Stress is such a common part of life and it’s doubtful anyone hasn’t experienced it before. It can be both positive (like buying a new house!) or negative (like losing a job). The key is how you’re managing it. And the better you can manage it, the more resilient your body (and hair) will be (phew!)
The three most common types of hair loss associated with stress are:
- Telogen effluvium: a sizeable amount of stress will push large numbers of hair follicles into a resting phase. After a consistent few months, you’ll notice large, sudden fallout through simply combing or washing your hair.
- Trichotillomania: this is an urge to pullout your hair in response to dealing with negative feelings or discomfort. If this is a source of fallout for you, it’s a great idea to seek cognitive behavioural therapy.
- Alopecia areata: high stress is thought to be a significant factor in this type of hair loss - which is simply the immune system attacking the hair follicles, resulting in loss of hair.
Thankfully, stress doesn’t have to be permanent! Here are some of our favourite ways to reduce stress:
- Epsom Salt Baths: salt baths offer deep relaxation as minerals like magnesium soak into your skin and muscles, offering relief to any aches, pains, or cramping. Light a few beeswax candles, diffuse an essential oil, play some soft tunes, and focus on your deep and expanding breath. Ahhh, that’s nice.
- Meditation & Visualization: even 5 minutes a day of meditation can be enough to help your body regulate its stress response. It’s a great way to begin the day and can be a simple as focusing on your breath, while letting your thoughts melt away. It’s nice to follow this up with a visualization of how you’d like your day to go and envisioning yourself accomplishing what you set out to do. It’s also important to practice forgiveness to yourself if things don’t go as planned!
- Gratitude journalling: practicing gratitude by simply writing down a few things you’re grateful daily has been found to rewire the structure of your brain keeping you healthier, happier, and more at peace. I love to think of happiness as a perspective and what you appreciate, appreciates.
- Exercise: not only an important way to increase blood flow throughout your body and promote circulation to your scalp, but exercise is an excellent stress buster. If you have a fast-paced lifestyle it may be helpful to engage in more “yin” or calming workouts like yoga.
- Nutritional support: eating plenty of colourful fruits and veggies as well as taking your daily vitamins! With higher amounts of stress, your body can easily become nutrient depleted. In addition to a nourishing wholesome diet, it’s essential to have additional vitamin and mineral support to help your body replenish itself further. Our HAIRtamin Advanced Formula is designed as a complete supplement for your hair AND has beneficial effects on your adrenal glands (which get taxed under higher amounts of stress). Curcumin (the active component of turmeric) has been found to help with the management of stress through the regulation of cortisol production (Xu et al, 2006).
References
Xu, Ying, et al. “Curcumin Reverses the Effects of Chronic Stress on Behavior, the HPA Axis, BDNF Expression and Phosphorylation of CREB.” Brain Research, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 29 Nov. 2006, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17022948.
