You can tell how well your body is working by looking at your hair. Healthy bodies have healthy hair that is shiny and thick. Chronically stressed bodies have lank and sometimes patchy hair from stress hair loss.
Many people take pride in their hair and choose to cut it, color it, and style it in such a way to show off their unique personalities.
If you are ill or anxious, hair loses its luster and becomes flat and thin. Your hair may also be waxy due to sebaceous glands overproducing oil.
If you are losing your hair and don't know why it's happening, consider stress as a cause of your hair loss. This is because your hair shows the first signs of stress.
Complete hair loss caused by stress is usually due to a sudden, serious stressful event, whilst gradually thinning hair is caused by a build-up of day-to-day stresses.
Life events like:
- Giving birth
- Getting surgery
- Moving house
Can all cause hair to fall out to a certain degree or even completely.
When a person starts losing some of that hair, they may start to worry a lot more about their appearance while losing out on some of the confidence they once had.
Losing an excessive amount of hair because of stress can cause a person to feel insecure and in some cases, they feel devastated.
You may ask yourself: will it grow back?
Why Does Stress Cause Hair Loss?
One of the primary reasons people experience hair loss is stress. The medical term for one type of stress-related hair loss is Telogen Effluvium.
Hairs grow in cycles that span over two years. For the first two years, hair is growing, then for the next three months, the scalp rests before finally being shed from the scalp in the final stage of the natural hair cycle.
As a person becomes too stressed out, their hair follicles become dormant and the hair starts falling out a lot easier. The person may lose hair when he or she is washing it or even going through it with a brush or comb.
All hairs on your head are at different stages of the cycle which is why you don't usually lose all your hair at once. A normal rate of hair loss is 100 strands a day.
When the body goes through stress, up to 70% of your hair can stop growing and go into the resting phase early. After three months of resting, these hairs will all fall out at once which causes noticeable thinning of the hair.
You might be confused about what has caused your hair loss because of this three-month delay, but if you have faced a relatively stressful event three months previously, chances are your hair loss is down to stress.
Trichotillomania And Stress Hair Loss
Although hair can start falling out on its own from stress, certain stressful situations can cause people to pull their own hair out, which is known as Trichotillomania.
When a person suffers from Trichotillomania, they don’t want to pull their hair out, but they simply can’t help it because it feels right to them in that moment when they’re experiencing the most stress.
Stress and Your Immune System
Too much stress can work against your immune system. It’s important to find out if your hair loss is caused by stress-related reasons and then work on doing what you can to prevent even more hair from falling to the ground.
Stress is a major problem for many people. It doesn’t just cause the hair to fall out – it often makes people feel worn out and tired most of the time. It could even cause you to experience more headaches than you’d normally have.
Hair Loss and Self-esteem
After losing a significant amount of hair, a person may feel low about themselves and could start to have some major self-esteem issues. If you’re losing hair, you may not want to talk to people or even go out because you don’t want people to notice how thin your hair has become.
If this is how you’re feeling, you should focus on trying to eliminate some of the stress you’ve been dealing with to get your hair to get back into a healthy cycle of growing longer and fuller.
Other Causes of Hair Loss
If too much hair is falling out, you may develop some bald spots. It could be difficult to conceal these bald spots if your hair is thinning out so much.
People can start to experience this type of hair loss after giving birth, following a diet that doesn’t consist of nutritious foods, or even taking a new medication that they’ve never tried before.
Stressful situations can cause a change in hormones that ultimately lead to additional stress hair loss.
What Can I Do About Stress Hair Loss?
The key to tackling stress-induced hair loss is to reduce your exposure to the stressful situations you are facing.
If you think you are suffering from stress-related hair loss there are a few things you can do:
- It’s a good idea to start eating healthier foods and taking daily vitamins for additional hair growth support.
- Try to relax more, which is easier said than done I know. Take time out of your day to do activities for yourself. Like yoga, meditation or even watching TV!
- Taking time out to do something you enjoy that distracts you from stresses
- Getting plenty of exercise into your week helps to deal with stress effects on your body
- Practicing mindfulness so you are living in the present, not the past or the future
- Meditating for 10 minutes every morning to lower your overall stress levels
- Be careful with your hair when washing, drying, and styling it
- Use a proven hair-restoring product like Folexin
If your hair isn't growing back as quickly as you would like, you could use a proven hair regrowth product that nourishes the scalp and encourages it to grow new, healthy hair.
Folexin is the best product I found on the market and has a complex but transparent supplement formula that has specifically been formulated to help with hair loss and the growth of new hair.
It regrows hair that has been lost to stress or other factors. It does this without any dangerous or harsh chemicals that could further damage your hair follicles.
It is a gentle but powerful system for both regrowing lost hair and stopping the loss of hair in it's tracks.
To find out why I chose Folexin as my top-rated hair regrowth product: