Is Stress a reason for hair loss?

Is Stress a reason for hair loss?

How Stress and Hair loss are connected

If you are getting more hair loss than usual, it’s probably the stress that triggers the hair loss. You must be wondering whether stress can affect your body.

Types of Hair Loss

Hair loss could be a normal hair loss or due to stress or hereditary.

1. Normal Hair Loss

Your hair is not meant to stay in your scalp forever. There is a normal life span of each strand of hair after which it falls out naturally. We lose about 100 hairs in a day, out of the 100,000 contained on thescalp.

The normal hair loss could occur due to a few factors:

• Ageing: After 30 years of age, both men and women start losing hair. Men although have hair loss at a faster rate.
• Lifespan: Hair falls after its life spanwhich is around 4-5 years. It is then replaced by a new hair within 6 months.
• Styling: Shampooing, brushing and blow-dryingcan cause a few hairs to fall out.

 

2.Hereditary Hair Loss

Genetic hair loss isnot related to extreme hair loss, but it’s due to the inadequatenumber of hairsgrowing back on the scalp. It is resulting todisappearing hairlines and pattern baldness.

Hereditary Hair Loss is linked with a few factors:

• Age: By 30 years of age, one in every four men is balding and by 60 years of age, two in three men are balding.
• Gender: Hereditarybaldnessis more common in men than in women.

 

How Stress Can Lead to Hair Loss

You may have heard that stress causes hair lossand it’s really true. The hair loss due to stress is environmentally caused and may be easily controlled if you can manage the stress.

Stress causes two types of hair loss:

• Alopecia areata: In this type of hair loss, white blood cell attack on the hair follicles. The large patches of hair fallwithin weeks. It involves the entire scalp and can body hair as well. The treatment may be required for hair to grow back.
• Telogen effluvium: With this more commontype of hair loss, the hair stops growing and lies inactive. In this condition, hair falls out 2 or 3 months later and new hair grows back within 6 to 9 months.

Other Hair Loss Factors

There are other factors that can also cause hair loss:

• Chemotherapy
• Any illness
• Nervous habits
• Hormonal changes
• Usage of childbirth, and birth control pill

 

When to consult a doctor

If you are experiencing baldness or your hair is thinning, you need to consult with your doctor in order to determine the cause. As, stress is one of the common reasons for hair loss, it’s a good idea to cut your lifestyle stress.

How to Manage Stress

It’s always possible to prevent stress at all from occurring in your life, but you canminimize thestress you experience.

You can try on some fast-acting stress relievers that can help you cutstress in your life.

• Breathing exercises
• Meditation
• Aromatherapy
• Progressive muscle relaxation
• Visualization

Meditation, exercise, and other healthy habits help you create ability in yourself to fight with stress.