Experts Hormones Tim Ferriss

Tim Ferriss · 4 episodes · 71 sourced insights

What Tim Ferriss says about hormones

Everything Tim Ferriss and guests said about hormones across 4 episodes — each point linked to the exact second on YouTube. Sourced expert opinion, not medical advice.

In their own words

Huberman says he has doubled down on five foundational categories that must be re-upped every 24 hours: sleep, nutrients (macro and micro), movement, light (especially morning sunlight), and relationships.
00:05:08Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
He reversed his belief that you cannot train for endurance and strength at once; the data on concurrent training convinced him you can pursue multiple adaptations simultaneously, so he rebuilt his program to target one specific adaptation each day.
00:22:50Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
He details his full weekly split: Sunday endurance hike/jog, Monday legs, Tuesday sauna/cold plunge recovery, Wednesday cardio or torso, Thursday torso or cardio, Friday short VO2 max work, Saturday smaller muscle groups.
00:24:34Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
Tibialis (tib) raises, learned from Ben Patrick (Knees Over Toes Guy), eliminated his right-side sciatica, fixed shin splints, and let him run pain-free; he also discovered he never actually had flat feet, just weak tibs.
00:33:01Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
Dedicated neck training improved his posture, eye contact, confidence, and injury resilience; he does it lying on a bench and stomach with a towel-wrapped plate.
00:50:39Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
His sleep stack remains magnesium threonate, theanine, and apigenin, with added myo-inositol (900 mg) to help fall back asleep; if forced to pick two, he chooses magnesium threonate and apigenin.
01:15:41Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
Rhodiola rosea (200 mg pre-workout) is his standout recent performance addition because it reduces perceived effort and post-exercise energy crash without suppressing cortisol, unlike Ashwagandha.
01:36:34Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
Huberman has been monitoring sperm parameters and freezing sperm, and credits Ferriss with the idea that optimizing for fertility is a proxy for optimizing overall vitality.
01:44:32Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
The circuits devoted to movement plus those devoted to vision make up roughly 75 percent of the human brain.
00:21:12Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
After about 25-30 minutes of repetitive exercise, central pattern generators engage so the movement becomes near-automatic, like an autopilot button appearing on the steering wheel.
00:28:43Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
Protein synthesis peaks around 48 hours after a resistance workout but is held for additional days, so a muscle group does not need to be hit every 48 hours.
00:59:29Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
Charles Poliquin's caution: resistance training beyond 60 minutes raises cortisol, harming sleep and recovery, so Huberman keeps lifts to an hour or less.
01:02:43Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
A University of Houston study found 'soleus pushups' (seated calf raises) done while sitting significantly improved insulin sensitivity and glucose uptake.
01:10:48Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
The soleus is about 1 percent of body musculature but can account for over 15 percent of daytime energy expenditure.
01:11:54Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
Gulping fluid signals the bladder to urgently urinate, so sip your last evening drink, but gulp large amounts of water first thing in the morning when the kidney functions differently.
01:18:23Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
Morning light raises cortisol about 50 percent above baseline; late-shifted cortisol is associated with depression and immune disruption.
01:21:03Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
Neuropod cells in the gut signal sugar, fatty acids, and amino acids via the vagus nerve to the brain's dopamine centers, driving cravings and satiety.
01:29:06Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
An Israeli study found 20 minutes of afternoon sun on bare skin three times a week significantly increased free testosterone, estrogen, and libido; the skin acts as an endocrine organ via the P53 pathway.
01:53:41Dr. Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Mar 2023
Huberman recommends everyone view sunlight for two to ten minutes every morning upon waking to trigger a healthy cortisol pulse and set timers for both wakefulness and later melatonin/sleepiness.
00:16:35Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
His preferred sleep cocktail is 50mg apigenin, 300-400mg magnesium threonate or bisglycinate, and 200-400mg theanine taken about 30 minutes before bed, paired with morning light.
00:36:20Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
He avoids melatonin because it suppresses the reproductive/sex-steroid axis and most supplements contain 10 to 1,000 times natural physiological levels.
00:32:08Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
The physiological sigh - a double inhale followed by an extended exhale - offloads carbon dioxide and brings stress levels down very fast in real time, often after just one to three repetitions.
00:48:53Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
A 20-minute non-sleep deep rest (NSDR) protocol after intense learning accelerates neuroplasticity by about 50 percent, per two recent Cell Reports papers.
00:46:20Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
Huberman recounts a July 4, 1994 street fight at age 19 that became the turning point flipping him from a struggling, depressed dropout-track student toward neuroscience and academia.
01:08:26Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
He reveals he has done therapy with the same individual for 32 years, currently three sessions a week of psychoanalysis.
01:24:53Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
For testosterone, he uses 400mg/day Tongkat Ali and roughly 425mg Fadogia agrestis, which together raised his total testosterone by about 200 points without down-regulating LH.
02:00:35Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
The eyes are literally two pieces of brain squeezed out during early development - the only parts of the central nervous system outside the cranial vault.
00:06:41Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
Ideal morning light exposure is about 14 to 16 hours before you want to sleep, and your 'temperature minimum' (about two hours before natural waking) is the anchor point for shifting the circadian clock and beating jet lag.
00:24:20Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
Belladonna ('beautiful woman' in Italian) was historically made into a tincture women put in their eyes to hyper-dilate their pupils because it was considered attractive.
00:14:31Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
Inhales speed the heart up and exhales slow it down (respiratory sinus arrhythmia), which is the basis of heart rate variability - so emphasizing longer exhales calms the system.
00:50:55Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
The Spiegel eye-roll test predicts hypnotizability; Tim scored about a 4, very hypnotizable, with eyes rolling back as the lids slowly closed.
00:53:29Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
Clinical hypnosis shows roughly 60-80% success for smoking cessation, up to 90% improvement for anxiety, and 50-75% reduction in chronic pain in controlled studies.
00:57:05Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
Turmeric is a fairly potent DHT antagonist; people sensitive to creatine-induced hair loss tend to see their DHT plummet on turmeric.
01:50:41Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
In a Dominican Republic genetic condition (guevedoces), children appear female at birth then sprout a penis and descend testicles around age 12 due to a DHT surge, revealing 5-alpha reductase's role.
01:55:53Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
Most people benefit from delaying caffeine 90 minutes to two hours after waking so cortisol can clear residual adenosine and avoid an energy crash.
02:16:44Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
Gut neurons sensing fat, amino acids, and sugar signal via the vagus nerve and nodose ganglia to trigger dopamine release, making us seek those foods even when the mouth is numbed and regardless of taste.
02:26:34Andrew Huberman · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jul 2021
In Kjaer's study, patients who loaded an injury at day two after injury returned to sport 25% faster than those who waited nine days to load.
00:47:43Dr. Keith Baar · The Tim Ferriss Show · Feb 2025
Eccentric loading for tendons was a 'false positive' — it worked because of slow velocity, not the eccentric motion itself; heavy strength training has the identical effect, and zero velocity (isometric) gives the biggest bang for the buck.
00:22:50Dr. Keith Baar · The Tim Ferriss Show · Feb 2025
A boot or RICE is a 'mechanical stress shielder' that removes the tension tendons need to heal, so the standard orthopedic treatment can actually make the injury worse and cause scarring.
00:00:00Dr. Keith Baar · The Tim Ferriss Show · Feb 2025
BPC-157 has no direct effect on tendon or ligament cells — engineered human ligaments treated with it showed no change in mechanics, collagen, or strength.
01:06:58Dr. Keith Baar · The Tim Ferriss Show · Feb 2025
Women are four to eight times more likely to rupture their ACL because estrogen periodically inhibits a collagen cross-linking enzyme, lowering tendon stiffness during parts of the menstrual cycle.
01:23:19Dr. Keith Baar · The Tim Ferriss Show · Feb 2025
Physical therapist Rob Whitley told a room of orthopedic surgeons that PRP, stem cells and prolotherapy show no benefit in randomized controlled trials — only getting load through the tissue works.
01:13:51Dr. Keith Baar · The Tim Ferriss Show · Feb 2025
Mice on a ketogenic diet lived 13% longer than controls, an effect comparable to rapamycin, and old keto-fed animals had strength and brain function at the level of young animals.
01:33:43Dr. Keith Baar · The Tim Ferriss Show · Feb 2025
Connective-tissue cells need only about 10 minutes of loading (e.g. 10s on, 50s off) to get the full adaptation signal, then a six-to-eight-hour refractory period before responding again — matching bone's response to as few as 40 stimuli.
00:08:19Dr. Keith Baar · The Tim Ferriss Show · Feb 2025
Tendon stress relaxation drops exponentially; by 30 seconds you reach about 85% of the bottom, and waiting two minutes only adds about 15% more — hence 30-second holds for injured tendons.
00:26:29Dr. Keith Baar · The Tim Ferriss Show · Feb 2025
Three days in a 3D-printed cast cost a mouse tendon 15–20% of its collagen and made it roughly 30% mechanically weaker — a larger loss than the muscle itself.
01:08:34Dr. Keith Baar · The Tim Ferriss Show · Feb 2025
Fluoroquinolone antibiotics like ciprofloxacin raise Achilles rupture rate about 3.5-fold, while AT-1 (angiotensin) receptor blocking 'sartan' blood-pressure drugs taken by 15+ million Americans raise it 7.6-fold.
01:19:39Dr. Keith Baar · The Tim Ferriss Show · Feb 2025
On keto, no carbohydrate forces reliance on mitochondria, and lowered mTOR triggers 'mitophagy' that culls weak mitochondria — but keto severely harms bone mass, which is why epileptic kids must eventually cycle off it.
01:36:51Dr. Keith Baar · The Tim Ferriss Show · Feb 2025
Using a resorbable suture in Achilles repair allowed native tissue to recover and produced better collagen-synthesis markers than non-resorbable, with no difference in tendon length — contradicting surgeons' fears.
00:54:32Dr. Keith Baar · The Tim Ferriss Show · Feb 2025
Testosterone activates lysyl oxidase and decreases collagen, creating stiff but brittle tendons — explaining why steroid-using baseball players' performance would suddenly 'drop off a cliff' from tendon ruptures.
01:26:25Dr. Keith Baar · The Tim Ferriss Show · Feb 2025
Rupturing your ACL makes you 50% more likely to have a heart attack, driven by the habitual decrease in activity that follows the injury.
01:13:19Dr. Keith Baar · The Tim Ferriss Show · Feb 2025
A 2017 study found ~15g gelatin plus ~200–250mg vitamin C taken an hour before brief exercise doubled blood markers of new collagen formation versus control.
01:01:17Dr. Keith Baar · The Tim Ferriss Show · Feb 2025
The 'refractory period' for tendons is why Emil Abrahamsson's brother, with many injuries, did isometric hangs twice a day (six-plus hours apart) and got his hands healthy.
00:08:19Dr. Keith Baar · The Tim Ferriss Show · Feb 2025
A ketogenic diet quiets the brain by lowering glutamate and elevating GABA, a calming neurotransmitter, which underlies its rapidly expanding use in metabolic psychiatry for depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, anxiety, and anorexia.
00:02:38Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
Lyme disease spirochetes (Borrelia) are essentially 100% glycolytic, so limiting glucose starves the microbe, and elevated beta-hydroxybutyrate stimulates the adaptive immune response, possibly explaining why ketosis resolved Tim's tick-borne cognitive symptoms.
00:11:25Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
Tim's very low blood ketone readings (0.1 to 0.4 mmol) despite feeling sharp are likely a false negative caused by very high ketone utilization and insulin sensitivity, meaning his tissues consume ketones before they show up in the blood.
00:32:42Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
You can get about 80% of the benefits with a low-carb diet (around 100g carbs/day) and periodically, roughly one week per month, drop into deeper ketosis, since higher ketones are not better and a sweet spot of 1 to 2 mmol is therapeutic.
01:07:00Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
1,3-butanediol and 1,3-butanediol-based ketone esters can cause chronic liver toxicity (depleting NAD and ATP, causing inflammation and fatty liver), and animals showed scary liver damage even when blood liver enzymes stayed normal.
01:31:54Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
1,3-butanediol is metabolized like ethanol, creates dependence and alcohol-like withdrawal, and is sold as an alcohol replacement, making these supplements dangerous for the elderly dementia population some companies target.
01:50:39Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
On a ketogenic diet, roughly 34 to 40% of the ketone in the heart is L-beta-hydroxybutyrate, which appears to improve cardiac output and increase blood flow to the brain by reducing peripheral vascular resistance.
01:22:33Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
Metabolic memory is real: like muscle memory, the more you stay in ketosis the faster your body re-adapts, driven by increased mitochondrial number and capacity plus epigenetic gene programs.
00:17:40Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
There are 160 or more registered clinical trials on exogenous ketones listed on clinicaltrials.gov.
00:05:14Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
About 80% of cancers are highly glycolytic, and while a ketogenic diet does not cure cancer it can slow tumor growth and augment standard care like radiation and chemo.
00:14:33Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
Tim's staple keto meal is two cans of chub mackerel with about 30ml of MCT oil plus apple cider vinegar, salt, and pepper, costing around three dollars.
00:23:59Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
Breath ketones (acetone) can be a more accurate indicator of ketosis than blood ketones during a caloric deficit, when blood ketone disposal into tissues is very high.
00:33:43Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
A B12 deficiency can cause brain atrophy and present as flat-out Alzheimer's disease, but can be reversed by correcting the deficiency.
00:59:42Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
High-sensitivity C-reactive protein (HSCRP) inflammation is now considered probably more atherogenic than LDL cholesterol.
01:00:13Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
To calculate the glucose-ketone index (GKI), divide blood glucose by ketone level; US glucose readings in mg/dL must first be divided by 18 to convert to mmol/L.
01:16:20Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
The only long-term human data on 1,3-butanediol is a single case report (Mary Newport's husband Steve) and a 28-day study using 25 grams per day.
01:35:33Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
The ketone ester traces back to Dr. Richard Veech, a student of Hans Krebs of the Krebs cycle; the work was funded in part by DARPA and developed at Oxford.
01:55:52Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026
Ketones above the 2 to 5 mmol range create energy toxicity and reductive stress, so higher is not better for general therapeutic ketosis.
01:57:55Dr. Dom D'Agostino · The Tim Ferriss Show · Jan 2026

What Tim Ferriss recommends for hormones

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Creatine Monohydrate

various

recommended in 20 eps · 3 experts Product

Creatine

recommended in 14 eps · 4 experts Book

Why We Sleep

Matthew Walker

recommended in 13 eps · 3 experts Product

Magnesium threonate

recommended in 10 eps · 2 experts Book

The Molecule of More

Daniel Z. Lieberman and Michael E. Long

recommended in 9 eps · 2 experts Product

Tongkat Ali (Solaray)

Solaray

recommended in 7 eps · 2 experts Book

How to Change Your Mind

Michael Pollan

recommended in 6 eps · 2 experts Product

Magnesium L-Threonate

recommended in 6 eps · 2 experts Product

Theanine (L-theanine)

recommended in 5 eps · 2 experts Product

L-theanine

recommended in 5 eps · 2 experts Product

Ashwagandha

recommended in 4 eps · 2 experts Product

Vitamin D

recommended in 4 eps · 4 experts