Why We Sleep by Matthew Walker

[gimmeabreak]

I’ve aways known my sleep was a mess and knew it was a contributor to my health issues. I’m on chapter 9 of this book where there is a focus on the effects of sleep deprivation effects on testosterone and it has literally blown my mind. Diet and fitness have always been my two biggest focuses in life with sleep falling behind. Well it’s come to light from this book that I have to move sleep back up to the top. Time to shift focus. A sleep study showed that men who sleep longer have larger testicles! Anyhow, great book.

[T2Low]

I wish I could get a good sleep study done, and I wish sleep wasnt a nightmare. I wake up so many times a night, struggle to fall asleep period, nightmares, skin drys out real bad for some reason too, wake up exhausted.

[ghce]

Getting treatment for poor sleep is a must, I have gone from 48 apneas an hour to less than 1. Prior to treatment I would stop breathing (Obstructive Apnea OA) for over 1.5 minutes at a time and even before I got the treatment pressure level dialled in I would still stop breathing for 80 odd seconds at a time. I now feel almost human and not a walking talking wreck.

Dont know about the testicle thing but even with my severe apnea mine have always been huge! under TRT not so much.

[ADHDandOCD]

I’ve aways known my sleep was a mess and knew it was a contributor to my health issues. I’m on chapter 9 of this book where there is a focus on the effects of sleep deprivation effects on testosterone and it has literally blown my mind. Diet and fitness have always been my two biggest focuses in life with sleep falling behind. Well it’s come to light from this book that I have to move sleep back up to the top. Time to shift focus. A sleep study showed that men who sleep longer have larger testicles! Anyhow, great book.

When you can't use CPAP and have apnea=screwed (like me)

[Flyingfool]

Ghce,

Are you saying that THRT basically cures your sleep (apnea) problems, or are you also on CPAP?

Do you believe apnea was reduced due to weight loss and/or other benefits as a result of the T replacement?

One of the symptoms of low T is poor sleep, so presumably, getting proper amount of T would help alleviate that symptom by itself.  Further help of obstructive apnea woild be relieved with weight loss which is also helped with having lroper T levels. 

Asking for two reasons. First my wife has sleep problems and low T (NOT apnea). Also a male co-worker has problems with obstructive apnea and difficulties with using CPAP.

[ADHDandOCD]

Ghce,

Are you saying that THRT basically cures your sleep (apnea) problems, or are you also on CPAP?

Do you believe apnea was reduced due to weight loss and/or other benefits as a result of the T replacement?

One of the symptoms of low T is poor sleep, so presumably, getting proper amount of T would help alleviate that symptom by itself.  Further help of obstructive apnea woild be relieved with weight loss which is also helped with having lroper T levels. 

Asking for two reasons. First my wife has sleep problems and low T (NOT apnea). Also a male co-worker has problems with obstructive apnea and difficulties with using CPAP.

I can rarely get to bed with my CPAP.  I just feel like I'm suffocating in the thing and even after 3 years I've maybe had 12-14 days max I've been able to use it.  It's not very feasible for many and alternatives really aren't great out there unless you're willing to pay to get something that works for you.  I want to buy some things to see if I can use my auto BIPAP CPAP more often, but I'm not wanting to fork out money and insurance doesn't cover anything for me except the basics for CPAP.  Also, I've tried a humidifier, different masks, different straps, no luck.  Just not an easy thing to use for me.  Keeping the temperature appropriate is also a pain. 

[ADHDandOCD]

I’ve aways known my sleep was a mess and knew it was a contributor to my health issues. I’m on chapter 9 of this book where there is a focus on the effects of sleep deprivation effects on testosterone and it has literally blown my mind. Diet and fitness have always been my two biggest focuses in life with sleep falling behind. Well it’s come to light from this book that I have to move sleep back up to the top. Time to shift focus. A sleep study showed that men who sleep longer have larger testicles! Anyhow, great book.

I take the more naturalistic approach and deal with apnea as it arises, but focus on trying to mitigate/prevent apnea because once it is going on, I don't have much luck with my CPAP so prevention and maintaining good health becomes a priority. 

[ghce]

Ghce,

Are you saying that THRT basically cures your sleep (apnea) problems, or are you also on CPAP?

Do you believe apnea was reduced due to weight loss and/or other benefits as a result of the T replacement?

One of the symptoms of low T is poor sleep, so presumably, getting proper amount of T would help alleviate that symptom by itself.  Further help of obstructive apnea woild be relieved with weight loss which is also helped with having lroper T levels. 

Asking for two reasons. First my wife has sleep problems and low T (NOT apnea). Also a male co-worker has problems with obstructive apnea and difficulties with using CPAP.

TRT helped me sleep better but really did nothing to help with the apnea, what also helped for sleep was taking Magnesium, and Vit D3.

My apnea doesnt seem to be related much to weight as I have always had it, a genetic thing really with a slightly smaller jaw.

Yes am on CPAP and use it 8 to 9 hours every night, the alternative is to ghastly to think about, I doubt I would have lived another 5 years with out it as the long term affects of life long Apnea would kick in ie Cardio vascular which has prematurely killed off all the previous generation of males in the family prior to age 60.

My advice regards CPAP, BIPAP VPAP or APAP is to persist and work on it until a viable protocol gets in place, explore all options, it does work but sometimes its a long road for some. I have found this site a fantastic resource http://www.apneaboard.com/forums/Forum-Main-Apnea-Board-Forum and far better than any medical doctor advice I have recieved.

[T2Low]

Sleep study is $700-$900 here depending on what they do. They have home study for $200 but say it's not great at really giving them a good idea of what is actually going on. I want to do it because I wake up CONSTANTLY, but that could be anything I suppose?

[Boxcar]

Sleep deprivation is one of the most reliable ways to lower a man's testosterone.  So this is always worth looking at, for a guy with low testosterone.

[ghce]

Sleep deprivation is one of the most reliable ways to lower a man's testosterone.  So this is always worth looking at, for a guy with low testosterone.

Yeah thats been playing on my mind in recent times, am thinking that at some stage I will go off TRT and do a Clomid restart for a few weeks and see if sleep apnea has indeed been a factor in my low T, though I doubt it as I have had apnea my entire life and would that affect the HPTA axis ? or just effect the free or total T.

For all the times people have said sleep deprivation effects T I have never seen the mechanism that causes it to be lowered explained, is it just an old wives tale?

[Cataceous]

...
For all the times people have said sleep deprivation effects T I have never seen the mechanism that causes it to be lowered explained, is it just an old wives tale?

I like when someone comes along and challenges conventional wisdom, forcing a closer look. I'd accepted that sleep deprivation lowers testosterone, but a quick look at PubMed isn't finding much support for the idea.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28479951

... Sleep deprivation was defined as 24-h without sleep. ... Overall no significant differences were detected comparing the different sleep states for testosterone or cortisol concentrations. ...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29025356

The aim of this study was to detect potential predictors of salivary testosterone (sT) association with sleep deprivation ... [M]ale students in the age range of 18 to 26 years were divided into two groups, sleep-deprived (SD) participants and non-sleep-deprived (NSD) participants. Sleep deprivation was defined as sleeping less than 5 hr per night. ...
... No significant differences were noted between the SD and NSD groups for all variables. However, the comparison identified higher levels of sT in the SD group (274.7 ± 164. compared with NSD group (235.8 ± 131.5) without significant difference in the mean (p > .05). The mean age for SD participants was 22.38 (±1.9) years, whereas it was 21.6 (±1.5) years for NSD participants.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29241306

However, no differences were observed in responses in cortisol [F (4.36) = 0.463; P = 0.762; effect size = 0.049], testosterone [F (4.36) = 0.113; P = 0.977; effect size = 0.012], epinephrine [F (4.36) = 0.780; P = 0.472; effect size = 0.080], IL-6 [F (4.36) = 0.978; P = 0.432; effect size = 0.098], IL-10 [F (4.36) = 0.474; P = 0.754; effect size = 0.050] and CRP [F (4.36) = 2.055; P = 0.173; effect size = 0.186) after each experimental condition (Fig. 2).

A more extreme study on rats did yield a link: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25747127

Sexually experienced rats were subjected to paradoxic sleep deprivation (PSD) for 96 hours [!] or sleep restriction (SR) for 21 days or kept in their home cage as control (CTRL). ... The PSD [but not SR?] group had significantly lower testosterone levels than the CTRL group.

If you turn the issue around, studies do link hypogonadism to sleep disturbances. But the above suggests that modest sleep disturbances do not have much effect on testosterone levels of normal males.

[Everydaystruggle]

Sleep deprivation is one of the most reliable ways to lower a man's testosterone.  So this is always worth looking at, for a guy with low testosterone.

Where are you finding sleep studies that cheap? I need to get one done but that cheapest I have found is $2200 and that’s with a discount.