Can Stress Cause Hair Thinning?
Does your mental health really affect your hair health?
Yes. But it’s a connection many people don’t make. Here’s what you need to know about how stress affects your hair.
How Stress Could Be Triggering Your Hair Loss
Stress messes with our hormones and can inhibit our ability to care for ourselves. And, it can cause balding.
In fact, the second most commonly diagnosed cause of hair loss is called telogen effluvium, in which there is excessive hair shedding after a shock to the system. This type of hair loss can happen to people of all ages and genders.
Hormonal changes from pregnancy or stressful incidents like car crashes, surgery, or extreme dieting are thought to trigger short-term telogen effluvium. Certain medications and nutrient deficiencies may also be triggers. Prolonged stressors like chronic illness may lead to more persistent telogen effluvium.
This type of stress-related hair loss often appears as balding patches near the top of the scalp. Though it rarely causes people to lose all of their hair, in some extreme cases, hair thinning may occur on other parts of the body like your eyebrows or bikini area.
Luckily, telogen effluvium is reversible since it doesn’t permanently damage the hair follicles. Treatment varies depending on what triggered the condition- so if stress was a trigger, stress reduction is a treatment. Which is good news for your mental health, and good news for your hair.
Stress Distracts From Scalp Care
When left unchecked, stress-related hair loss can become a vicious cycle. When we’ve got something stressing us out, it’s normal for most of our attention to go to dealing with that stressor. For a lot of us, hair care gets understandably deprioritized.
So, when we’re distracted by stress or depression, we’re less likely to maintain a daily scalp care routine… but that makes it harder for us to grow healthy hair.
Like we always say, hair health starts at the root. Blocked, irritated pores don’t grow healthy hair. So, a routine of regular washing, moisturizing, and frequently switching up tension styles is necessary for thick, luscious hair.
If we skip washing our hair for weeks, leave a protective style in for months, or can’t take our wig off at night- we’re likely to start seeing some damage.
Don’t Let Stress Over Hair Thinning Push You Into Further Damaging Your Scalp
Then, when we start to see excessive shedding, thinning edges, and bald patches- it’s likely to cause us even more stress. This leads many of us to seek quick fixes or coverups like strong medications, hair transplants, permanent wigs and weaves, or hairline concealers.
While these solutions might obscure our hair loss from notice, our scalps continue to suffer and our hair loss gets worse.
“Since baldness is not normalized and scalp care is not emphasized, some people want help, but they are unsure where to go or whether the help they need even exists,” explains Vigor Roots Founder Nathalee DuRose. “When I talk to people about hair loss and hair thinning, they are stressing more about their hair loss than actually working towards solving the problem.”
Sound familiar? There is another way.
Making Hair & Scalp Care a Relaxing Part of Your Daily Routine
OK, so we know that stress reduction and proper scalp care can change the game for your hair. (Here are the key elements of proper scalp care, if you’re curious.)
The good news is that you can turn your daily scalp care routine into a relaxing self-care ritual. It’s a moment to yourself, to care for your crown, to let yourself know that you matter to you. Your comfort matters to you. Your health matters to you. How you feel matters to you.
Don’t you deserve that? Yes, you do.
This self-care aspect is what many of our customers love most about Root22, our all-natural scalp serum & hair growth stimulant. The rollerball applicator turns moisturizing into a relaxing scalp massage.
Plus, it smells great! Scent is a powerful way to connect with your body in the present moment in a pleasurable way.
“You can just smell the richness of the lavender and the lemongrass. It’s very calming for the senses,” says DuRose.
Taking time for daily scalp care is a win/win/win.
Ready to heal your scalp and grow your hair with a relaxing scalp care routine? You gotta check out our Root22Serum.
