ANDROPAUSE? A 66-Year-Old Man's Guide To Reclaiming What The Modern World Stole

MY STORY:

How I Lost Myself, and Found My Way Back

DISCLAIMER: This content is for educational use only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice.

For nearly 50 years, I was the guy everyone calls an "Alpha Male."

Competitive. Strong. Locked onto goals like a heat-seeking missile. I ran on 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night and called it discipline. Assertive, confident, always moving. That identity wasn't an act. It was simply who I was, and for decades, it worked.

I built an entire life on that energy. I started in commercial photography, founded a tech company in New York City, produced independent films, served as a Mayor and Police Commissioner, and eventually became a food and supplement entrepreneur. Different industries, different decades, same engine underneath. I was certain that my Alpha mindset, and the high testosterone fueling it, was the reason I kept creating and winning.

The Move That Changed Everything

At 40, my wife and I left it all behind for a small town in the Northern Rockies of Idaho, sitting at about 7,000 feet elevation. We built our own house with our hands. Logged the wood ourselves. Stacked stone walls in the hot sun. Lifted heavy things every single day, for the joy of it and the necessity of it.

It was the healthiest version of me. Hard physical work, sunlight, mountain air, grounding & purpose. We adopted our son, Pauley, and not long after, moved to Boise to allow him to engage with other children, go to school, etc. My wife and I also started several new businesses, and at that point, my total testosterone was sitting around 900. I was strong, sharp, and felt unstoppable.

That move was the beginning of the best chapter of my life. It also planted the seed for the chapter that nearly broke me.

When "Alpha" Became "Alarm"

By 50, the businesses had multiplied, and so had the hours. I was working 18-hour days. My stress was constant, and my cortisol levels reflected it, through the roof, day after day.

Somewhere in that grind, everything that had kept me strong in Idaho quietly disappeared. No sunlight. No grounding. No real food, just whatever was fastest. No sleep, even less than my old "disciplined" 3 to 4 hours. No exercise at all and I was sitting at a computer most of the day.

I told myself it was temporary. It wasn't.

Within a few years, my testosterone fell from the high 900’s to 95… Freaking. Ninety. Five!

"You're Still In Range"

I sat across from my doctor expecting answers. Instead, I got a shrug dressed up as reassurance: "You're still in-range for your age." His solution was an SSRI, to help with what he called mild depression and mood swings (due to LOW T).

I trusted the process and tried it. It didn't help. If anything, it made things worse, fogging the very drive and clarity I'd spent my whole life relying on.

That was the moment something shifted in me, not the diagnosis, but the dismissal. "In range" wasn't the same as well. It wasn’t optimal. I wasn't willing to accept a slow fade as the cost of getting older.

So I stopped waiting for permission, and I took my hormone health into my own hands.

That decision, more than any business I've ever built, is the one that led to everything you see in Joyful Humans today.

1. THE AMERICAN CRISIS

Testosterone is the foundational hormone of male vitality. It drives muscle, mood, energy, libido, cognition, and metabolic health. It's not a vanity hormone, it's an operating system.

And it's failing, silently, in millions of men.

After age 30, testosterone drops 1 to 2% per year. There's no symptom that announces it, no alarm that goes off. Almost nobody warns you it's happening, so most men have no idea they're losing ground until they've lost a lot of it.

By 65, most men are operating at 30 to 40% below their peak. That's not aging gracefully. That's a hormone crisis in slow motion. I hit a low of 90% below my peak, and my doctor still told me I was "normal."

Which brings me to the most dangerous phrase in men's medicine: "normal for your age." Normal is not the same as optimal, and optimal should always be the goal.

This decline has a name: andropause, the male equivalent of menopause. It's just as real and just as significant as what women experience, yet almost nobody talks about it. There's no cultural permission for men to say "something is wrong with my hormones."

So instead, the symptoms get misdiagnosed. Depression. Anxiety. Weight gain. Brain fog. Low libido. Men get medicated for the symptoms instead of tested for the cause.

Making matters worse, the modern world is engineered to accelerate the decline. Processed food, chronic stress, environmental estrogens, a sedentary lifestyle, and poor sleep are all hitting men at once, compounding the natural drop with a man-made one.

There's also a hidden trap in the lab work itself. Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin, or SHBG, rises 2 to 3x by age 60. Even when total testosterone looks "normal" on paper, elevated SHBG locks up that testosterone, reducing the free, bioavailable testosterone your body can actually use, the kind that affects muscle mass and libido. You can look fine on a test and still feel like a shell of yourself.

And then there are the accelerants (my opinion) doctors hand out without a second thought: SSRIs, statins, and unmanaged chronic stress all speed the decline further.

The Good News: Low testosterone is largely addressable. Lifestyle changes, targeted nutrition, the right supplements, TRT, and the right lab work can turn this around at any age, including 66.

Andropause isn't a death sentence.

It's a wake-up call, and the men who answer it are going to age like warriors.

2. THE MODERN WORLD

Everything Is Working Against You

If your grandfather's body could talk, it wouldn't recognize the world you're asking it to survive in.

Sugar - In the early 1900s, the average American ate about ~35 pounds of sugar a year. Today, it's roughly ~170 pounds. Every spike in blood sugar triggers an insulin spike, and every insulin spike suppresses testosterone. We're not eating differently than our great-grandfathers, we're eating on a different planet.

Xenoestrogens - Plastics, pesticides, and tap water are now loaded with estrogen mimics, PFAS, BPA, and pharmaceutical residue among them. These compounds didn't exist 100 years ago. Your body has no evolutionary defense against them, because evolution never saw them coming.

The Cortisol Seesaw - Chronic stress doesn't just feel bad, it steals the raw materials your body needs to make testosterone. When stress becomes constant, the body gets trapped in fight-or-flight, the adrenal glands overproduce cortisol, and the testosterone production pathway starves as a result. You can't run on full adrenaline and full vitality at the same time. The body has to choose, and chronic stress makes the choice for you.

Physical Jobs Are Vanishing - A century ago, work meant your body. Today, it means a chair. That shift from physical labor to sedentary culture is quietly killing testosterone and muscle mass across an entire generation of men.

The Masculinity Redefinition Crisis - Boys today are increasingly conditioned to suppress competitive drive, aggression, and physical dominance, the very behaviors that historically stimulated testosterone production in the first place. Roughhousing, risk-taking, and physical competition are being systematically removed from childhood development. The biology didn't change. The environment did.

Sedentary Boyhood Leads To Sedentary Manhood - Screens replaced physicality. An entire generation of boys is growing up without physical challenge, healthy competition, or the experience of failure, and they're arriving at adulthood with chronically understimulated hormonal systems and no framework for what it even means to be a physically vital man.

"I grew up in a time when boys were expected to be physical, competitive, and resilient. We got knocked down and got back up. We got into fistfights. That wasn't considered toxic, it was puberty, testosterone training. The cultural shift away from that philosophy has massive biological consequences that nobody is talking about today."

3. THE HORMONE ECOSYSTEM

Beyond Testosterone

Testosterone doesn't operate alone. It's one voice in a much larger conversation happening inside your body, and if the other hormones are out of tune, no amount of T optimization will fix the whole system. Here's what else is in play.

Cortisol, The Silent Assassin -When it's chronically elevated, it breaks down muscle, suppresses testosterone, and drags down nearly every other system in the body. It's not just "stress hormone," it's a resource that gets diverted away from vitality every time the body feels under siege.

Estradiol -Men need some estrogen, but visceral fat converts testosterone into estrogen, and every pound of that fat acts like its own miniature estrogen factory. With Over 70% of men today overweight or obese, this conversion is happening on a massive scale, quietly working against the very hormone men are trying to protect.

DHEA-S -This one drops 80 to 90% by age 75, and almost nobody ever tests for it. DHEA is a steroid hormone made primarily by the adrenal glands, acting as a "building block" prohormone that the body converts into active sex hormones like testosterone and estrogen. When DHEA collapses, it pulls the foundation out from under everything downstream.

Growth Hormone and IGF-1 -These are released during deep sleep, and only during deep sleep. No sleep means no repair, full stop. Interestingly, cacao polyphenols naturally support healthy levels of both. GH and IGF-1 are two closely linked hormones that work together to manage your body's metabolism and drive the growth and development of bones, muscles, and tissues.

Thyroid -An under-active thyroid, hypothyroidism, often suppresses testosterone production directly. Thyroid issues themselves are commonly caused by autoimmune disease, genetics, inflammation, or nutritional imbalances, which means a sluggish thyroid is rarely a standalone problem.

Insulin, The Puppet Master -Chronically high insulin suppresses testosterone, raises estrogen, blunts growth hormone, and wrecks thyroid function, all at once. Testosterone and thyroid hormones share responsibility for regulating energy, metabolism, and mood, and chronic insulin resistance impairs testicular function, lowering testosterone production further. The relationship runs both ways too: low testosterone contributes to higher insulin resistance, creating a compounding downward cycle that shows up again and again in obesity and metabolic syndrome.

The Endocannabinoid System: The Master Regulator -Sitting underneath all of this (or on top) is the Endocannabinoid System, or ECS, which modulates and regulates homeostasis across virtually every other system in the body, 12 systems in total. When the ECS is functioning well, it acts like a thermostat for the entire hormonal ecosystem. Several plant compounds support it directly, and they should be part of your diet or supplementation routine:

• Beta-Caryophyllene (BCP). Found in black pepper, cloves, and hops. A direct CB2 receptor agonist with anti-inflammatory, gut-protective, and neuroprotective effects. It's arguably the most clinically relevant non-cannabis cannabinoid for daily use.
• Echinacea (N-alkylamides). Binds CB2 receptors for immune modulation and anti-inflammatory support. Well-supported for daily use.
• Helichrysum. Contains cannabinoid-like compounds, CBG analogs, with anti-inflammatory and mood-supportive properties.
• Electric Daisy (Acmella oleracea). Contains spilanthol, which interacts directly with the ECS for pain modulation and anti-inflammatory effects.
• Liverwort (Radula marginata). Contains perrottetinene, a CB1 partial agonist. Rare, but an emerging area of interest.
• Theobroma Cacao. Produces anandamide, often called the "bliss molecule," which influences mood, pain, and inflammation via CB1 and CB2 receptors.

4. TOTAL T vs. FREE T

The Number That Misleads

Here's the part almost nobody explains, and it's the single biggest reason men get told they're "fine" when they're not.

97 to 99% of your testosterone is bound to proteins, which makes it biologically unavailable. It shows up on a blood test, but your body can't actually use it.

Free T is the remaining 1 to 3+%, the testosterone your cells can actually access for muscle, mood, libido, and cognition. It's a small slice of the total number, but it's the only slice that matters.

That gap is exactly why a man can have a "normal" total T result and still be functionally deficient. It's the most commonly missed diagnosis in men over 55, because the standard test almost never tells the full story.

Making it worse, SHBG, Sex Hormone-Binding Globulin, rises 2 to 3x by age 60, locking up testosterone regardless of how much your body is actually producing. You can be manufacturing plenty of testosterone and still feel like you're running on empty, simply because SHBG is hoarding it.

Always Test: Total T + Free T + Bioavailable T + SHBG + Estradiol. Anything less is an incomplete picture.

So, How Does Testosterone Actually Work?

Testosterone is a steroid hormone that travels through the bloodstream to target cells throughout the body. Once there, it can act directly, convert into DHT (dihydrotestosterone), a powerful androgen, or convert into estradiol, a female sex hormone. These hormones then bind to receptors inside the cell, where they regulate gene expression, build muscle, maintain bone density, and form male sexual characteristics, etc.

In other words, testosterone isn't just one molecule doing one job. It's a messenger that gets converted, redirected, and repurposed throughout the body, which is exactly why the full panel matters more than any single number on a lab report.

5. WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Lifestyle + Supplements + TRT

Everything in the first four sections describes the problem. This is the part where you take it back.

*A Reminder: This is 100% educational content, not medical advice, talk to your medical care provider or doctor before starting any hormone therapy.

• Testosterone Replacement Therapy. (TRT) When lifestyle and nutrition alone aren't enough, deserves a fair and honest look. TRT comes in several forms: injectable testosterone (cypionate or enanthate), topical gels and creams, subcutaneous pellets, and newer oral formulations, each with different absorption rates and dosing schedules. Done correctly, under the supervision of a knowledgeable physician with proper lab monitoring, TRT can restore energy, libido, muscle mass, cognitive clarity, and mood in men who are genuinely deficient, not just "low for their age." But TRT is not without risk, and it's not a decision to make casually. It can suppress natural testosterone production and fertility, elevate red blood cell count (polycythemia), worsen sleep apnea, and in some men, accelerate hair loss or cause acne. Men with a history of prostate cancer, certain cardiovascular conditions, or untreated sleep apnea need careful evaluation before starting. The protocol matters as much as the decision itself: regular bloodwork (Total T, Free T, Estradiol, hematocrit, PSA), an experienced prescriber, and often an ancillary medication like HCG to preserve testicular function and fertility, are what separate a responsible TRT protocol from a reckless one. TRT isn't a shortcut and it isn't for everyone, but for the right man, at the right dose, with the right monitoring, it can be one of the most transformative interventions available, especially for men who, like me, find diet and lifestyle changes alone aren't enough to undo years of decline. 

• Heavy Resistance Training. 3-4x a Week. The single most powerful natural testosterone intervention available. Compound movements, squats, deadlifts, presses, hangs, send your body an unmistakable signal that it needs to keep building.
• Sprinting Intervals. Short, intense bursts of effort are highly effective at stimulating testosterone production, and they take a fraction of the time long cardio sessions do.
• 7 to 8 Hours of Deep Sleep. Testosterone and growth hormone are both produced at night, during deep sleep specifically. There's no supplement or workout that compensates for skipping this one. (This is exactly why we built DREAM™.)
• Manage Cortisol. Breathwork, cold exposure, meditation, time outdoors, and vagus nerve support all help pull the body out of chronic fight-or-flight and back into a state where testosterone production can actually happen.
• Get Sunlight. Sunlight supports testosterone levels in more than one way. Exposure to UVB rays helps the body synthesize Vitamin D, which is directly correlated with testosterone. Bright sunlight also interacts with the brain and endocrine system to stimulate the release of hormones that govern testosterone production in the first place.
• Grounding. (Earthing). Walking barefoot on the earth transfers free electrons into your body, which act as natural antioxidants and help reduce systemic inflammation. That reduction in inflammation, and the corresponding drop in stress hormones, supports healthy testosterone levels.
• Eat Real Food. Ditch seed oils, sugar, refined carbs, and ultra-processed everything. Eat meat, eggs, raw cheese and milk, fruit, cacao, and ferments. Your hormones are built from what you eat, so feed them accordingly.
• Reduce or Remove Alcohol. Alcohol suppresses testosterone and raises estrogen directly. There's no version of heavy drinking that's hormone-neutral.
• Lose Visceral Fat. Every pound dropped reduces the conversion of testosterone into estrogen, which means fat loss isn't just cosmetic, it's hormonal leverage.
• Supplements. Zinc, magnesium glycinate, D3+K2, omega-3, Ashwagandha, Tongkat Ali, Rhodiola, Black Ginger, and Fenugreek all have a role to play, alongside BALANCE™ for vagus nerve activation and DREAM™ for sleep optimization.

6. THE FULL LAB PANEL TO DEMAND

Get Optimal, Not Just "Normal"

Most doctors run one number, Total T, and call it a day. That's not a hormone panel, it's a fraction of one. Here's the full picture you should demand:

This is the panel that separates men who get told "you're fine" from men who actually find out what's going on. Bring this list to your doctor, or better yet, find a doctor who already orders it without being asked.

7. THE BIG PICTURE

This Is a Lifelong Game

Everything in this post comes down to one idea: play offense, always.

The man you are at 85 is being built today, in the choices you make this week, this month, this year. So get started, because there's no version of this where waiting helps you.

Testosterone drives muscle growth. Muscle mass predicts longevity, and ultimately, survival itself. That's not motivational poster language, it's biology. The men who hold onto strength hold onto life.

Decline is not inevitable. It's a choice, and here's the part most men miss: doing nothing is a choice too. Standing still while your hormones decline isn't neutral, it's a decision with consequences, the same as any other.

I'm planning to work hard until the end, and hopefully that end is 100-plus years away. That's what I'm shooting for. Not just a long life, but a strong one, the whole way through.

Note: Ranges cited are established targets, or standard lab reference ranges. Work with your health care provider trained in hormonal optimization to interpret results in context of your symptoms and goals.

Be bold, research, verify, hold your doctor accountable for their recommendation. Demand Optimization.