How I Optimized My Hormones Naturally — No Prescriptions, Real Bloodwork
I'm in my mid-30s. I surf, I skate, I stay active. And I started watching people my age reach for hormone prescriptions like it was just what happens now. I refused to accept that.
Something is happening to people in their 30s and most of them are treating it like an inevitability.
The fatigue. The brain fog. The slow erosion of drive — not just physically but mentally. The feeling of operating at 70% of what you know you're capable of and quietly adjusting your expectations downward to match.
It doesn't look the same for everyone. For men it shows up as low energy, low motivation, declining physical performance, the kind of flatness that doesn't have an obvious cause. For women it shows up as irregular cycles, mood instability, exhaustion that sleep doesn't fix, the sense that your body is working against you instead of with you. The symptoms are different. The underlying mechanism — a hormonal system under chronic stress, running on depleted resources — is often the same.
I watched people around me reach for prescriptions — TRT, hormonal therapies, whatever the clinic was offering that month — because someone told them this was just what getting older looks like.
I got my bloodwork done instead.
Not because I felt terrible. Because I felt like I could feel significantly better, and I wanted to know exactly where I stood before making any decisions. The baseline told me everything.
Four months later, after building a protocol from scratch using Ayurvedic principles and AI-assisted research and tracking everything with monthly blood tests, my free testosterone had risen 71%. My inflammation was essentially undetectable. My biological age came back at 29 years and 7 months.
I'm 35.
No prescriptions. No pharmaceuticals. Real bloodwork. Every step documented.
This post covers what I did and why it applies whether you're a man or a woman — because the core mechanisms are the same even when the markers look different. The complete protocol is in Against the Odds. But the framework that drove the results is here.
Why This Matters for Business Owners and Founders Specifically
Before I get into the protocol, I want to name something the wellness space rarely connects directly enough.
This isn't just a health topic. It's a performance topic.
If you're running a business — managing clients, making decisions, creating content, selling, building — you are performing cognitively and energetically every single day. Your hormone levels, your cortisol regulation, your nervous system state are not background variables. They are the operating conditions under which every business decision gets made.
Hormonal imbalance and chronically elevated cortisol don't just make you tired. They impair working memory. They reduce your capacity for clear decision-making. They make you reactive instead of responsive — in client conversations, in creative work, in the leadership moments that require you to actually show up fully.
This applies equally to men and women running businesses. The specific hormones that go out of range may differ. The impact on your ability to operate at your best is the same.
The most expensive thing in your business is you running below capacity. Not a bad ad campaign. Not a slow month. You — at 70% — compounded across every decision you make for years.
That's why I built this protocol. And that's why I'm writing this for founders specifically.
Start With Bloodwork — Always
Before starting anything, I got a full panel done — testosterone total and free, SHBG, estradiol, DHEA-S, cortisol, full inflammatory markers including CRP and homocysteine, complete metabolic panel, thyroid.
For women, the relevant panel looks different — estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA-S, cortisol, thyroid, inflammatory markers — but the principle is identical. You need your actual numbers before you build any protocol. Guessing at what's off and throwing supplements at it is the most common mistake people make.
The results weren't catastrophic. They were exactly what I expected from someone doing most things right but missing some critical pieces — free testosterone on the lower end of the reference range, inflammation present but not alarming, cortisol patterns suggesting chronic low-grade stress load.
Reference range is not optimal range. This is the thing most people miss when they look at their bloodwork and see "normal." The reference ranges are built from population averages that include a lot of people operating below their potential. Optimal is a different target — and it's the one worth shooting for.
The Protocol — What I Actually Did
The supplement stack
I built the stack around Ayurvedic adaptogens and tonics with the strongest clinical evidence base — not the best marketing, the most rigorous human trial data. These compounds work for hormonal health across the board — men and women both — because they work upstream, at the level of the stress response and the endocrine system, rather than targeting one specific hormone directly.
The core compounds that moved the needle most:
Ashwagandha (KSM-66 extract, 600mg daily) — the most well-researched adaptogen in the Ayurvedic tradition. Multiple RCTs showing significant reductions in cortisol, improvements in stress response, and hormonal support for both men and women. For men the evidence includes testosterone increases. For women the evidence includes cortisol regulation, thyroid support, and improved energy and mood. The form matters — KSM-66 is the extract used in the clinical trials. Generic ashwagandha powder is not the same.
Shilajit (purified, fulvic acid verified, 300-500mg daily) — a mineral-rich compound with clinical evidence for hormonal support and mitochondrial function across sexes. Fulvic acid — the active compound — supports cellular energy production and mineral transport. Quality control is critical here. Most shilajit on the market is adulterated or contaminated. COA verification is non-negotiable.
Tongkat Ali (standardized extract, 200-400mg daily) — clinical evidence for free testosterone support through SHBG reduction in men, and emerging evidence for cortisol modulation and energy support in women. Works synergistically with ashwagandha on the stress-hormone axis.
Shatavari (for women specifically, or as a complement) — the primary Ayurvedic tonic for female hormonal health, with clinical evidence for estrogen modulation, adrenal support, and cycle regulation. If you're a woman building this protocol, Shatavari belongs in the stack where Tongkat Ali is for men.
Mucuna Pruriens (standardized for L-DOPA, 300mg daily) — supports dopamine pathway and has clinical evidence for hormonal support, particularly relevant for stress-related hormonal suppression that affects both sexes.
These weren't taken randomly. Timing, cycling, and form all matter — and all of that is covered in depth in Root Medicine, our complete Ayurvedic herb guide, and in the full Against the Odds protocol.
The lifestyle stack
Supplements without lifestyle intervention produce a fraction of the results. The lifestyle changes with the most measurable impact:
Daily sauna protocol — 20 minutes at 180-190°F, followed by cold exposure. The hormetic stress response from heat and cold alternation has robust evidence for hormonal support, growth hormone release, and nervous system regulation — for men and women both. The cold exposure component is particularly powerful for cortisol regulation and mood stabilization.
Endocrine disruptor elimination — plastics, synthetic fragrances, certain cookware — the xenoestrogen and hormone-disrupting load from everyday products is real and measurable in bloodwork. This matters especially for women whose estrogen balance is more sensitive to environmental inputs. Eliminating the major sources moved my numbers within the first month.
Sleep optimization — the majority of hormonal restoration happens during sleep. Non-negotiable: consistent sleep schedule, room temperature at 65-68°F, zero light exposure, last meal 3 hours before bed. For women, this compounds with cycle phase — sleep quality during the luteal phase has an outsized impact on progesterone and mood stability.
Nervous system regulation — this is the piece most people skip and the one that matters most. Chronic cortisol elevation is one of the most direct suppressors of healthy hormonal function across the board. The HPA axis is a competing priority system — when your body perceives ongoing stress, it deprioritizes hormonal balance in favor of survival response. This shows up in bloodwork. It showed up in mine. Daily breathwork, deliberate recovery, and genuinely addressing the stress inputs in your life — not just managing symptoms — makes a measurable difference that no supplement can replicate on its own.
What Four Months of Bloodwork Showed
I tracked with monthly draws throughout — Quest for the baseline, Rythm Health for the monthly panels.
The movement wasn't linear. The first month showed modest shifts as the stack established. Month two showed the most significant changes. By month four the numbers had settled into a new baseline.
71% increase in free testosterone. Inflammation essentially undetectable. Biological age 29 years and 7 months at 35.
The full bloodwork — every draw, every marker, with honest interpretation of what moved and what didn't — is in Against the Odds. I don't publish the raw numbers here because context matters enormously. Your baseline, your markers, your specific patterns require their own interpretation. What the guide gives you is the framework to read your own results against your own starting point — and the AI research methodology I used to build a personalized protocol from scratch.
The Piece That Applies to Everyone
The nervous system piece isn't a side note. It's the foundation.
You can run the supplement stack, optimize your sleep, do the sauna protocol — and still plateau if your body is running chronic stress activation. For men this shows up as suppressed testosterone and elevated cortisol. For women it shows up as disrupted cycle regularity, elevated cortisol, and the estrogen-progesterone imbalance that drives the most common symptoms women in their 30s and 40s experience.
The hormonal system and the nervous system are not separate. They're the same system looked at from different angles. The protocol that moves the bloodwork is the one that addresses both.
For business owners specifically — the stress inputs are often structural. The way your days are built. The way you respond to problems. The patterns that feel like personality but are actually nervous system adaptations. That's worth looking at directly, not just supplementing around.
What to Do From Here
Start with bloodwork. A full panel — not just the markers your GP orders. For men: free and total testosterone, SHBG, estradiol, DHEA-S, cortisol, full inflammatory panel, thyroid. For women: estrogen, progesterone, testosterone, DHEA-S, cortisol, inflammatory panel, thyroid.
That's your honest baseline. Everything else builds from there.
Against the Odds has the complete protocol — the full supplement stack with forms, brands, and clinical evidence, the lifestyle interventions, four months of real bloodwork with interpretation, the AI research framework for building your own personalized protocol, and the nervous system chapter that most health guides skip entirely.
Root Medicine goes deeper on the Ayurvedic compounds specifically — 17 clinically validated herbs, full mechanisms, quality standards, and exact dosing. If you want to understand what you're taking and why before you take it, that's where to start.
Both are in The Growth Studio.
Get Against the Odds — The Natural Health Protocol →
Get Root Medicine — The Complete Ayurvedic Herb Guide →
This is not medical advice. This is what I did, what I tracked, and what the bloodwork showed. Get your own bloodwork done before starting any protocol.
You might also find helpful: