Last Updated on May 1, 2023 by Umer Malik
Looking after your hair is vital if you want it to stay on your head and be healthy. However, sometimes you can’t fight loss and it can need solutions like going to a hair transplant clinic in Turkey or wearing wigs. While you may know that your diet impacts your hair, you might not know that your mental health can too. So, keep reading and find out how mental health can impact your hair…
Table of Contents
Telogen Effluvium
Telogen effluvium is caused by stress, and what it means is that your hair follicles stay in their resting stage permanently. This then causes loss and slowed growth, making it harder for you to replace the hairs that fall out naturally. When you’re stressed, your levels of cortisol increase, thus causing telogen effluvium. You may find that a lot of hair falls out in one go, or perhaps it falls out over time. To help combat this issue, you need to do your best to reduce your stress and ensure your cortisol levels remain healthy.
Trichotillomania
This condition can be impacted by people’s mental health, and it’s where you pull out your hair from the scalp or other parts of the body when you feel stressed or anxious. Some people who suffer from the condition find that it always gets worse when they’re mental health isn’t great, so you’ll definitely notice a change in your hair when you’re not feeling great.
Alopecia Areata
This condition can be caused by a variety of different issues, but a lot of people relate theirs to chronic stress. This is because the body’s immune system is out of whack and then attacks your healthy hair follicles, causing them to fall out. Stress can play a big part in this condition, so you really want to do your best to try and limit the amount of it that you have. Otherwise, you may find that your hair can’t grow back.
Anxiety
Studies have shown that there are around 8.2 million reported cases of anxiety in just the UK, and it seems that the number just keeps on growing. However, anxiety could be having an effect on your hair. It doesn’t always occur, but when you suffer from very severe anxiety, it could. Normally, when someone has extreme anxiety, they also have a lot of stress too. This causes the cortisol levels to raise and stops your hair from growing as it should. While the feelings of anxiety aren’t going to damage your hair, if it becomes quite severe, then your stress levels could constantly be in a state of fight or flight. This then leaves your hair follicles in the telogen effluvium phase for the foreseeable future.
Depression
Depression is a very common problem that people experience with their mental health. Some people notice that when they’re experiencing depression, their hair becomes very dry and even brittle. This is because the side effects of depression like low moods, fatigue, and even anxiety, cause your hair to stop growing and remain in its resting phase. This can then lead to your hair becoming dry as it’s not receiving the right hydration or nutrition. All of this combined can lead to hair loss, so it’s important that you do your best to reach out and seek support for your depression. Some medication that’s used to treat depression can actually have hair loss listed as one of it’s side effects too. If you’re concerned about how your medication is affecting your hair, be sure to speak to your doctor for the best course of action.
Hair loss can be impacted by a lot of things, and your mental health is definitely one of them. From depression to anxiety and stress, there are all sorts of ways your mental health can manifest. Each of them will have a different impact on your hair, but the end result is pretty much always the same; hair thinning and loss. So, if you want to enhance your mental health and keep your hair healthy, always make sure you reach out for support and take good care of yourself.
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