Well, we hope that all your doubts will be cleared up in this article. At some point, we have been in stressful situations and managed to cope with them.
What is stress?
Stress is when someone feels emotional or physical tension in scientific terms. Now you may wonder what causes stress. Extreme stress can be caused by any event that disturbs your mental peace or any thought that makes you anxious, frustrated or angry. Stress can be your body’s default reaction to a challenge or situation.
Anxiety is one of the most important reactions to stress or unfamiliar situations. Stress can also have a positive impact on you as it will help you meet a deadline or avoid dangerous situations. However, it is normal to feel stressed or anxious at times.
But if stress is hurting you, it could be an alarming situation. If you are frequently stressed, it can affect you and interfere with the way you go about your daily life.
Stress and anxiety can have many side effects; physical symptoms may include nausea, headache, weakness, sweating, and rash. Another most important and often overlooked sign of stress is baldness or hair loss.
Who would have thought that stress or anxiety could cause hair loss, right? It is not necessary that anxiety can lead to baldness in every person. But if so, it can be very upsetting to deal with sudden hair loss. Therefore, having high stress levels could lead to less hair on your head.
Now let’s find out how stress causes baldness and the scientific reason.
Anger and its relationship to Hair Cycle
According to various studies, there are around 100,000 hair follicles present on the scalp of an adult. The constant phase change from the growth phase to the resting phase occurs in each strand. And at any given time, a significant number of these hair follicles are in the growing (anagen) phase. So now when the hair follicle goes into the resting (telogen) phase, it results in hair loss.
In some cases, it is seen that there is a sudden and abnormal shift of the hair from the anagen phase to the telogen phase all at once. What caused this sudden change? The answer to this question is the emotional stress that triggered this sudden change.
Now another question may arise: what is emotional stress? Well, in simple terms, it could be due to any adverse event that affected you deeply or any serious and prolonged event.
Experiment to verify that stress/anger affects hair loss
- For a very long time, stress has been controversial as a cause of hair loss. However, there was no strong evidence that stress was the reason inhibiting hair growth. So if psycho-emotional stress is the reason that affects hair growth, there must be definable neuroendocrine signaling pathways that mediate it. To confirm this relationship between stress and hair loss, scientists experimented on mice.
- The mice were artificially exposed to sound stress by the researchers, which is a form of psychosocial stress.
- This has been found to cause the anagen or growth phase of the hair cycle to stop early.
So they concluded that stress actually disrupts the hair follicle cycle, leading to hair loss or baldness.
How are anger and stress related to hair loss?
- Highly stressed people can quickly become irritated and angry. Anger and anxiety are caused by stress. Anxiety and stress can be similar conditions, and the only difference is that anxiety can be lifelong.
- Thus, hair loss is not caused by anxiety but because of the stress and anger caused by daily activities.
- According to some studies, it is shown that stress can contribute significantly to hair loss conditions.
- If a person is under a lot of stress, it can increase muscle tension, hormone production, and skin sebum production in the human body. So, when the body prepares to fight these problems, the supply of nutrients necessary for hair growth may be diminished. When there is a reduction in the nutrients needed for hair growth, it leads to hair loss.
- Sebum production can also hamper hair growth as it clogs the pores present in the scalp.
- Now we know pretty clearly that anger and hair loss are linked. People can get angry at the way they look, which will increase their heart rate, stress, or even pull their hair out, leading to hair loss.
- Now, scientists have come up with two theories: anger and the stress associated with it raises dihydrotestosterone (DHT) levels and causes hair loss. Let us now examine these two theories.
- According to the first theory, increased stress causes hair loss, but this hair loss is not permanent. Once a person’s stress level has gone down, the hair regrows. This type of hair loss is temporary. This is why permanent hair loss cannot be explained by anger.
- The second theory states that the presence of DHT in a person’s body does not cause hair loss. Androgen receptors are sensitive and can be blocked by DHT, preventing hair growth naturally. When DHT levels are high, it can inhibit natural hair growth.
Stress-related conditions that can cause you to lose your hair
1) Telogen Effluvium
Telogen effluvium (TE) is the second most common form of hair loss. When a person is under too much stress, the hair follicles can go into a resting phase without producing new strands. Over time, hair quality weakens and hair falls out quickly even if you touch, comb or wash it. Poor nutrition and changes in hormonal levels can also cause this disorder.
2) Trichotillomania
This problem is mostly seen in teenage girls. In this disorder, this person has this strange urge to pull their hair out when under stress. It is a psychological condition, and people who suffer from it deal with their negative emotions like anger and stress by pulling hair from the face, scalp and other parts.
Tips for controlling anger
Since uncontrolled anger can often cause aggressive behavior, anger management advice uses several techniques to help a person deal with their thoughts, feelings and behaviors in a healthy and more productive way.
- Assess your anger
- Recognize the warning signs
- Identify triggers
- Tell a friend
- To move
- To change the channel
- Focus on relaxation
- Explore your feelings
- Manage your thoughts
Carry
We hope that by now you have understood very well the link between anger, stress and hair loss.
If you want to buy hair products to control your hair loss, you can visit our website at March by GHC where you can get Minoxidil, Fin, Hair Loss Shampoo and many more.
Frequently asked question
Will hair grow back after depression?
If your hair loss is caused by tension, it is quite possible that your hair will grow back over time. The rate of regrowth will be completely different for everyone. Human hair growth occurs in a cycle of four phases. The human scalp has on average about 100,000 hair follicles.
How long does stress-induced hair loss last?
Hair loss is temporary and should come to its pre-effluvium density, although this process is usually slow. It may take about 5 to 6 months for the fall to stop, then months to years for the lost hair to grow back at the slow rate of about ½ inch each month.
Can burnout cause hair loss?
Physical and psychological fatigue, closely associated with stress and burnout, can have an effect on hair loss. fatigue related to an emotional shock can lead to reactive hair loss, called “acute telogen effluvium”. It usually appears 3-4 months after a triggering factor.
References
1. Hair loss: Common causes and treatment