“Is Stress one of the reason for Hair Loss"?

 

Stress: Stress is a completely an inward feeling on mental plane and expressed on physical plan due to some sudden or long continues triggering factors. 

Type: There are two kinds of Stress :- 

A)Acute Stress  B) Chronic Stress

A)Acute Stress: It’s a acute stage where some acute triggering factors work like sudden loss in business, fight with your life-partner; sudden loss of job etc. 

B)Chronic Stress: It’s a chronic stage where triggering factors are present for a long time like weeks or months like unhappy relationship, unavoidable things at you daily work. And this is the common one.

How does Stress signify through our body? 

Stress signifies through our body with releasing of  hormones. These hormones then alert our brain and make our muscles tense then  increase our pulse. In acute cases these reactions are good and   handle the situations causing the stress.  

When our body is threatened,  our nervous system release some hormones like adrenalin & cortisol which creates an emergency condition in our body like our heart starts pumping at a faster rate, muscles are tighten up with reddish face, hurried respiration and rising of blood pressure. This situation all to gather increases your power and stamina to fight against any danger. 

In acutes cases it helps to make you focused, energetic & alert. But in chronic case they mat cause some health issues.

May be you have heard about the link between stress & hair loss. But, is there any truth about the same? Now, answer for this question is YES. 

Stress is one of the reason for hair loss Following hair problems are mainly related with stress.

A) Telogen Effluvium(Excessive Shedding of hairs)

B) Trichotillomania( Hair pulling) 

C)Alopecia Areata( Hair loss in spot)

D)Androgenetic Alopecia( Hair thinning) 

Telogen Effluvium: Eviction of hair follicles which entered prematurely in resting phase is called Telogen Effluvium.  It is the most common cause of hair loss in females. It’s a form of Diffuse Hair Loss  Diffuse Hair Loss. 

During stressful condition a large amount of hair follicles are pushed directly into the resting phase  this is explained in following way how it happens:-

a)Hair follicles prematurely terminate into the Anagen phase 

b)Catagen phase of hair cycle is omitted

    c)Hair follicles prematurely enter the Telogen phase    and hairs are lost in great numbers.

    e)Rapid & generalised shedding of normal hair club.

Now, after 2-3 of months of this period we notice falling of hairs in bunches during washing or combing because after stressful condition our hairs not start falling immediately. Actually during stressful condition we could not take care ourself the way in which we should do like we were not able to take proper diet & nutrition. Ultimately there is lack of vital nutrition. See hair is a non-essential tissue so it would be the to be got affected due to lack of nutrients and resulting in shedding of hairs. 

Signs of Telogen Effluvium

Abrupt onset:-Telogen Effluvium has abrupt onset but there is an interesting thing in it because hair loss does not start until 3 months of its incident and that we call Magic 3 Months. There are several invents of stress that can trigger Telogen Effluvium like severe illness , giving birth etc

Diffuse Thinning:- There is diffuse pattern type hair loss in Telogen Effluvium . There is no any patchy hair loss or widening of parting line because will suggest either Alopecia Areata or Female Pattern Baldness .People generally notice their falling of hairs during washing, on pillow and around the house and also on passing hand through head. Its seen that almost 50% of hairs shed from the scalp but it does not cause the baldness. 

Temporary in nature:-There is good thing with Telogen Effluvium and that is completely reversible condition so it means that it will never cause the baldness. It takes months to year to get back the complete hairs but sometime full hair does not come. Growth rate is very slow like ½ inch per month. 

Trichotillomania: It’s a psychosomatic disorder under impulse control characterised by recurrent hair pulling from different hairs bearing areas like scalp, eye brows etc. and resulting in visible hair loss due to STRESS. It’s completely a reversible process.  

Persons generally either pull or twist their hairs unconsciously when they are engage in some activities like studying, watching TV and sometime while bathing or even in toilet too. 

Scalp hairs are mostly affected but eyebrows, eye lashes, chest hairs, even pubic area will also be the target area. 

 

Alopecia Areata:  Alopecia Areata   is called Spot Baldness. Its a condition in which Hair lost from one area of the scalp mostly or multiple areas of the scalp or from some hair bearing part of the body also.

Its also due to STRESS and its called Auto Immune Disease. 

But one thing I should mention here its not a permanent one, means once stress is under control, hair will grow back. 

Androgenetic Alopecia: Androgenetic Alopecia is Male Pattern Baldness due to androgen hormones which converts  into DHT(Dihydrotestosterone) causing thinning of hairs and ultimately hairs completely deminiaturised. We know androgen with common name Testosterone. 

During the stressful condition there is production of stress hormone names cortisol which increases the testosterone and there would be more DHT formation and more thinning of hairs. But this is not a reversible condition and stress acts as a triggering factor.

 

 Now we got the answer about the stress and hair loss relation. Means stress could be the reason for hair loss. Then ultimately we should have a proper solution to manage our stress so we will not be got affected with hair loss. 

 

Stress & Permanent Hair Loss:  Stressful persons always remain in doubt wether their hair loss will be the permanent one but its not true. If hair loss is stress related and follicles are  not damaged permanently, hairs will come automatically once stress is managed. 

Hairs will grow back once stress is managed and rate of  growth of hair will be different for different individual. 

Human has 1,00,000 to 1,50,000 hairs on the head  and each hair grows through a cycle called Hair Cycle having following 3 stages.

1) 1) Anagen( Growth Phase) 

2) 2) Catagen( Resting Phase)

3) 3) Telogen( Falling Phase) 

  

Stress Management & Treatment: 

As I always say, there are many modes of treatment available in our great country India for any kind of diseases.But people mostly prefer to take it from Old School Medicine(Allopathy) as their first choice and when some percentage of them do not get any satisfied results , they would take a move to other options available in medical field.

Yes, here we are talking about the world's 2nd largest practising system of medicine called Homoeopathy.But it does not mean that you should not take Old School of Medicine in your first choice because here I am just expressing the people's thought that I have been seeing in my day to day practice.

Homoeopathy has a great scope for treating the every kind of disease for last 200 years. And had been giving the wonderful satisfied results so this stress related hair loss can be also treated & managed very well in Homoeopathy.And yes, it means that you would get hairs back in your area of scalp from where it has gone due to the stress but duration we can't fix. 

Medically there are many treatments available in market as of now with different names as per the different company establishments but motive of  all those treatments available in the medical field is give you hair back. So, before opting any kind of treatment you should consult the Trichologist.

When we are under stress there is secretion of an emergency hormone named cortisol.And this cortisol reduces our immune power and makes for easily affected with illness. It also increases blood pressure and sugar too. People are first rush to the chemist shop and take for their concern meditation and this OTC( over the counter) is larger in scale. Now get rid of these negative effects we should do followings things:- 

1) Daily Routine: It means that you should ritualise your day. Like you make a list of things to be done in evening for morning. By doing this less efforts will be needed and you will be free from stressful ailments. 

2) Less Decisive: To make a decision less decisive because being always a decision maker you may feel stress. 

3) Exercise: Exercise is one of good option to take out yourself from stress. Take a walk on daily basis and if possible with someone. 

4) Hobbies : Make yourself occupied with those which you love to do and by doing this believe me it will make happy. So, you will be away from your stress. 

   Yoga &  Meditation:  Since ancient time Meditation and Yoga are the best option to tackle with stress and anxiety. This one is accepted by worldwide now and even so many organisations are there where its being done now. 

                      *HaveGoodHair & LiveGoodLife*