The Body Keeps Score, Part 3: The Testosterone Conversation I Wasn't Having

Nobody mentioned testosterone during the antenatal classes. We covered birth plans and feeding positions and what to put in the hospital bag and the difference between Braxton Hicks and actual contractions. We did not cover the gradual hormonal shift that happens to men in their forties and that has a measurable effect on mood, energy, libido, recovery, and the general sense of being a functioning person.

This seems, in retrospect, like a significant omission from the curriculum.

What actually happens

Testosterone in men declines at roughly one percent per year from the mid-thirties. This is normal. This is not hypogonadism or a medical condition requiring treatment. It is a biological gradient that everyone on the correct chromosome travels down.

What makes the early-forties particularly interesting — or difficult, depending on your relationship with the word interesting — is that the gradient steepens slightly with age, and the conditions of early parenthood actively accelerate it. Sleep deprivation suppresses testosterone production. Elevated cortisol suppresses testosterone production. Reduced physical activity suppresses testosterone production. Carrying significant extra weight, particularly abdominal weight, suppresses testosterone production by a process involving the conversion of testosterone to oestrogen in fat tissue.

The conditions of having a newborn in your early forties are therefore, again, almost perfectly engineered to suppress the hormone that most supports your ability to cope with the conditions of having a newborn in your early forties.

I find this either deeply ironic or deeply predictable, depending on the day.

What low-ish testosterone actually feels like

Not dramatic. That is the main thing I want to say. This is not a condition that announces itself with a clear symptom and a neat diagnosis. It is a gradual shift in baseline.

The markers I noticed, over a period of about eighteen months, before I had blood tests:

The recovery issue I have written about in the tiredness piece — the sense that sleep was not fully restoring things — has a hormonal component. Testosterone is involved in the repair processes that happen during deep sleep. Less of it means those processes are less efficient.

Motivation in a diffuse sense. Not depression — I was not depressed — but a reduction in the ambient forward-drive that had previously characterised my working life. Getting started on things took more effort. The natural momentum that had carried my career through my thirties was still there but required more active maintenance.

Muscle retention. I noticed, once I started paying attention, that my strength-to-effort ratio had shifted. The same kettlebell sessions that would previously have produced gradual strength gains were producing maintenance. Progress required more deliberate progressive overload than it had previously.

What I did about it

Blood test first. This is the only sensible starting point. A private blood test — I used Medichecks, which posts a kit and returns results within a few days — covers testosterone, free testosterone, SHBG, LH, and a handful of related markers for about £60. My results were within the normal range, but toward the lower end of it. My GP described this as "not clinical but worth monitoring."

The lifestyle interventions are, again, the unsexy but consistent answers:

Strength training. The evidence for resistance training and testosterone is solid. Heavy compound movements — squats, deadlifts, kettlebell swings at meaningful weight — produce an acute hormonal response that accumulates over time. The existing kettlebell habit is doing real work here.

Sleep quality over sleep quantity. The testosterone production happens in the deep sleep phases. A slightly shorter but higher-quality night may produce better hormonal outcomes than a longer disrupted one. The magnesium, the caffeine timing, the no-screens-after-10pm rule are all part of this.

Zinc and vitamin D. These are the two micronutrients with the most consistent evidence for testosterone support. Vitamin D deficiency is extremely common in the UK, particularly in winter, and sub-optimal D levels are associated with lower testosterone. A standard 2,000IU supplement costs about £5 for three months. I take it. Zinc is in the AG1 I take in the mornings.

Reducing alcohol. This is the piece I was reluctant to include but feel I should, because the evidence is clear and I have been on the receiving end of the clear evidence. Alcohol suppresses testosterone production in a dose-dependent way. I have not stopped drinking. I have reduced significantly. More on this shortly.

What I want to say to the person who recognises this

If you are reading this and something in the description of the "diffuse motivational shift" or the recovery problems sounds accurate to your experience, it is worth investigating rather than enduring. Get the blood test. It is £60 and a small kit that arrives in the post.

The results will probably be in the normal range. Normal range is wide. Your normal at 44 is not the same as your normal at 36, and understanding where on the gradient you are is useful information.

And then the interventions are the same ones that appear throughout this blog under different headings: sleep, strength training, walking, the management of the things you put in your body. None of them are dramatic. All of them compound.

The body keeps score. The score is manageable. But you have to look at it.