How to Increase Testosterone: What the Top Podcasts Actually Say

How to increase testosterone, drawn from the best recent podcast episodes on Huberman Lab, Mind Pump, The Peter Attia Drive, and The Dr. Hyman Show: ten steps covering training, body fat, sleep, sunlight, stress, and when hormone therapy makes sense.

The fastest honest answer to how to increase testosterone: build the lifestyle your hormones depend on. Across the health and performance podcasts we summarize, the same levers repeat. Lift heavy, eat enough, hold your body fat in a healthy middle range, sleep deeply, lower chronic stress, get real sunlight on your skin, and reduce the endocrine-disrupting chemicals around you. Test your levels to track progress, and treat hormone drugs as the final option once the foundations are solid.

This protocol pulls that consensus from our summary library, mostly episodes from the past year across Huberman Lab, The Peter Attia Drive, Mind Pump, and The Dr. Hyman Show. Work the ten steps below in order: they move you from the biggest levers, training and nutrition, through recovery, environment, and testing, and finish with when a doctor and hormone therapy make sense. If your levels are clinically low, use this alongside medical care, since some causes need a physician.

A pattern runs through every show: testosterone is a signal of how well your whole system is running, so the wins come from body composition, sleep, and stress far more than from any single supplement. We unpack those threads after the steps. If you act on one thing today, start with step 1 and your next workout.

1. Lift heavy and let the long game build your hormones

Resistance training is one of the two most powerful levers for hormone health, alongside diet, according to Dr. Kyle Gillett. Aim for two to four hard sessions a week, take most sets close to failure, and add weight or reps over time. Dr. Lauren Colenso-Semple adds an important caveat: the brief testosterone rise right after a workout is a myth as a growth driver, so chase the long game. Consistent progressive lifting builds the muscle and metabolic health that support healthy hormones for decades.

From: The Most Effective Weight Training for Women: Dr. Lauren Colenso-Semple · How to Optimize Your Hormones: Dr. Kyle Gillett

2. Eat enough, and keep dietary fat on the plate

Chronic under-eating drives testosterone down in lean, healthy people, even though caloric restriction can raise testosterone in someone carrying excess weight, per Dr. Kyle Gillett. If you already train and stay lean, eat at maintenance and keep enough dietary fat and micronutrients coming in, because fats are the raw material for hormone production. Mind Pump makes the same point about foundations: adequate essential fats and enough total food come before any hormone conversation, so build hormone health from the fork up.

From: How to Optimize Your Hormones: Dr. Kyle Gillett · Is Hormone Therapy Healthy: Mind Pump 2779

3. Hold body fat in the healthy middle, avoiding the extremes

Testosterone suffers at both ends of the body fat range. Mind Pump reports that men who drop below roughly 10 percent body fat often see testosterone fall, while performance tends to peak nearer 12 to 15 percent. On the other side, Dr. Michael Eisenberg explains that a large belly converts testosterone into estrogen, so excess fat drags hormones the opposite way. Aim for a lean, athletic middle, the range where strength and hormones both hold up.

From: The Surprising Benefits of Gaining Body Fat: Mind Pump 2768 · Why Men's Fertility Is Collapsing: Dr. Michael Eisenberg

4. Get sunlight on your skin, and keep evenings dim

Andrew Huberman describes getting 20 to 30 minutes of UVB sunlight on your skin two to three times a week, which the research he cites links to higher testosterone and estrogen in both men and women, plus better mood and immune readiness. Morning and midday sun is the anchor. In the evening, keep lights low and warm so melatonin can rise on schedule, since your light environment tunes the hormone signals running underneath. This one habit costs nothing and pays off through winter especially.

From: Using Light to Optimize Health: Huberman Lab Essentials

5. Protect deep sleep every single night

Sleep is one of Dr. Kyle Gillett's six pillars of hormone health, and much of your daily testosterone release happens while you sleep. Guard seven to nine hours, hold a consistent schedule, and keep the bedroom dark and cool. Andrew Huberman warns that flipping on bright overhead lights in the middle of the night crashes melatonin toward zero, which ripples into the whole hormonal cascade, so use dim, low lights if you are up late. Sleep is the cheapest hormone optimizer you have.

From: How to Optimize Your Hormones: Dr. Kyle Gillett · Using Light to Optimize Health: Huberman Lab Essentials

6. Bring chronic stress and cortisol back down

Chronic stress keeps cortisol elevated, which works against testosterone and pushes cravings and fat storage, per the Mind Pump hosts. Their fix is practical: attach purpose to the stress you carry, practice out-loud gratitude on a daily reminder, lean on supportive people, and use a minimal effective dose of strength work such as short sessions when life is heavy. Awareness alone, simply knowing that stress will spike cravings, already improves the food choices you make throughout the day.

From: Stress Is Making You Fat, and How to Fix It: Mind Pump 2754

7. Cut your exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals

Dr. Michael Eisenberg links the generational slide in testosterone and sperm quality to endocrine disruptors: microplastics now show up in most men's testicles and semen, alongside plastics, pesticides, and residues from personal care products. Trim the obvious sources by storing and heating food in glass, filtering your water, and choosing fewer plastic-packaged and heavily processed products. Better metabolic health through diet and exercise compounds the benefit for both hormones and fertility.

From: Why Men's Fertility Is Collapsing: Dr. Michael Eisenberg

8. Test your levels and build a baseline

You manage what you measure. Dr. Kyle Gillett suggests checking hormones three to six times a year with both fasting and non-fasting blood work, and framing the conversation with your doctor around symptoms like energy, focus, and drive compared with your twenties. Mind Pump adds the case for testing early: a man whose natural level was 1,000 can read a normal-looking 500 in his seventies while feeling terrible, because that is half of his personal baseline. Numbers turn vague symptoms into a plan.

From: How to Optimize Your Hormones: Dr. Kyle Gillett · Is Hormone Therapy Healthy: Mind Pump 2779

9. Women: treat testosterone as part of the whole panel

Women carry more total testosterone than estrogen by mass, and it drives energy, libido, mood, and muscle, per Dr. Kyle Gillett. On Mind Pump, Dr. Lauren Fitzgerald frames women's hormone care as a full panel, optimizing progesterone, thyroid, testosterone, and DHEA together with lifestyle, especially through perimenopause and menopause. She notes that testosterone in women is among the most well-studied and forgiving hormones to dose under a clinician's care, so it deserves attention rather than an afterthought.

From: The Menopause Solution: Dr. Lauren Fitzgerald, Mind Pump 2752 · How to Optimize Your Hormones: Dr. Kyle Gillett

10. Treat hormone replacement therapy as the last step

Hormone therapy can help, and the Mind Pump hosts put it last for a reason: dropping testosterone or other hormones onto an unhealthy lifestyle is gasoline on a fire. Dial in sleep, food, training load, stress, and body composition first, because those alone resolve many low-testosterone symptoms. If your levels stay low and symptoms persist after the fundamentals are solid, work with a knowledgeable clinician on properly dosed and monitored therapy that fits your baseline and goals.

From: Is Hormone Therapy Healthy: Mind Pump 2779

Why this protocol works

The foundation is metabolic: train, eat, and hold a healthy body fat

Three of these episodes point at the same base layer from different angles. Dr. Kyle Gillett calls diet and resistance training the two most powerful levers for hormone optimization. Mind Pump shows the cost of ignoring body composition in either direction: men who crash below roughly 10 percent body fat see testosterone drop, and Dr. Michael Eisenberg explains that a large belly converts testosterone into estrogen. The healthy middle, lean and muscular, is where hormones sit best.

Put together, the message is that testosterone tracks your metabolic health. Build and keep muscle, feed it enough food and fat, and land your body fat in an athletic range. Dr. Lauren Colenso-Semple adds the useful reframe that the post-workout hormone spike is a distraction, so the payoff comes from years of consistent training and the muscle you accumulate.

Recovery sets your ceiling: sleep, stress, and light

The recovery episodes converge on a simple idea: testosterone reflects how well you recover. Andrew Huberman shows that UVB sunlight on the skin raises testosterone and estrogen, while bright light late at night crashes the melatonin rhythm that governs those same hormones. The Mind Pump stress episode adds cortisol to the picture, describing how chronic stress works against testosterone and drives the cravings that erode body composition.

The practical stack is small and repeatable: morning and midday sun, dark cool sleep, and a real plan for stress that leans on purpose, gratitude, and appropriately dosed training. Each of these tunes the hormonal cascade in the same direction, which is why they compound when you run them together.

Testosterone is a whole-body signal, for women too, and drugs come last

The broader episodes zoom out. Carol Hooven, on The Peter Attia Drive, explains how deeply testosterone shapes male biology from development onward, which is why its decline is felt so widely. Dr. Michael Eisenberg reframes sperm quality and testosterone as a vital sign that predicts long-term health, and warns that levels have slid across generations. Dr. Kyle Gillett and Dr. Lauren Fitzgerald extend the conversation to women, for whom testosterone is essential and, dosed carefully, one of the safer hormones to optimize.

The shared conclusion is patient: fix the inputs first. Mind Pump puts hormone replacement last on purpose, since layering drugs onto poor sleep, low food, and high stress is gasoline on a fire. Testing gives you the baseline, lifestyle does most of the work, and a good clinician handles the rest when it is genuinely needed.

Every episode referenced

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you increase testosterone naturally?

Start with the levers these podcasts return to again and again: lift with progressive overload, eat enough with adequate dietary fat, and keep your body fat in a lean athletic range, since men who crash below about 10 percent see testosterone fall. Layer in seven to nine hours of sleep, lower chronic stress, and 20 to 30 minutes of UVB sunlight on the skin a few times a week, which Andrew Huberman links to higher testosterone. Dr. Kyle Gillett frames diet and training as the two biggest factors.

How can women increase testosterone?

Women carry more testosterone than estrogen by mass, and it drives energy, libido, mood, and muscle, per Dr. Kyle Gillett. The same foundations apply: strength training, enough protein and food, sleep, and stress management. On Mind Pump, Dr. Lauren Fitzgerald treats women's hormones as a full panel, optimizing testosterone alongside progesterone, thyroid, and DHEA with a clinician, especially through perimenopause and menopause, where careful dosing is well studied and forgiving.

Can you increase testosterone levels quickly?

Some levers move within weeks: better sleep, lower stress, and regular sunlight can shift how you feel and function fairly soon, and Andrew Huberman notes that UVB exposure raises testosterone over a brief period. The larger, durable gains come over months, as you build muscle, land your body fat in a healthy range, and reduce endocrine-disruptor exposure. Think of it as a compounding curve, where consistency across the fundamentals beats any single quick fix.

Does losing belly fat increase testosterone?

Yes, and Dr. Michael Eisenberg explains the mechanism directly: a larger waist means more of the enzyme that converts testosterone into estrogen, so belly fat actively pulls male hormones down and correlates with poorer sperm quality. Mind Pump adds that both excess fat and very low body fat hurt hormones, so the target is a lean athletic middle. Losing excess belly fat through diet and training is one of the most reliable ways to support testosterone.

Where can I read these podcast summaries for free?

Every episode cited here links to a full, free summary on 1% Better, each with the key takeaway, detailed insights, and verbatim quotes from the guests. Our library spans hundreds of conversations across shows like Huberman Lab, The Peter Attia Drive, Mind Pump, and The Dr. Hyman Show. Browse the full catalog to go deeper on hormones, training, sleep, and longevity whenever you want the source behind a claim.

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