VOL. 2 · MAY 16, 2026

Saturday morning. Coffee first. Five things.

THE RESEARCH — Five Hours of Sleep Drops Your Testosterone

In 2011, researchers at the University of Chicago restricted healthy young men to 5 hours of sleep per night for one week. Their daytime testosterone levels dropped 10 to 15% — a swing the average man doesn't see across an entire decade of normal aging.

The good news: it bounces back. Once those men returned to normal sleep, their levels normalized. Testosterone production is exquisitely responsive to sleep — in both directions.

The takeaway: You cannot supplement, train, or biohack your way around bad sleep. Testosterone production is not a thing you do. It's a thing you allow. The single highest-leverage move for your hormones is the same one your wife has been telling you for years — go to bed earlier. The body will reward you fast.

Leproult & Van Cauter, 2011 (JAMA, 305(21), 2173–2174)

WORTH REMEMBERING

The Roman emperor wrote this to himself. He didn't want to get out of bed either. He just understood that the cost of staying there was higher than the cost of getting up.

Most mornings, the alarm is a small Thermopylae. Win it.

TRY THIS WEEK — Call a Brother

Pick one man — a friend, a teammate, an old college buddy, a cousin you used to be tight with — that you haven't actually talked to in three months or more.

Not a text. Not a like. A phone call.

Tell him you were thinking about him. Ask how he's doing. Listen for ten seconds longer than feels natural. Then schedule the next thing — a beer, a hike, a workout, lunch.

That's it. One call. Most of the men reading this will think of someone in the next ten seconds and do nothing about it. Be the one who picks up the phone. The friendship deficit in modern men's lives doesn't get fixed at conferences. It gets fixed one call at a time.

FROM THE BOOKSHELF — Wild at Heart by John Eldredge

Eldredge wrote this 25 years ago and it has aged better than almost anything written about modern manhood. The thesis is simple: men were made for a battle to fight, an adventure to live, and a beauty to rescue — and modern life has anesthetized all three.

You don't have to agree with every page to be moved by it. The book gave language to a generation of men who knew something was off but couldn't name it. It still does.

Read the first chapter this weekend. If it lands, keep going. If it doesn't, you'll still have given an hour to the question of what you were actually built for.

CLOSING THOUGHT

Last week I told you to take inventory of who shows up for you. Add one more this week: take inventory of who you show up for.

There's a man somewhere in your phone right now who would feel ten pounds lighter if you called. You probably know who he is. The list usually isn't long.

Call them. Connect with them. They may need a brother now more than you know.

See you next Saturday.