Hypopneas are defined as a 50% decrease in airflow for 10 s or 30% decrease when oxygen saturation falls or sleep arousal occurs.10 The presence and severity can be classified by a number of indices including the oxygen desaturation index (ODI), arousal index, or apnea hypopnea index (AHI). More severe obstruction of the upper airway during sleep results in the obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) or OSA syndrome (OSAS) when there are compatible symptoms present. There are a number of syndromes characterized by disordered breathing during sleep. The first two phases of NREM sleep (phases 1 and 2) are light and often alternate with brief waking episodes. Apart from a very transient deleterious effect, testosterone treatment does not adversely affect OSA.
There is something mystical about sleep that few people understand. When your mind stills before bed—through mantra, gratitude, breathing, or prayer—your brain waves shift from agitation to surrender. But when the water is still, the moon shines perfectly. If the surface is constantly disturbed, the moon of awareness cannot reflect clearly. When the mind is filled with excess Vata (movement, anxiety, scattered thoughts), the nervous system forgets how to settle. In Ayurveda, the root cause of disturbed sleep is not only physical—it’s psychic. In modern terms, this is when testosterone production falls, sperm count suffers, and libido drops.
By evening, melatonin release gets delayed, and sleep arrives restlessly. The art of good sleep begins in the morning, not at night. Your energy during daylight and your peace at dusk are threads of the same fabric. Ayurveda does not treat sleep as an isolated event, but as a result of how you live your entire day. So let us return to the ancient wisdom of rhythm—the Ayurvedic way of living by the sun, moon, and earth. Most people are awake when they should sleep, and asleep when life’s finest energies awaken.
Translated in practice - avoid the temptation to work through the night if you don’t have to. To put this in perspective, natural ageing typically results in a 1% to 2% decline in testosterone per year. In a key study on this topic, Van Cauter, Leproult, and Plat (2000) showed that HGH pulses are synchronised with the onset of slow-wave sleep.
Think of your daily routine as mental therapy embedded in time. Relaxation opens the channels for Ojas and Shukra Dhatu to nourish sensual vitality. But irregular sleep disrupts this balance, leading to anxiety, irritability, and emotional fatigue. You will notice that your breath deepens, thoughts slow down, and your system gently enters the healing zone.
Testosterone levels fall, cortisol spikes, the mind becomes anxious. And slowly, the most sacred energy within you—your sexual energy—begins to dim. Let’s be honest—when your nights are broken, your days lose meaning. Even then, the sleep we get is fragmented, shallow, and restless. Modern life, however, has lost this natural rhythm. Today, I invite you to look beyond caffeine, pillows, and power naps, and explore how your soul sleeps. The presence of these ubiquitous steroids in a wide range of animals suggest that sex hormones have an ancient evolutionary history. have been undertaken on the relationship between more general aggressive behavior, and feelings, and testosterone.|It is an observation that the hormonal system is interconnected, and optimizing one input does not automatically optimize the whole network. DHEA and its sulfated form, DHEA-S, appear to influence mood regulation, stress resilience, and neurological signaling in ways that testosterone alone does not fully address. Clinicians who work in hormone optimization have noted that some of these residual symptoms may relate to DHEA and its metabolites, including compounds that the brain and nervous system use for functions beyond reproduction. DHEA is a hormone, not a supplement in the conventional sense, and its effects vary considerably from person to person. For others, it may explain why optimization on paper does not always feel like optimization in real life. Unlike testosterone, which is the main target of TRT, DHEA does not get replaced by default. It is one of the most abundant circulating steroids in the human body during your twenties, and one of the most steadily declining ones after that.}
The body detoxifies and rebuilds only when each dosha performs its role in sequence. The process takes place in stillness—something impossible when Vata and Pitta are agitated from late nights or overstimulation. Ayurveda insists that sleep is equivalent to a Rasayana—a rejuvenating therapy—because it literally manufactures new Ojas. When that happens, your energy drops not only physically but emotionally. Science now proves that sleep deprivation inhibits the glymphatic system—the brain’s cleansing mechanism that removes cellular waste and stress chemicals. In women, it manifests as hormonal irregularities, anxiety, and skin dryness. It resides primarily in the heart and pervades every cell like a subtle oil that keeps the machinery of life running smoothly.