Stop Stress Hair Fall With These Easy Tips And Home Remedies

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Being single on Valentine’s Day hurts, but what hurts even more is seeing clusters of hair waving goodbye to you with a single draw of your comb. Very soon, there are tumbleweeds of hair rolling in every corner, and all you can do is think of quick hair fixes that will trigger new hair growth. While losing a few hair strands on your pillow and in your shower drain is absolutely normal, the problem starts when you have a lot of broken hair on your palm each time you run your fingers through your hair. It’s amusing that stress can cause hair fall, which again is a good enough reason to cause stress! Now to help you fight this age-old problem, here is a list of home remedies that combat hair fall and help you grow healthy hair no matter how stressful your routine is.
Before we jump into stimulating hair follicles for healthier hair growth, let us go on to how and why stress is linked to hair fall problems. Researches prove that emotional stress and anxiety can lead to hair shedding (1). There is a gap of 90 days between the stress event and the uncontrolled hair fall, and the problem usually occurs once you have overcome the anxiety. This phase where you are anxious about something is where your hair follicles lie dormant and new hair stops growing. This is a fight response of your body to prepare itself to secrete hormones and perceive the potential threat. This makes the damaged hair fall off in clusters without maintaining the balance of growth and hair fall.
Common Types Of Stress-Induced Hair Fall
There are three main kinds of hair fall that result from immense stress.
- Telogen Effluvium
Telogen Effluvium is a hair abnormality that arises when there is a change in the number of healthy hair follicles on your scalp. If it occurs during the resting phase, it will result in hair thinning and uncontrolled hair fall. It leads to bald patches mainly at the center of the scalp (2).
- Alopecia Areata
Alopecia Areata is an autoimmune disease. This is the condition where the immune system attacks your hair follicles and makes them fall off before the hair can reach its full maturity. It will start with lost patches of hair in sections of the scalp and eventually fall out from the whole head. The severe kind includes hair loss from your whole body (3).
- Trichotillomania
Trichotillomania is more of a mental disorder that leads to loss of hair. It is the uncontrollable urge to pull your hair out. You might have noticed that most things you do subconsciously are things like pulling out the scraped wound, biting nails, and in this case, pulling hair out. People also do it intentionally to relieve stress and cope with something worse than hair fall (4).
Tips To Reduce Hair Fall Due To Stress
If you are losing hair more than usual and know it is the doings of your stressful lifestyle, here are some things you can help yourself with.
- Eat Healthy And Nutritious
Eating healthy is essential even if you don’t have hair fall. Most of our lifestyle consists of eating greasy, oily food and then crash dieting to get back in shape. Both are the worst things you can do to your hair. If you don’t eat well, all the money spent on spa treatments and hair products can be futile. A good diet rich in proteins and vitamins is essential to carry on the health of your hair (5).
- Supplements
Even though you aim to eat a nutritious diet, it is not possible to have all the nutrition through food alone. Taking additional organic supplements like vitamin D, ferritin, Zinc, and Vitamin B12 can help you improve your health (6).
- Manage Your Stress
No matter how stressful your lifestyle is, ignoring it can cause more harm than hair fall. Since stress is the root cause of your hair loss, it is essential to uproot the problem at the base. Participating in activities like meditation, deep breathing, yoga, journaling, counseling, outdoor activities, and therapy can reverse the problem and induce healthy hair growth from your hair follicles.
- Good Night’s Sleep
A complete 7-8 hours of sleep is essential for the human brain to function the right way. We often compromise our sleep for work and stay awake at night for better concentration; however, not giving your brain rest for a minimum of 7 hours can slow down your processing and affect your health and hair growth.
In addition to these, here are some natural remedies to help stimulate dormant hair follicles and regrow hair.
- Aloe Vera works really well as a hair growth stimulant. Simply massage the pulp for 5 minutes on your scalp and then wash it off to enjoy healthy hair growth.
- Make a hair pack using coconut oil, egg, and olive oil, and massage it along the entire length of your hair. Leave it for half an hour, then wash it off with a mild shampoo.
- Add two spoons of lemon juice in one spoon of amla powder and mix it into a paste. Apply it on your hair roots and let it dry. Rinse it off with lukewarm water.
So, now that you know the secrets to beat stress, nothing can stop you from growing healthy hair! Beautiful hair is something that makes you feel confident from within. No matter the cause of stress, it should not interfere with your health and hair growth. Do you have any secrets to keep your hair shiny and healthy all year long? Let us know in the comments below!