This HORMONE Is Slowly Killing Men

Summary

In this video, Dr. Sam Robbins discusses the impact of cortisol, a stress hormone, on men's health. High cortisol levels can lower testosterone, increase belly fat, decrease sex drive, and accelerate aging. Dr. Robbins offers simple ways to manage stress and reduce cortisol levels, such as deep breathing, balanced diet, exercise, and proper sleep. He emphasizes the importance of reframing stress perception, taking adaptogenic supplements, and maintaining healthy lifestyle habits to improve overall wellbeing and confidence.

Highlights

• Cortisol, when elevated, can decrease testosterone and cause weight gain in men. 💪📉
• Deep breathing is an effective and accessible method to lower cortisol levels. 🌬️✨
• Blood sugar management is crucial. Incorporating more veggies and walking after meals can stabilize levels. 🚶‍♂️🥦
• The importance of sunlight exposure: Morning light boosts positive hormone levels while reducing stressors by evening. 🌅☀️
• Exercise smart! Weight lifting is beneficial but intense cardio can elevate stress; moderation is key. 🏋️‍♂️🍏
• Ensure your sleep routine is consistent to prevent nighttime stress surges. 🌜⏰
• A positive mindset and reframing of stress can significantly improve life quality and health outcomes. 😊👌

Key Takeaways

• Cortisol, the stress hormone, can wreak havoc on men's health by lowering testosterone and increasing belly fat. 🧠🔥
• Deep breathing exercises can help reduce stress levels and are simple to implement anywhere. Just breathe in for four, hold, and exhale for four seconds! 🌬️🧘‍♂️
• Managing blood sugar through a balanced diet and a post-meal walk aids in keeping stress hormones in check. 🍏🍽️
• Catching some morning sunlight helps regulate your body's cortisol rhythm, setting you up for a better night’s sleep later. 🌞🌜
• Exercise is essential, but stick to manageable sessions of lifting weights to avoid unnecessary stress spikes. 💪🏋️‍♂️
• Quality sleep helps balance hormones - aim for a consistent bedtime to avoid stress-induced 'second winds.' 🛌💤
• Reframe stress by seeing challenges as opportunities, which biochemically alters your stress response for the better. 🔄💡

Overview

Dr. Sam Robbins dives into the stealthy yet impactful consequences of the stress hormone cortisol on men's health and vitality. With higher levels resulting in decreased testosterone, increased abdominal fat, and a myriad of other health issues, he emphasizes how crucial it is to manage stress effectively. Using real-life anecdotes, Dr. Robbins paints a vivid picture of the damages excessive cortisol can cause, from sexual health declines to accelerated aging.

In offering solutions, Dr. Robbins shares effortless strategies to combat stress, such as breathing exercises and diet modifications. He stresses the role of regular movement and sunlight exposure in maintaining healthy cortisol rhythms. Additionally, adapting sleep practices can curb unwanted stress responses. By emphasizing manageable lifestyle tweaks, Dr. Robbins underscores how these changes can bolster both mental and physical wellness.

With a humorous yet informative approach, Dr. Robbins advises redefining perceptions of stress. Reframing challenges as non-threatening and focusing on positives can alter one's biochemical stress response favorably. With supplements and adaptogens acting as aids, he highlights the importance of self-care and proactive health management, championing it as a pathway to enhanced confidence and vitality for men.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction: The Hormone Killing Men In the introductory chapter titled 'The Hormone Killing Men', Dr. Sam Robbins discusses a hormone that is detrimental to men’s health. He initiates the conversation by asking a question to his audience, creating an engaging dialogue. Dr. Robbins describes the hormone's adverse effects on men, highlighting how it reduces testosterone and other vital hormones associated with youth. The hormone contributes to increased belly and visceral fat, leading to an unhealthy and unattractive pot belly. Moreover, it severely impacts men's sex drive, diminishing their ability to maintain erections while also elevating blood pressure and blood sugar levels. Dr. Robbins emphasizes the extensive negative health implications of this hormone on men.
• 01:00 - 02:00: Cortisol: The Stress Hormone Cortisol is the hormone responsible for stress-related issues, leading to muscle loss, weakness, disrupted sleep, and other negative physical changes such as increased wrinkling and hair loss. It's a significant cause of hair loss, which has been observed in personal experiences such as during a divorce. Furthermore, cortisol contributes to heightened anxiety and depression.
• 03:00 - 04:00: Regulating Cortisol Levels The chapter focuses on the negative impacts of cortisol, a hormone that accelerates aging and is linked to various health issues, including diseases and cancers. It mentions the association between increased adrenaline and cortisol levels, leading to a detrimental cascade effect.
• 04:00 - 06:00: Deep Breathing Techniques The chapter discusses the importance of cortisol, a stress hormone necessary for survival, highlighting that while necessary, excessive stress from modern fast-paced living can be harmful, particularly impactful for men.
• 06:00 - 09:00: Managing Blood Sugar Levels The chapter titled 'Managing Blood Sugar Levels' discusses how modern life's constant stimulation, especially through media, contributes to stress and hormonal imbalances. The speaker mentions historical contexts where people had limited media consumption and more social interactions, which led to lower stress levels. The chapter promises to provide seven simple and effective techniques to reduce stress and cortisol levels, thereby enhancing hormonal balance and overall well-being.
• 09:00 - 11:00: The Importance of Sunlight and Exercise The chapter discusses the benefits of sunlight and exercise in enhancing physical and mental well-being. It emphasizes how these elements can make individuals look and feel younger, happier, and more confident. The chapter introduces stress-reduction techniques, including the practice of mindful deep breathing, highlighting its ease and accessibility anytime and anywhere. There is a focus on the tendency of people, particularly men, to be shallow breathers, especially when stressed or anxious, and how modifying this breathing can be beneficial.
• 11:00 - 15:00: Adaptogens and Sleep for Stress Management The chapter 'Adaptogens and Sleep for Stress Management' begins by highlighting the common issue of poor posture and shallow breathing in modern lifestyles, exacerbated by frequent use of electronic devices. It encourages readers to practice deep abdominal breathing as a simple yet effective stress management technique, recommending they take time to breathe deeply a few times a day.
• 15:00 - 18:30: Reframing Stress and Conclusion The chapter provides a practical breathing exercise for managing stress. The exercise involves a cycle of inhaling, holding, and exhaling for four seconds each, repeated three times, designed to promote relaxation in under a minute.

This HORMONE Is Slowly Killing Men Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 Hey guys, it's Dr. Sam Robbins. Um, I'm gonna ask you a question. You can let me know below. But there's a hormone that's literally killing people, especially men. Uh, it lowers your testosterone and other youth hormones. It increases belly fat and visceral fat. That's the thing that gives you that pot belly, which obviously is very unhealthy and and not attractive. Um, it kills your sex drive. Remember, lower testosterone, kills your sex drive, your ability to get erections. It increases blood pressure levels and blood sugar levels which then
• 00:30 - 01:00 causes other problems. Um it causes muscle loss and weakness. In fact, it's the number one cause of probably muscle loss and weakness. Um destroys your sleep and it causes other negative changes. Uh it it increases wrinkling and hair loss. It's a huge cause of hair loss and I've seen it in my own personal life and my brothers when you know he had a divorce and all this stuff. And it increases you're, you know, getting anxiety and depression. Basically, it
• 01:00 - 01:30 accelerates aging indirectly. All right? And it's linked to many health problems, um, diseases and cancers. So, what hormone do you think this is? Let me know below real quick. If you do, if you guess right, you get a million dollars from Google or YouTube. So, all right. Basically, this hormone is cortisol and it's related stress hormones. Basically, adrenaline goes up, cortisol levels go up, and there's a negative cascade. Now,
• 01:30 - 02:00 some cortisol is good. In fact, you need it. This stress hormone is not bad. It's good because without cortisol, you would die. Uh, however, these days, most of us are basically under a lot of stress because of our lives. Uh, things are moving way too fast. There's too much happening and it's hard to manage it all the time, especially for men. Uh, that You know, when we were younger, you would just get the news a little bit. You know, in my time, there's only like
• 02:00 - 02:30 three channels, a ABC, NBC, and then little by little, you had a little uh this and that, and you didn't have news all the time. You relax at night. You'd go out with your friends out in the sun. We don't do that. This thing, as wonderful it is, it's like boom boom boom boom boom causes anxiety and depression, uh dopamine decreases, highs and lows, all that increases cortisol levels. So today I'm going to give you seven super easy, simple, proven ways that you can lower stress and cortisol so you can optimize your youth hormones,
• 02:30 - 03:00 basically look and feel younger, happier, and have more confidence. So let's get started with the easiest one for lowering uh stress levels. You do this anytime, anywhere, and it's going to be shei or lame, but basically most of us, especially men, we are shallow breathers. All right? We we we're we breathe quickly and we're shallow breathers, especially under pressure or we have stress, we have anxiety. And
• 03:00 - 03:30 most of us these days, we're hunched forward, right? and we don't breathe well cuz we're always on our electronic devices or you know your phones and all that stuff which again you're not breathing deeply. How many are just walking out and and taking a nice walk outside and breathing. So once an hour or a few times a day, I want you to slow down and just take some deep breaths from your stomach. And I'll get to the really fun stuff in a little bit, but this is so simple it cost you
• 03:30 - 04:00 nothing. And try this. Breathe in for four seconds. Two, three. And then hold for four seconds. One, two, three, four. And then exhale for 4 seconds. So four in, hold for four, exhale for four. Oh yeah, just I already feel relaxed. Do this, you know, three times, three cycles. It only takes less than a minute. All
• 04:00 - 04:30 right. Do this a few times a day. Uh do this when you're feeling stressed, when you're driving, when some pressure happens, when you're dealing when you get in a fight with your girlfriend. Just do this. You get in a good habit of relaxing and and controlling your sympathetic and parasympathetic system. This literally signals your brain to just relax, lower blood pressure, lower stress levels, improves blood sugar, and all that stuff. So do this, especially when you're under stress. Now the second thing you want to do is improve or
• 04:30 - 05:00 manage your blood sugar levels. Why? Because blood sugar goes highs and lows that causes um stress levels to come up. So what controls blood sugar? It's carbohydrates. Now actually carbohydrates in the right amount lowers stress hormones. All right. The problem is those highs and lows, those spikes. All right. When you eat a bunch of food and all that stuff, then you don't. that increases cortisol levels because your body's under stress and it doesn't like that. All right? So, you want basically
• 05:00 - 05:30 stable blood sugar levels and insulin levels. Um, and that's done with eating more protein at the beginning of the meal, having more vegetables and fruits and natural fiber containing carbohydrates such as legumes and yams and, you know, salads and all that, and then having your carbohydrate meal. So, always keep that in mind. You want blood sugar levels. It'll stabilize your blood sugar, your insulin, and your mood and your hormones. Also taking a walk right after you eat. I've mentioned this many times before. 10 to 15 minutes after a meal. Just five minutes one way, five
• 05:30 - 06:00 minutes back. This is literally clinically proven to lower blood sugar levels. I've been doing this for years. I remember Stan Efroning said it at the same time. So it's really good. It's easy. The other thing you want to do is um you can take supplements that help uh lower uh blood sugar. You take them right at the beginning or at the end of your meal. Uh things like bourberin, alphalapoic acid, and bitter melon are really really good at lowering blood sugar levels. I had a a CGM, one of those constant uh uh con uh blood sugar
• 06:00 - 06:30 monitoring on me on on me. And even no matter what I ate, as soon as I took my my uh my supplements, and I took my walk, my blood sugar immediately just dropped down and stayed stable. And it made a huge difference at times. didn't I'll put more information about the best supplements and herbs that you can take right with all your carbohydrate meals. Now, another way to easily lower cortisol levels and stress is is actually get some sunlight in the morning. And that's just because your
• 06:30 - 07:00 body it sets your circadian rhythm. Actually, what you want is you want cortisol stress levels higher in the morning and then lower at night. That's the normal thing. So, by going up first thing in the morning, getting some sunlight. All right. actually taking a 10 to 15 minute walk like I've been saying for a while. I've been doing it for years because I happen to walk my dogs. I have to do it. And the at times I don't I notice a difference. It regulates insulin blood sugar. It cortisol levels your mood. Resets your sleep wake uh cycle and again higher
• 07:00 - 07:30 cortisol in the morning which is good decreases that cortisol levels at night. So melatonin goes up uh and your growth hormone goes up. It's just a natural way to do this. Also, do it daily. You don't need sunglasses. And um again, 10 minutes, 15 minutes is all you need. Now, another way to lower stress levels and cortisol is to lift weights. Exercise. So, but there's a dos
• 07:30 - 08:00 and don'ts. Lifting weights or exercise temporarily increases cortisol levels, but it's done naturally. Remember, stress is good. Too much stress is bad. But during the day then it lowers stress hormones. It lowers blood pressure and blood sugar levels. All right. Initial a little bit bad but longterm it's very good. Now one thing is not good is is it's going strenuous cardiovascular exercises longterm that increases both blood sugar and stress levels. However,
• 08:00 - 08:30 walking is great. It's a hardcore stress. Uh running all the time and so forth. Um, another thing is lifting weights is fantastic. Just don't do it all the time. Killing yourself three to four times a week, preferably every other day. And, uh, keep it to about an hour. Some guys work out for two hours. If you're working out for two hours, you're jibber jabbering a lot, right? Work out hard, 30, 45 minutes, 60 minutes. Then go back and eat. Maximize your rest. And I hear people like,
• 08:30 - 09:00 "That's all you Look, two of the biggest bodybuilders ever, Dorian Yates and Ronnie Coleman, all said 1 hour or less. That's all they needed. And both of these guys had excellent genetics and took a lot of drugs and they did nothing else. So, if the best of the best don't need more than an hour, you and I definitely don't need it. Another thing you can do is take adaptogens to lower stress. These are just natural like stress buffers in the body. There's a
• 09:00 - 09:30 few supplements that help lower uh cortisol and just manage stress. Um one of them is you've probably heard of ashwagandha. Another one that most people have not heard which is super powerful. It's called emodin. This is this is really powerful. It literally will decrease the production of cortisol. I've been taking that for the past maybe three years and literally I can take saliva blood tests and know the difference. Um uh for saliva and blood test lowering cortisol. Phosphoderin is also very good. Another one is good is
• 09:30 - 10:00 rodeiola. Um I posted a few other ones below in the description area about adaptogens lowering stress. Um vitamin C is also really good. Keep that in mind. Another thing that will decrease uh stress and cortisol. Something that we all screw up is sleep. Most of us do not sleep well. we sleep, you know, just keep look when your body sleeps well, it rebalances and optimizes all your hormones, stress hormones, blood sugars, and uh growth hormone and testosterone.
• 10:00 - 10:30 All these things go. Now, one thing I used to screw, well, I still screw up unfortunately, is let's say around 9 or 10:00, I'd start to get tired and I'm like, man, I should go to bed. But let me just do one little thing and one little thing and the next thing you know I'm like wide awake, man. I'm like, "Oh, I got my second wind." That second wind is an increase in stress hormones.
• 10:30 - 11:00 Here's how it works. Your body's dropping cortisol as the night happens. And I'm I'll get to the point in a minute. That's why you need to manage your bedtime. That's very important. Uh and then what would happen is your body's like, "Well, when is this dude going to go to sleep?" Well, I'm I'm giving him all the signals. I'm yawning. I'm making him groggy. Why isn't this dude listening? Oh, he must be under a lot of stress. So, what happens in the next 10, 20, 30 minutes? As your melatonin was going up
• 11:00 - 11:30 and cortisol levels come down, what happens? Cortisol levels go up. Melatonin sleep hormone comes back down. Your second win at night is bad. It's cortisol levels going up. So what happens eventually around let's say midnight or 1 you go to sleep but now in the morning your cortisol levels go up to wake you up. What happened at the end of the day? You lost out an hour or two or three of sleep which is always keeps happening to me. If I go to sleep at midnight or 1, I still wake up around 7 or 8. Yet I go to sleep around 10 10:30
• 11:30 - 12:00 I get up around 7. I I literally squeeze out another hour or two of sleep. So what does this mean? Go to bed earlier. People set up an alarm to wake up. I tell you to set an alarm to get to bed at night. That's the most important part. Um, sleep as long as you need. All right? So, don't wake up with an alarm. If you're waking up with an alarm, you're not sleeping enough. Um, I always tell people, don't do anything stressful an hour before sleep. I used to have a girlfriend and she would always want to talk to me late
• 12:00 - 12:30 at night. Now, mind you, she used to go to bed late and I was getting on a call with her and I'm like, "Hey, I'm not a good sleeper. I'm going to get to bed." She's like, "Okay." Hey, I'm like, "Look, I don't need anything that's going to excite me or anger me or anything." It's like, "Fine." I'm like, "All right, I'm going to get to bed." She like, "All right, hey, just one question." I said, "Yeah." She like, "Where's this relationship going?" I'm like, "Mother Eiff, why are you bringing this up?" And boom, cortisol levels go up. I was awake for an hour or two. She went right back to sleep. She would hibernate nine or 10 hours. That didn't work for me. These days, I tell I talk to nobody an hour
• 12:30 - 13:00 before bed. All right? other than maybe my my puppy. I talk to no one. I mellow myself out. I don't watch anything that's going to excite me. So, I'll watch like old reruns of Seinfeld or something mellow and funny. Everything is I I get ready for it. Don't eat anything. Uh there's a whole sleep thing that I made made and you probably have been watching previous videos. Get ready. Keep your place cooler, dark. I wear my my blue
• 13:00 - 13:30 blockers. Everything is dim. So, keep that in mind. Um, I have I have earplugs, eye shades. I really I have to prioritize sleep. That's how important it is for all this stuff. I know I've I've gone rambled on. Um, also, I do take supplements at night to literally get me in the mood and to either help me fall asleep faster and or help me stay asleep longer. So, I do that. And again, I put the best herbs below in the
• 13:30 - 14:00 description area. Another super important fact and this might be the most important fact is you need to reframe or give a different definition of stress. All right? Because life is stressful but it's your perception and listen carefully. It's your perception of stress that literally controls your reaction and therefore your stress levels and cortisol. Um, when something bad happens, [ __ ]
• 14:00 - 14:30 happens. Think of it as a challenge, not as like, oh [ __ ] warning and threat. All right, this shifts your mindset and changes biochemically your entire chemistry. All right, just always know, and I'm not necessarily a a religious person, but as the Bible says, this too shall pass. Always, always, always, I remember Tony telling me, focus on the solution and not the problem. And before I end this, I'll give you guys an example. And I've mentioned this in the
• 14:30 - 15:00 past. I used to have a girlfriend who every time something bad happened, she would freak out. All right. Oh no, this we got in a car accident once and she was more upset at the car getting this and blah blah blah. And nothing happened. Insurance paid and all that stuff. Nothing happened to us. She didn't focus on the good. She focused on the bad. And I would say, "Man, this is exactly how your mom is. Always on the bed, always bitching and moaning and everything is 10 times worse than it
• 15:00 - 15:30 was." And I said, "Man, you guys are going to die early. You're going to get cancer cuz I've seen it, man. People who stress out all die earlier." Guess what? Her mom unfortunately got mctomies, full-blown breast cancer, and she, my ex-girlfriend, would always have stomach problems, always have colitis, always have issues. Now I'm not in touch with her and back then she was in her early 30s. Who knows what other problems she has but always stressing out mind you it's easier said than done but I'm
• 15:30 - 16:00 naturally like highrung. So what you focus on right that I hate to say and you've heard it having that attitude of gratitude instead of like you get in a car accident and this is really important. You're like ah [ __ ] man what's going to happen? Uh my insurance is going to go up. I have to get a new car. I have to go pay for this. I got to do for that. Blah blah blah. instead of focus on, dude, this sucks. But thank God, I didn't kill anyone. I didn't break anything or whatever. It's nothing
• 16:00 - 16:30 bad. When you focus on that, you're like, okay, good. Because I know people who have gotten car accidents and died. And one other thing, I remember when I was younger, I was driving home, driving down a hill to my parents house. I was living at home. I was in my early 20s and I was like bitching. Life sucks. School sucks. Chick sucks. Money sucks. And I'm just driving down the street and
• 16:30 - 17:00 I remember there's this guy walking. He's got a smile on his face and he's got the stick. I'm like, what's he doing? Oh [ __ ] man. That dude's blind. This guy is just walking on the street blind, just had a smile on his face. You know, he's seen blind people and he's just going back and forth the stick not. And I'm like, Jesus, man, what am I bitching about when this dude's blind and I have my
• 17:00 - 17:30 eyesight? You get it? Just learn whatever problems you're dealing with, money, women, this and that, this too shall pass. All right? It'll improve your hormones. to improve your confidence. Anytime you're under stress, reframe your brain, improve your breathing. Pause. Again, I hate to say I just take supplements. I need that initial help. I need to take things to mellow me out. I'll take glycine. I'll take my supplements. It'll I can see the
• 17:30 - 18:00 difference. I take it after my workouts. I take it before bed. I need help. Maybe you don't, but I need it. I live in a stressful life, my work and all this stuff. You can't always control your environment. control your thoughts and do what you can to improve your hormones. So, at the end, give yourself some credit. All right? Don't criticize yourself all the time. So many people do. Don't [ __ ] about yourself. Don't focus on what other
• 18:00 - 18:30 people are talking about. I know I I'm going off on a tangent, but that's the most important thing I can tell you. Um, breathe, give yourself credit, take your supplements, and let me know below if you have any other questions. Manage your stress. It'll improve your hormones. It'll improve your health, your fitness, longevity, your libido, your structure, your your attitude. You'll become sexier, too, more confident. Hopefully, that helped.