That makes no sense to me, isn’t our body supposed to make us stronger in a stressful environment so why reduce test levels
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Do you know that feeling where you’ve spent the entire day studying & prepping for an exam, where you figure out that you actually forgot to eat the whole day, because you’ve just been so focused?
I’d like to think of stress being the same way. Your brain / body focuses so much on the “danger” it thinks is there, that it ignores a lot of the not so important functions
When you are stressed the body preserves energy for the future, it’s why stressed people have higher obesity ratings. Stress is good in the short term, not so much when chronic.
Some answers about the why but not the how. When youre stressed, your body secretes cortisol which works to increase blood sugar and other metabolic processes that aid in fight or flight. However, cortisol also plays a feedback inhibition role on the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal axis (brain telling the testes to produce testosterone) which leads to decrease in testosterone
Because the body starts focusing on the stress, and the danger that it thinks is pressant when stressed, and doesn’t pay as much attention to the less important functions of the body to preserve energy.
Testosterone is anabolic i.e. it promotes growth. Stress is a state promoted by fear, biologically it is supposed to be for acute situations where you must take action immediately, e.g. a lion attack. The body engages flight or fight mode where it is prepped to burn energy as quickly as possible, to maximise strength in the immediate short term, not to divert energy to growth and development as testosterone would encourage.
Energy is diverted to the heart, to speed it up and make it pump harder, to ready the muscles for flight or fight. This is why a burst of adrenaline makes your heart race, or why stressed and anxious people often tend to have raised blood pressure.
Chronic stress isn’t a state the body was naturally designed for. It is designed to have two distinct “modes”, growth and repair, and flight or fight. In ideal circumstances, most of the time the body will be in growth and repair mode (rest and digest) and the flight or fight mode will only be occasionally engaged.
In a state of chronic stress, the body is “stuck” in flight or fight mode, and anabolic functions are neglected in favour of readiness for physical action.
I think another good note to add in this ELI5 thread is that testosterone levels don’t inform or create conventionally “manly” or “aggressive” attributes – it’s a complex hormone with a lot of functions. All those people saying “A huge percentage of dopamine is used in your gut!” are not technically wrong, but are misunderstanding the function of gut dopamine, and assume that just because it’s memed as the “happy chemical” it means that more means you’re happy. but just like that’s incorrect, fluctuating testosterone levels don’t change your “manliness” (ew) at any given moment.
Increase in the stress hormone cortisol causes decrease in testosterone by a biochemical feedback loop
ELI5, not accurate, oversimplified:
Stress is basically puts your body into survival mode.
Testosterone is a sex hormone, and sexual activity is secondary to survival. Similar on how stressed and overworked women have their periods disturbed or alltogether stopped.
Stress disorders can fundamentally change how your body works. Your body diverts energy to basic necessities.
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