eli5: why does testosterone decrease when you’re stressed

Question

That makes no sense to me, isn’t our body supposed to make us stronger in a stressful environment so why reduce test levels

In: 125

Answer 1

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