How to Increase Testosterone Naturally: Become the Wild Boar

Before you read: this article talks about raw eggs, raw meat and raw dairy. Raw animal foods carry a risk of food poisoning. Buy from a farmer you trust, keep it fresh and make your own call.

Testosterone is the output of a life lived right.

It isn’t a number to hack.

No pills. No shortcuts. No free lunches.

Every input in your day either builds it or drains it. Your sleep. Your light. Your food. Your training. Your environment. Your sexual energy.

Get those right, and your body does what it was built to do.

Here are the natural ways to increase testosterone that I live by.

Become the wild boar

Picture two pigs with the same genes.

One lives in a pen on a farm. It grows soft, fat and sick.

The other gets loose and lives in the forest. Over time it becomes a wild boar. Lean. Tusked. Strong.

Same animal. Same blood.

The difference is the life each one lives.

The boar has to struggle. He has to get hardier, build muscle, lose the baby fat and fight. His environment makes him the higher testosterone version of himself.

You don’t have to run off into the wild.

But you can live by the same principles.

Your genes aren’t your ceiling. Your environment and your inputs are.

1. Sleep: where testosterone is made

Start here.

The bulk of a man’s daily testosterone release happens during sleep. In one study, healthy young men on five-hour nights for a week had lower daytime testosterone than when they were well rested, and they felt less vigour night after night. (Leproult and Van Cauter, JAMA, 2011)

One bad night won’t ruin you.

Short or late sleep, night after night, will keep your testosterone lower than it could be.

Short sleep stresses your entire system. It cuts your recovery. You can’t build a strong body on a body that never gets to repair.

Look at the lion. He doesn’t stay up all night scrolling. He sleeps when the sun sets and rises with the sun.

Do the same:

• Seven to nine hours of real sleep.
• Asleep between nine and ten at night.
• A dark, cool room with fresh air.
• Dim, warm light after sunset.

Full routine in How to Sleep Better Naturally.

2. Sun: the original power source

Every ancient culture worshipped the sun as a giver of life. They were right.

Sunlight sets your body clock, and your body produces hormones in response to it.

Get at least 10 minutes of morning light in your eyes, with no sunglasses. Then spend at least an hour outside every day.

Be the man who takes his shirt off in the park at midday. We used to do this. It’s the most natural thing in the world.

Build up your sun exposure a little each day. How I do it is in Sun Exposure Benefits.

Sunning the testicles is a very powerful modality.

3. Food: natural testosterone foods

Your body makes testosterone from what you give it.

The modern man eats like he’s scared of existing.

Eat enough. Eat real food. Eat the way humans ate for most of history.

Eat fat

Fat is what you make testosterone from.

A 2021 review pooled six studies with 206 men. Low-fat diets lowered both total and free testosterone compared with higher-fat diets. (Whittaker and Wu, Journal of Steroid Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, 2021)

The foods I build around

• Eggs. Prioritise the yolks. I eat them raw too. Crack a hole on one side, crack a hole on the other, and just slurp them out.
• Raw dairy. Raw milk, cream, butter and cheese, straight from the farm.
• Red meat. Beef, lamb, goat, and organ meats. I eat a lot of it raw.
• Seafood. Wild salmon, tuna and oysters. Oysters were prized by the old world for a reason. They’re dense in zinc, and high in other minerals as well.
• Carbs around training. Fruit, honey, potatoes and rice when you’ve worked for them.
• Minerals. Salt your food well and add minerals to your water.

Raw beats cooked

Heat kills the enzymes. Overcooked food is harder to digest and gives you less.

Raw animal fats carry the nutrients your body needs to rebuild tissue, and the building blocks for cholesterol, which converts into testosterone.

Eat raw dairy and raw meat wherever you can get them.

If you can’t go raw, at least don’t cook the life out of your food.

Eat organic, from the farm

Cut out pesticide-laden foods. Eat organic.

Get pasture-raised, grass-fed meat, eggs and dairy.

Go to your local farmers’ markets to find it.

4. Training: the forge

Training is a signal.

Heavy compound lifts that use the whole body tell your body it needs to be strong.

Intensity is the key. Intensely push yourself past your previous limits. Send the signal to the body and require testosterone of yourself. Then go back into rest and recovery.

That is the method for optimal hormonal response to training.

Then add:

• Sprints. Short, explosive efforts. The human frame was built to move with force.
• Walking. Around 10,000 steps a day. Walk after meals.
• Rest. You grow between sessions. Endless training with no recovery turns on you.

Watch the lion again.

He wakes from his nap. He sprints for his meal. He eats. He naps. He walks around and surveys his land.

He doesn’t run for the sake of running. He gives his body a purpose, then rests.

That’s the cadence. Signal, then rest.

Add something that settles you too. Yoga, long stretching or fascia release. You want to come down into real rest and stay out of a constantly wired state.

5. Environment: give your body a reason

This is the one most men never think about.

Your body makes what your life demands.

Look at the modern world. Air conditioning. Food delivered to the door. Soft, plushy synthetic clothes. No cold. No threat. No struggle.

Why would your body bother making testosterone for that life?

It wouldn’t.

Take those same men and drop them on a desert island. They’re in the sun. They hunt for their food. They work with their hands.

Look at them two months later. Different men.

This is why food alone isn’t enough. Nutrition supplies the raw material. Demand decides whether your body spends it.

Microdose the demand

You don’t have to move to the wilderness.

Bring challenge back into a comfortable life:

• Combat sports. Three months of battling other men on the mats will change you.
• Heavy lifting. A weight that’s a little bit scary.
• The elements. Cold water. Real hikes. Hard terrain. Barefoot in the forest.
• The harder path, on purpose.

I climbed Mount Olympus in shorts, through a snowstorm. I had to push past my comfort zone, and my body had to rise to meet the reality I put it in. I felt the boost.

Hercules became Hercules through his labours.

You become what you place in front of yourself.

Body fat

Keep your body fat in a healthy range.

Too much is a drain. Too lean is a drain too. Your body needs reserves to be its most powerful self.

If you’re very lean and you feel cold, anxious, flat or low on drive, consider putting on a little size on purpose.

6. Remove what drains it

The modern world is full of things that work against a man’s hormones.

Do an audit. Here’s my checklist.

• Seed oils and ultra-processed food. Out.
• Alcohol. For most men it makes sense to cut it out completely while you build. A glass of good natural wine with friends on a real celebration is a different thing from drinking to escape. You know which one you’re doing.
• Stimulants. Caffeine, nicotine and the rest keep your nervous system revved. A man who’s jittery all day can’t settle into deep rest.
• Tap water. Town water can carry endocrine-disrupting chemicals, estrogenic residue and chlorine. Filter your drinking water and your shower, or find a spring and collect it in glass.
• Plastics. Most plastics are made with endocrine-disrupting chemicals, and they’re unstable. They leach into whatever food or water sits in them. Same with plastic chopping boards and Teflon pans. Glass for storing food and water. Stainless steel or cast iron for cooking. Wood for spoons, boards and bowls.
• Polyester. Synthetic fabric is flammable, so it gets treated with flame retardant chemicals. Those soak into your skin, most of all when you sweat in it at the gym. Swap synthetic clothes and bed sheets for cotton, linen and wool.

7. Keep your fuel

As a man with a strong drive, you’re surrounded by porn and empty sexual habits.

Every time you spend yourself on a screen, the energy that should drive your life goes nowhere.

After you ejaculate, a hormone called prolactin rises and your whole system cools down and dulls for a while. Stop doing that on repeat and you stop living in that cool-down.

Hold your energy and you feel it. Masculine power. The feeling of high testosterone running through you. Stronger erections.

The men who hold their energy tell me the same things. More drive. More confidence. Sharper focus.

That’s what I teach in Retention Mastery. If you’ve never heard of it, start with What Is Semen Retention?

8. Stress and your mind

Chronic stress is a drain.

Breathe through your nose, all day and all night.

Learn some Stoic philosophy. Control what you can. Let go of what you can’t.

Analyse the relationships in your life, your career and your general day-to-day environment. See what stresses you unnecessarily.

You want positive stress that brings you reward. You don’t want endless, energetically draining circumstances that you’re married to for some vague reason you can’t name. Maybe you’re even denying yourself the change because you’re scared.

Dealing with these emotional issues, and eliminating pointless chronic stress from your life, are some of the most impactful testosterone boosting and life changing decisions you can make.

And hold the right image of yourself. Your body follows the man you believe you are.

You are Hercules.

Your daily testosterone checklist

• Up with the sun. At least 10 minutes of morning light in the eyes.
• Real food. Fat at every meal. Eggs, raw dairy, raw meat, seafood. Organic and pasture-raised.
• Train with intensity, three to five times a week. Then rest.
• Walk after meals. Around 10,000 steps.
• Shirt off in the sun. At least an hour outside.
• Something hard on purpose.
• Cut the stress that drains you.
• Cotton on the skin. Glass, not plastic.
• No porn. Keep your energy.
• Dim lights after sunset. Asleep by ten.

You don’t need all of it on day one.

Pick the three you’re weakest at and start there.

Want the whole system?

This is the foundation of The Apollo Method, where I take you through sun, food, training, sleep and sexual energy as one system. Apply if you want me in your corner.

FAQ

What is the fastest way to increase testosterone naturally?

Fix your sleep first. Seven to nine hours, asleep by ten, in a dark room. Then get morning sun, eat enough fat and train with intensity.

What foods increase testosterone?

Build around eggs, raw dairy, red meat (raw if you can), seafood like oysters and salmon, and carbs around training. Eat organic, pasture-raised and grass-fed food from your local farmers’ market. Cut seed oils and ultra-processed food. Low-fat diets have been linked to lower testosterone.

Does sleep affect testosterone?

Yes. The bulk of a man’s daily testosterone release happens in sleep, and a week of five-hour nights lowered daytime testosterone in young men.

Does semen retention increase testosterone?

I don’t deal in lab numbers on this one. What I can tell you is what I feel, and what the men I work with feel: masculine power, the feeling of high testosterone, more drive, more energy and more confidence. Run it yourself and let your own energy be the proof. Start with What Is Semen Retention?

Does sunning your testicles help?

Yes. Sunning the testicles is a very powerful modality. Find a private spot and build up slowly, the same way you build up the rest of your skin.

Does stress lower testosterone?

Chronic stress is a drain. Look at your relationships, your career and your day-to-day environment, and cut what stresses you for no reward.

Do testosterone boosters work?

I’d put that money into food. Eggs, meat, milk and oysters, plus sleep, sun and heavy training.

How do I know if my testosterone is low?

Watch how you feel. Low drive, weak erections, no morning wood, low energy, flat mood and slow recovery are signs something’s off. Get your bloods done if you want the numbers.

Stay Golden, Sol