now I'd like to shift our attention towards science-supported protocols that increase the effectiveness in our performance in everything so today we're going to talk about how you can optimize the ratios depending on your particular life goals because the ratio of estrogen and testosterone in every individual has profound influence on feelings of well-being feelings of anxiety or lack of anxiety on reproduction on sexual behavior having sufficient levels of testosterone is vitally important for brain function and having sufficient levels of estrogen will allow your brain to actually function it turns out that estrogen is one of the main ways in which the brain maintains longevity and maintains its ability to think men and women need testosterone and estrogen in order to feel good and to be able to think you do not want your estrogen too low or your testosterone too low the sex steroid hormones which include testosterone and estrogen they are manufactured from cholesterol we hear about cholesterol as this terrible thing but they are actually made from cholesterol and so if you don't get sufficient levels of cholesterol that can be problematic for your hormones and that can be problematic for your brain and your body health so without going into too much detail I'll just point to a couple things that I do first of all I'm not shy about my love for butter I will eat Pats of butter directly butter is high in cholesterol so I don't eat a ton of it but at least for me and for my lipid profiles it's fine butter has cholesterol which is a precursor to the sex steroid hormones and so I eat butter in order to ensure that I get sufficient cholesterol butter also has some other things that are beneficial various small fatty acids that are interesting um in terms of their effects on metabolism Etc you can look those up the benefits of butter but again volume is important you can't overdo it one of the quickest ways to boost someone's testosterone is to have them achieve a win repeated failures take testosterone levels lower than they would be otherwise there's a slow system associated with achieving wins even small wins and that slow system is in the form of hormonal control that then translates to Gene control so we should all be seeking optimal testosterone levels for ourselves both testosterone and estrogen and many of the things that we've discussed up until now morning sunlight exercise fasting those can support testosterone and estrogen in meaningful and positive ways I just want to briefly highlight two things the first is that testosterone can exert its various functions only in its Unbound form free testosterone we all make a particular binding protein called sex hormone binding globulin that essentially binds up testosterone prevents it from being free this sounds like a terrible thing but actually it's a good thing because it allows testosterone be transported to the various tissues including the brain where it can exert its various functions for those that have lower than desired levels of testosterone or too much sex hormone mining globulin it turns out that 400 milligrams per day of something called tongat Ali which is a form of ginseng can actually help increase levels of free testosterone many people experience a positive subjective of effect and some objective effects as well meaning increases in free testosterone when they do blood analysis there are some data on that not a ton in the peer-reviewed literatures and again always approach these with a sense of of caution and definitely talk to your doctor if you want to learn more about that you can go to examine.com there's there's a lot of information there listed about that the other compound that's relevant both to men and women or I should say people that are trying to optimize testosterone and or estrogen is fedogia fedogi agrestis is a actually an herb that increases the levels of what's called luteinizing hormone luteinizing hormone is a hormone that's released from the hypothalamus within the brain that travels to the gonads either the ovaries or the testes to stimulate the release of estrogen or testosterone and fedojia agrestas has been shown albeit in a limited number of studies to increase levels of luteinizing hormone and thereby levels of testosterone and estrogen in ways that some people find beneficial a key aspect to the midday meal if you want that meal to benefit you you is to take a brief walk afterwards it turns out that brief walks of five to thirty minutes after ingesting food can accelerate metabolism and actually can accelerate and improve nutrient utilization which is essentially the same as metabolism that's something that I do after I finish my noon meal I do force myself to stand up and go outside and take a brief walk that also gets me again into optic flow it also has another benefit which is that I am giving my brain and there by my body more information about light and time of day which is always better than less information about light and time of day so getting that Morning Light pulse but then also leaving the house or apartment or workplace and getting out for a few minutes after lunch is beneficial for metabolism beneficial for nutrient utilization and beneficial for all the organs and tissues of the body because you're getting that outside light exposure foreign