Growth hormone (GH), or Human growth hormone (HGH), is an important hormone released from your pituitary gland.
It has an essential role in growth, metabolism, body composition, height growth, and cell repair.
HGH also promotes strength, exercise performance, and muscle growth. HGH levels are affected by your diet and lifestyle.
These 12 ways help to boost human growth hormone (HGH) levels naturally:
The amount of belly fat you have directly affect HGH levels in your body. Higher levels of belly fat will impair HGH production. Interestingly, some research shows that excess body fat influences HGH production more in men. Losing body fat is still beneficial for both men and women. People who are obese or have more belly fat have lower HGH and IGF-1, a growth-related protein.
So if you want to increase growth hormone in your body, lose weight.
Studies show that fasting boosts HGH levels.
However, constant fasting is not tolerable in the long term. Periodic fasting is a more common dietary approach that restricts eating to short periods.
Here are two popular methods of intermittent fasting. The first one is a daily 8-hour eating and 16-hour fast. The other is eating only 500-600 calories two days per week.
Periodic fasting optimizes HG levels in two ways. First, it decreases body fat, which helps promote HGH production. Second, it keeps your insulin levels low for most of the day. Insulin is released when you eat. According to some research, insulin spikes can interrupt growth hormone production. Then intermittent fasting helps your body to increase growth hormone.
It's better to take arginine alone without any exercise to increase growth hormone levels.
Some studies show weak or no rise in growth hormone levels when using it besides exercise.
Also, based on studies taking arginine alone without any exercise increases growth hormone levels significantly.
Sugar and refined carbs increase insulin levels the most. An increase in insulin reduces the production of growth hormones. Furthermore, extra sugar intake causes weight gain and obesity, which negatively affects HGH levels. Reducing sugar intake can increase growth hormone insertion.
Naturally, our body releases human growth hormones at night. As we said, insulin reduces the production of human growth hormones.
Eating a lot before bedtime, especially a high-carb meal, spike your insulin levels, and block the production of growth hormones at night.
Insulin levels decline 2-3 hours after eating, so if you want to increase growth hormone, don't eat high-carb meals 2–3 hours before sleep.
Foods that are high in melatonin improve human growth hormones production naturally. Pomegranates, oysters, green vegetables, fortified plant milk, extra virgin olive oil, onions, fatty fish, and fish oil are rich in melatonin and help improve human growth hormones insertion. Read more about the best diet for increasing height.
GABA or gamma-aminobutyric acid is a non-protein amino acid and a neurotransmitter that sends signals between different parts of your brain. These signals have a calming effect on the brain and central nervous system, which help you sleep better. Better sleep increases human growth hormone production.
Also, GABA increases HGH levels and increases your height.
Exercise helps increase growth hormone production.
Your body's features, intensity and type of exercise, and food intake around the workout will affect your HGH level.
All forms of exercise are beneficial, but High-intensity exercise is the most useful.
Over the long term, exercise lowers body fat and optimizes your hormone function. Both of them will raise your growth hormone levels.
Note that exercise increases your body's needs, and it is better to have an appropriate diet for training.
Some sports supplements provisionally increase your growth hormone levels and optimize performance. A different study showed that a sweet sports drink raised HGH levels at the end of the exercise. Protein shakes can cause an increase in growth hormone levels during your workout. However, casein and whey protein lower human growth hormone and testosterone levels if you consume them before a strength workout.
Our body releases most of the growth hormone at night during sleep.
A significant amount of growth hormone secretion occurs before midnight, and a small amount is released early in the morning. Sleeping early at night helps your body increase growth hormone function, height, and muscles.
Studies indicate that inadequate sleep reduces HGH production. Try to sleep before 11 PM to increase your height.
Melatonin supplements can enhance the duration and quality of your night's sleep. While melatonin supplements directly improve HGH production, sufficient sleep alone can increase growth hormone levels. So if you want to increase your height, take a melatonin supplement 30 minutes before bed.
Other supplements that can improve human growth hormone production are creatine, glutamine, ornithine, glycine, and L-dopa.
Please consult a nutritionist before taking any dietary supplements.
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