Why is my hair falling out? is one of the most googled questions. What most people don’t know is that losing 50-100 hair fibers per day is normal. Hair runs in a cycle. The phases of this cycle are anagen, catagen, and telogen.
Anagen: the growing phase of the hair
Catagen: When hair stops its growth
Telogen: when hair falls out and is hopefully replaced by new anagen hairs.
It’s important to remember that each hair fiber is at a different phase which is why we don’t lose all our hair at once. Thank God! Otherwise people would be walking around with out any hair on their head for a few months lol. There are many factors that affect the lifecycle of the hair. Some you cannot control, like genetics or illness. But there are some factors you can. Like stress, sleep, diet, nutrition, and how we style our hair. a major player in stopping hair from shedding is scalp health.
The skin of the scalp may seem like a simple thing but its actually very complex as it is host to so many hair follicles in one concentrated area. Which leads to an accumulation of things like bad bacteria and excess dirt/oils. The skin of the scalp like the rest of your skin has the perfect balance of good bacteria to keep your skin in homeostasis (that’s a big word for Elmo lol).
In order to not disturb this homeostasis or balance, we need to apply cleansers and moisturizers to prevent the scalp from deteriorating. Making sure we wash is important as it reduces bacterial colonies that can cause bad odor as well as unhealthy scalp. However, we need to gently wash our hair as the good bacteria will be removed as well.
Also, scalp moisture can be decreased when using bad shampoos that cause the scalp to dry out. This would lead to a bad environment for the scalp and the hair. Which is why we use good conditioners to replace the oils that we need to keep our scalp healthy and moisturized.
Another thing we need to watch out for is the pH of our scalp. pH is the concentration of hydrogen ions present on a substrate. It determines how acidic or basic something is on a scale of 1-14. 1 being highly acidic and 14 being basic. Surprisingly the skin is acidic it ranges from 4 to 6. So, we need to use products that will maintain the pH of our scalp to preserve that balance we were talking about. #nobasics lol
When taking care of your scalp you must take care of your mental health. So let’s talk about that.
Eating a healthy diet and managing your stress are the best way to prevent stress from “attacking” your hair follicles. Making sure you eat the right nutrients is hard, but look for foods that are high in Ferritin, Vitamin D, and Vitamin B12. Or take supplements if you’re finding it hard to do so.
People notice their hair falling out and seem to panic. This just adds to their stress and makes matters worse. Stress causes the hair to move to telogen phase and usually it takes three months for the hair to start shedding due to the event that made you stress out so much in the first place.
There are numerous ways to manage stress:
Physical activity: Physical activity makes your body reduce cortisol levels. Which as a bonus will aid in reducing excess bodyfat as too.
Sleep: Please Sleep. Make sure you get 6-8 hours of sleep if you want your body to recover from the physical and mental stresses that you go through every day.
Counseling/therapy: Sometimes we just need to talk with someone experienced in helping people deal with stress to reduce it.
So, there are multiple factors that contribute to hair fall or hair loss. These are just a few of the things we can do to reduce hair loss. We hope this article gave you some more insight into hair loss so you can battle it with confidence. Good Luck!