after a deep sleep.
And this is not the only benefit of getting quality sleep because it is now widely acknowledged that the lion’s share of growth hormone is produced when we are in deep sleep.
Improving the ability to produce growth hormone is going to help you to increase lean body mass, burn fat, and increase bone mineral density.
To read more about how to increase growth hormone click here
Let’s now get into how meditation can help us to achieve deeper sleep
Have you ever found yourself trying to sleep at night but for whatever reason, you just can’t seem to drift into sleep?
I think most people know this experience of lying there frustrated seeing the clock ticking away and realizing it will be time to get up soon.
And what a lot of people tend to do in this situation is to try and make sleep happen through an act of will and determination.
But the problem with this method, as we all know, is that this just never works. If we want to get into a nice deep sleep we have to allow sleep to happen naturally.
And this is the skill that meditation can teach us, it helps us relax the body and mind without the use of willpower or determination.
When we can learn to have a space between our thinking and feelings we can chill out and allow relaxation to happen naturally.
And if this can be done in the evening before we go to sleep it will release tension from the day and contribute to the deep sleep that is needed for testosterone production.
Conclusion
I hope this has shown you the connection between testosterone and meditation.
As mentioned at the start of this article, meditation might not seem like a masculine activity but it really does have a multitude of benefits for men and can also be a really enjoyable activity.
If you are interested in learning more about meditation I would recommend taking a look at the website headspace.
They show how to meditate in a way that is clear and straightforward for anyone.
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