Psychological effects of steroids: Testosterone

Intro

This post will detail the psychological effects I’ve noticed of using supraphysiological amounts of testosterone.

For the physical changes, check out my video below that details my first cycle of Testosterone + Anavar results.

Confidence

Testosterone had a huge impact on my confidence levels. I became much more self-assured and willing to step outside my comfort zone and take a risk.

During my first cycle I was doing lots of daygame cold approach, me and my friend would go to busy high streets and malls and try and pick up women. If anyone has ever done cold approach before you’ll know that it’s more of a mental game than anything else.

What I mean by this is that, on the surface it doesn’t seem like a big deal and actually seems quite simple.

See attractive girl, walk up, move your mouth, she’s either into you or she’s not, if she is – great take a number and try and pursue it, if not that’s fair enough onto the next one.

What’s difficult about it is keeping your mental state level and unreactive to external validation, or lack there of.

There would be times where we would go out and get rejection after rejection then it’s your job as a man to show some mental resilience, pick yourself back and continue.

I noticed a radical difference between being on and off testosterone when doing cold approach.

When I was on I’d still get rejected but the harsh rejections wouldn’t bother me nearly as much as it did previously. I gave a lot less fucks about whether one particular interaction went well or not.

Another example would be if I had an important phone call to make – there would be much less hesitation and I’d find it much easier to just do the action without over thinking it.

With supraphysiological levels of Testosterone I found it much easier to just turn off the emotional part of my brain and just do the action – whether that’s talking to a hot girl in the mall, sober and in broad daylight, making an important phone call, important work meetings and just doing anything would normally cause a little bit of anxiety and overthinking.

I talked about some of the mechanisms behind this in a video called PFS and the importance of DHT.

Testosterone converts to DHT via 5-ar. So if you’re taking supraphysiological levels of testosterone it’s to be expected that you’ll have supraphysiological levels of DHT too.

DHT has been shown to have anti-anxiety and anti-depressive properties.

This study indicates that when androgens are blocked in the brain, there is an increase in anxiety-like behaviour.

For more information on the importance of DHT, check out my dedicated post on the topic here. or watch the video below.

Supraphiological amounts of testosterone without a doubt improved my confidence and lowered my anxiety, and before guys say oh you shouldn’t need to use Testosterone to do that – you’re right, you don’t. It’s just much easier with it.

Of course it comes with trade off and risks, but you could argue the risks to not doing as well are just as great. Especially if you find yourself in a place where you feel stuck and lack the motivation and drive to go after what you actually want in life.

There’s risks to NOT taking risks too.

Imagine if you saw your 10/10 girl and being on supraphysiological levels of testosterone was the difference between you going up and trying to making something happen or just a pussy and not doing it.

That girl could be your next girlfriend or it could be an awkward interaction where you get rejected and feel uncomfortable for the next 30 seconds… You just don’t know until you take the action and do it. Testosterone definitely helps you take the action and do it.

Right now I’m in a relationship with a girl that I met ON THE STREET doing cold approach while I was on testosterone. Maybe I would have done that without testosterone… or maybe not.

Motivation and Drive

It’s no secret that the most driven and highly achieving men generally have the highest testosterone levels.

I’m sure we’ve all heard Andrew Huberman talk about how ‘Testosterone makes effort feel good’.

This is true, but even more so when you take cycle amounts.

On cycle I find that it was way easier to be regimented. Without fail I would write up a to-do list on a night and then wake up the next day excited to start getting things done.

If you’re working on projects where you have to invest a significant amount of time in order for it to pay off, then being on Testosterone will definitely impact how you show up and tackle the daily tasks that bring you closer towards achieving that goal. Not only that but it seems like there’s more of a dopamine reward from doing so, it’s a different kind of dopamine though and not a what I like to call a ‘dirty high’ kind of dopamine reward that you’d get from eating junk or watching porn.

Which leads me to believe that testosterone has an impact on rewiring the brains reward systems more in-line with long term gratification and away from short-term dopamine/instant gratification.

Stress Resilience

You need good androgen levels to respond to stress correctly. Using supraphysiological amounts of testosterone turns the dial up to 10.

Androgens all suppress cortisol (the stress hormone) to some degree, some more potently than others. Supraphysiological Testosterone seems to do this to a significant degree, but what does this actually look like?

I like to think of it as: everything could be going wrong, but I can still handle it. So you might lose your job and go through a break-up but on supraphysiological amounts of testosterone you can quickly bounce back and it doesn’t seem to affect you as much.

Things that would normally effect you psychologically and emotionally have much less of an impact and you’re much better at shrugging things off that otherwise would have been devastating.

Aggression & Irritability

I’m of the believe that ‘roid rage’ is just a made up term used by the mainstream to demean steroids, and I really don’t think most compounds in reasonable dosage have this effect – certainly not testosterone. Unless you’re prone to violent behaviour anyway, then yes supraphysiological levels of androgens would MOST LIKELY exacerbate it.

There are compounds that can cause aggression, I definitely felt more aggressive using trenbolone, and I’ve heard halotestin and cause aggression to.

I’m a pretty chill guy and Testosterone didn’t cause any perceivable ‘aggression’ but what it did do was make me more assertive.

I found I was more likely to just say what I was thinking and speak up for myself when previously I would have bitten my tongue just to keep the peace.

The variable of estrogen

The wildcard to all of the above is estrogen, when it’s in range you can expect all of the positive effects described above from testosterone.

However when estrogen goes too high your mood can become more unstable, personally when my estrogen has gone up too much I feel more emotional and sleeping becomes an issue which can further compound and affect your mood as well.

I’ve experienced low estrogen before too from using too much primo and this has almost the opposite effect on mood. I felt emotionless and fatigued.

Conclusion

Testosterone is a very powerful modulator of mood and behaviour. Some people seem to react to it more strongly than others, but in general you can expect an increase in masculine traits and behaviour and all the benefits that come with that as well as the drawbacks.

It also seems to amplify existing personality traits too, there’s something I heard lately which I like and it goes like this.

“Steroids don’t turn you into an asshole, you were already an asshole now you’re just an asshole on steroids”