More Than a Placebo: The Surprising Science of How 'Feeling Good' Boosts Testosterone and Performance

How Behavior Primes Your Brain and Body for Success.

We’ve all heard about pre-game routines. They help you get in the right state of mind, providing a sense of control and a feeling that you’ve been here before. But what’s not as widely known is there impact on not only our psychology, but our biology.

I first came across Dave Hamilton’s work when presenting at a conference put on by the Seattle Sounders. At the time, he worked with USA field hockey, after serving a similar role with British field hockey for the 2012 Olympics. As Dave stood at the lectern presenting his findings, my inbuilt skepticism dissipated into a full attentive embrace of what Dave was espousing.

Dave presented on the relationship between testosterone and performance. He went through a research review showing how subtle shifts in testosterone led to shifts in performance at a wide variety of tasks, from intellectual to athletic. Then to cement the practicality, Hamilton walked us through his own findings with his players. If he could shift there testosterone levels slightly pre-game, their performance would also shift. So Hamilton experimented with pre-game warm-up routines– like whether practicing offense or defense worked best, or whether doing light endurance work or pure sprint work, improved performance. To Dave, Testosterone was just the marker that tended to correlate with performance, what he was actually after was performance itself.

With each “experiment” he found the individuality of the change was immense. Certain players would see their performance boost after performing sprints pre-game, while others needed a different stimulus.

If we dig further into the research on pre-competition routines that influence performance, there are lots of “strange” things that work. Whether we watch gameday tape reviewing our successes or failures influences testosterone levels and the next game performance. Watching short video clips that are erotic (yes, erotic), aggressive, or humorous before a maximum squat exercise all increase testosterone levels and performance. Another study found that whether a coach is positive or negative pre-game influences testosterone levels and game performance in Rugby players. Watching a previous victory had the same effect in a different study. Have an away game and win? Too bad, you get a bigger bump in testosterone if you would have won at home.

I could go on and on. The point is lots of things that boost testosterone, or motivation, or a number of “soft” psychology parameters. And most importantly, they seem to influence performance at the highest level.

A year later, in research for Peak Performance, Dave summed it up even better when I asked what tended to give athletes a boost: “Do what makes you feel good.” His conclusion was that, if he could put peoples minds and bodies in a place where they were empowered to perform, they would see a boost in performance, and likely one in testosterone too.

At that instant, my mind flipped to another concise phrase I’d read, “Do good, be good.”

These words were written by psychologists Timothy Wilson in his book Strangers to Ourselves. In the book, Wilson explores how our subconscious impacts our lives. And in this particular section, he outlined how we can take advantage of our subconscious to influence our every day lives

Wilson’s research found that one of the ways we come to understand ourselves is by analyzing our behavior. Our subconscious literally analyzes our behaviors then says “hmm, I just gave a donation to this child in need, I must be a good person!” In other words, our behaviors help to inform the rest of our mind who we actually are. Which led Wilson to the phrase, “do good, be good.” If we act in accordance to how we want to be, eventually our brain will ingrain that, yes, we have to be this type of person because our behaviors show we are. Instead of trying to use our mind to change behaviors, we should change our behaviors, and then our mind will follow.

A 2023 study reinforced Wilson's findings. Participants who engaged in charitable actions over just one week reported significantly higher self-esteem and a clearer sense of personal identity, confirming that action precedes perception.

What Hamilton and Wilson had both found is that our behaviors– whether that’s in performing more giving actions, or in priming ourselves for a game– impact us far more than we previously had imagined.

When you’re standing on the starting line, belief matters.

While some might insist that the impact on performance from belief or ‘feeling good’ must be a placebo effect, they fail to realize that life and coaching are about expressing a response. Placebo or actual; the psychology and physiology are deeply intertwined. Every coach or teacher who has looked a kid dead in the eye and said “You’re ready,” knows the power of belief. They might not be able to measurer the hormonal surge, but if that coach has built a relationship of trust, and believes that the kid is ready, a simple reassurance can make the world of difference.

Research from 2024 published in Frontiers in Psychology found that verbal encouragement from trusted coaches triggered measurable hormonal responses, including elevated testosterone and reduced cortisol. The interaction of psychological belief and physiological response was undeniable.

In psychology we call this the belief effect. A tinge of conscious and subconscious knowledge that you are happier, more determined, more confident, or whatever else you want to look at. Is this ‘real’ or not? When it comes to performance, it doesn’t really matter.

Sure, from a scientific perspective it does, but from an applied perspective it doesn’t. We often give placebo responses a bad name. We look at it as some ‘trick,’ that only weak minded folks fall for. But the research on placebo or belief effects is much more robust than we often give it credit for. It occurs in all of us. And it makes sense why. Our brain is predictive. It’s anticipating the demands that it’s about to face and our ability to handle them. Part of that prediction is based on the informational context it has. If a doctor in a white coat with lots of credentials and a warm demeanor hands you a blue pill that he says is going to make you better, all of the information going to your brain is pointing in the same direction: this will help.

It’s the same when step up to the line to compete. If everything from our coach to the friendly audience to our brand new shoes is signalling that we are ready to go and doing something we love, our brain predicts accordingly. We see it as a challenge to take on, not a threat to survive.

We tend to discount ‘feelings’ in hard science. But as we are learning in the world of fatigue, the ‘feeling’ of effort may be what matters most when it comes to competing. Feel better than expected, your body lets loose the reigns and allows you to run a bit faster. Feel worse? We slow down.

If ‘feeling’ matters so much in fatigue and racing performance, why do we discount it in the lead up to performance? Create the feeling of empowerment, enjoyment, confidence, or the mindset to take on any challenge, and we have succeeded. We will likely see a boost in performance.

As coaches, our life revolves around these beliefs effects. We’re trying to put the athlete in the right frame of mind to compete and reach their potential. And if “feeling good” helps them get there, then I don’t care if they power pose, crack jokes, talk themselves up, or do the latest dance move.

-Steve