Many studies suggest that increasing testosterone levels and lowering cortisol levels (a stress hormone) have a beneficial impact on business.

So if you have an optimal hormonal balance you tend to be more profitable.

And it obviously makes sense.

High levels of testosterone lead to an increase in one’s sense of pride, boost in self-image, assertiveness, leadership, ability to take risk and have more control over business conversations – all important in the business world, as we all know it only takes a few seconds to make a bad impression and possibly years to correct one.

So how can you use this to your advantage?

Let’s look at it the gentleman way.

The correlation between testosterone and cortisol

Firstly, the studies suggest there is a negative correlation between testosterone and cortisol – meaning if one goes up, the other will go down.

So, if there is an increase in testosterone, cortisol will drop, but if there is an increase in cortisol, testosterone will drop.

And so according to studies if you’re driven by success in business it might be in your interest to minimise the stress hormone and naturally boost testosterone instead.

What’s increasing your cortisol levels and how to minimise it

Stress, lack of sleep, age and even working out the wrong way, can increase your cortisol and impact your testosterone levels, which may increase the risk for heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, low mineral density, impaired sexual function, reduced muscle mass and lower physical performance.

Which sounds awful, but it doesn’t have to be that way.

There are natural ways for you to boost your testosterone levels without taking external substances and here are a few:

Eat More Fat

You might usually run away from fatty foods, but dietary fats are essential in all hormone production in your body.

While doctors used to tell you to stay away from monounsaturated and saturated fats, these are now found to be the most effective for boosting testosterone.

Examples of quality monounsaturated fats are avocados, peanut butter; quality saturated fats can come from red meat, dark chocolate.

Cholesterol

Testosterone is derived from cholesterol, so try not to cut cholesterol completely from your diet (unless your health condition requires you to, of course).

You can try to incorporate whole eggs into your diet.

Moderate Workout Length

Workouts lasting more than an hour can start to spike your cortisol levels, subsequently decreasing testosterone.

Shorter rest periods between sets were found to stimulate higher acute hormonal responses, so keep your rest periods short (about one minute) and total workout time to under an hour.

Good Quality Sleep

Sleep is the magic answer to all our problems it seems.

Research has shown that the amount of sleep is associated with morning testosterone levels, so make sure you try to sleep at least 6-7 hours per night!

Testosterone-boosting Workouts

Weight training and high intensity training will do the job.

Make sure your programme is tailored to your needs and it’s structured both short and long term specific.

Conclusion

Testosterone is a great hormone that can help you increase your performance in business and can be increased through well designed fitness programme.

Good training and eating can make a difference and there are a lot of real life stories to back it up.