How to Prevent Hair Loss Due to Stress Part II

Reducing Emotional and Physical Stress

1. Get enough sleep
Lack of sleep can contribute to both mental and physical stress, especially if the sleep issues persist over a long period of time. It can affect your diet, your performance at work and your overall mood, which, in turn, can lead to stress or anxiety-related hair loss.

• Improve your sleep by getting into a regular sleep pattern - that is, waking up and going to bed at the same time every day. You should aim to be getting at least 7 to 8 hours sleep a night.
• Avoid doing anything too stimulating before bed. Don't watch any scary films or TV shows, stay away from the bright screen of your laptop and phone and don't exercise or eat anything. Read a book or have a hot bath instead.

2. Follow a healthy diet

Eating healthily gives your body more energy, enabling it to better cope with stress. Diet also contributes to the strength of hair, making it less likely to fall out.

• Eat at least three, well-balanced meals a day. Never skip breakfast, as it gets your metabolism going in the morning and helps to prevent cravings for unhealthy snacks before lunch.
• Stay away from processed, sugary foods, and those high in trans fats.Instead, eat more fruit and vegetables, whole grains, lean protein and foods high in monounsaturated fats, such as avocados, oily fish, nuts and olives.
• Increase your intake of certain vitamins and minerals which contribute to healthy hair growth and your overall well-being, such as B vitamins, vitamins A, C and E, zinc, selenium and magnesium. Omega-3 fatty acids are also beneficial, as they can help to improve the health of the scalp.

3. Exercise more

Exercise can be hugely beneficial in helping to alleviate emotional stress. When you exercise, your body releases endorphins - also known as happy hormones - which help you to feel calmer and more relaxed.

• The type of exercise you do is up to you - when it comes to relieving stress, try to find something you enjoy, whether it's running, rowing, cycling, dancing or rock climbing. Anything that gets your heart rate up and puts a smile on your face.
• Also try to incorporate a yoga or meditation class into your weekly routine, as these have been proven to effectively reduce stress levels. Alternatively, you could practice meditation at home or at your desk - anywhere you can shut out the world for a few moments and just focus on clearing your mind.

4. See a therapist

Emotional stress can become much worse over time if you bottle up your feelings and avoid talking about the source of your stress. Therefore, seeing a therapist to talk through your anxiety issues can be very cathartic, and do wonders to relieve stress.

• If talking to a therapist isn't something you're interested in, then at least open up to a trusted friend or family member. Don't be afraid of burdening them with your worries - they'll be more than happy to lend a sympathetic ear.
• Even if talking about things doesn't change the source of the stress, it can help to change how you view it and give you some perspective. Talking to friends and family can also help you to realize that you have a strong support system around you and that you don't need to cope with your stress alone.

5. Give your body time to recover after a major physiological change

Major physiological changes - such as surgery, a car accident, illness or giving birth to a child - can be very traumatic for your body, even if you feel fine mentally. That's why people often notice their hair falling out three to six months after a major physical change.

• When this starts to happen, it's important to remember that the damage has already been done. There's very little you can do to reverse the effects of the traumatic event after it happens.
• Therefore, the only solution is to give your body time to recover. The hair loss is not permanent, so once your body recovers from the stressful event, your hair will start to grow back.

6. Check your meds

There are a number of medications which can promote hair-loss, thereby making stress-related hair loss worse.

• The most common of these medications include blood thinners and blood pressure tablets (beta-blockers). Other medications that might have an effect include methotrexate (for rheumatic conditions), lithium (for bi-polar disorder) and some nonsteroidal, anti-inflammatory drugs.
• If you are taking any of these medications and suspect they may be having an adverse effect on your hair, speak to your doctor about lowering your dosage or switching to another type of medication.

How to Prevent Hair Loss Due to Stress

Sometimes emotional or physical stress can lead to hair loss, which is a serious concern for most people and something they wish to reverse. However, due to the length of the hair growth cycle, people often only begin losing their hair weeks or months after the stressful event has occurred, and the hair loss can continue for several months afterwards. Luckily, hair will usually grow back on its own once the source of stress has been removed, but there are several things you can do to help the process along. Start with Step 1 below to learn how to ease stress and take good care of your hair in order to reduce the effects of hair loss.

Understanding Stress-Related Hair Loss

1. Familiarize yourself with the types of stress-related hair loss

There are three main types of stress-related hair loss as follows:

• Telogen effluvium: With telogen effluvium, stress may send a number of hair follicles into a resting phase, stopping the hair from growing. Several months later, the hair attached to the affected follicles may start to fall out suddenly, in greater volume than normal. This is possibly the most common type of stress-related hair loss.
• Alopecia areata: With alopecia areata, the immune system turns on the hair follicles and causes hair to fall out, sometimes in large chunks. There may be several factors causing this type of hair loss, and stress is suspected to be one of them.
• Trichotillomania: This condition is very different than the previous two, as it involves a person compulsively pulling out their own hair, whether its from their head, their eyebrows or other areas of their body. A person usually develops this condition as a method of coping with stress, anxiety, depression, loneliness or boredom.

2. See a doctor to confirm a diagnosis

With each type of hair loss, the exact link between the hair loss and stress is somewhat unclear.

• While stress will sometimes cause the hair loss directly, other times, the stress makes an existing condition worse. In some cases, the hair loss will cause the stress, rather than the other way around.
• Although most instances of hair loss will not require any significant medical attention, in some cases the hair loss is not the result of stress (as you might believe), but is in fact a symptom of a more serious underlying issue. Therefore, it important that you see your doctor rather than self-diagnosing.
• Some of the more serious conditions which can lead to hair loss include hypothyroidism, auto-immune diseases such as lupus and polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS). With hypothyroidism and PCOS there are treatment options available which can help hair to grow back. However, with auto-immune related hair loss, the loss is often permanent.

3. Know that hair will usually grow back on its own

If hair loss is indeed caused by stress, the major focus of treatment should be on minimizing or eliminating that stress.

• Then, once the stress is removed, hair should grow back on its own with no need for drugs or other treatments.
• The important thing is to have patience. The growth cycle of hair takes time, and it can be a number of months before you see a significant improvement.
• Just do your best to avoid stressing about the situation, as this will only make things worse. Have faith in your ability of your hair follicles to renew the hair, and you'll be fine.