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What Causes What
MECHANISM

Sleep duration and regularity → Testosterone

Cut sleep, cut T. Small trial, right design, right direction.

Randomized trial · Moderate · N=10

Supported by an experiment or a tightly identified design. Still read the caveats.

Mechanism

Overnight restriction in young men lowered daytime T without a matching drop in cortisol in that particular protocol. The sleep–T path is one of the few lifestyle→androgen arrows with experimental support.

Caveats

N=10, young men, one week. Do not scale to 'optimize T with a mattress'. Do treat chronic 5-hour sleep as an endocrine intervention you are already running.

Effect

percent_change = -12. Leproult 2011: ~10–15% lower daytime T after a week of 5-hour nights (N=10 men).

Nodes

Lifestyle & environmentSleep duration and regularityBiology & endocrinologyTestosterone

Cite this page

What Causes What. “Sleep duration and regularity → Testosterone.” https://whatcauseswhat.org/edges/e-sleep-testosterone (atlas updated 2026-08-31).

https://whatcauseswhat.org/edges/e-sleep-testosterone

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