how does stress affect your hair?

Like skin, hair health can be a strong indicator of overall health. How often do you take a look at the texture, shine, or strength of your hair? Hair that looks dull, breaks easily, or has weak follicles might mean that you have nutritional deficiencies you need to address. We’ve all heard about how stress affects hair growth and texture due to malabsorption, hormonal change, or other stressors, but we don’t talk enough about stress-related behaviors. Trichotillomania affects many people. Even those who are not diagnosed with OCD may engage in hair pulling behavior when they are stressed out. Have you found yourself mindlessly seeking out crinkly strands of hair or searching for that patch of itchy hair on your scalp? It can be a really satisfying behavior because it focuses your attention on the sensation rather than whatever worry you have on your mind. Doing this repeatedly can lead to bald spots, some of which can be permanent. If you notice yourself losing more hair during periods of high stress, make a conscious effort to divert your attention from your scalp. Simple, yet very difficult. Take a moment to write down the to-do list looping in your mind and identify what emotions you might be going through. The most effective way of addressing destructive behaviors is to get underneath the habit, to figure what your triggers really are.

 

False promises

There are also tons of supplements on the market that promises great hair in a bottle. Before you add things like Biotin to your routine, note that it can have really adverse effects on your skin; it can break you out. Like most things, please talk to your doctor before changing up your medications and supplements. People who benefit the most from Biotin are nutritionally deprived of b vitamins. Likewise, other popularly recommended things like gelatin, fish oil, etc., have not been shown to have conclusive ameliorating effects on hair health. If you’re looking at products like Rogaine, beware that the side effects can be very unpleasant, including hair growth in unintended area. It is also not a long-term solution since hair regrowth typically stops when you cease treatment.

 

HOLY JESUS H BATMAN

 

The psychology of metabolism:

For a long time scientists thought ghrelin levels fluctuated in response to nutrients that the ghrelin met in the stomach. So put in a big meal, ghrelin responds one way; put in a small snack and it responds another way.

But that’s not what Crum found in her milkshake study.

If you believed you were drinking the indulgent shake, she says, your body responded as if you had consumed much more.

“The ghrelin levels dropped about three times more when people were consuming the indulgent shake (or thought they were consuming the indulgent shake),” she says, compared to the people who drank the sensible shake (or thought that’s what they were drinking).

– NPR

On discipline

Discipline as denial:

Women, for that is whom these ecstatic diet food commercials and celebrity weight loss endorsements are for, can have it all when they eat the right foods and follow the right diets and pay the right price.

They are the unachievable standard toward which we must, nonetheless strive. They are thinspiration as the parlance goes—thin inspiration, a constant reminder of the distance between our bodies and what they could be with the proper discipline.

Part of disciplining the body is denial. We want but we dare not have. To lose weight or maintain our ideal bodies, we deny ourselves certain foods. We deny ourselves rest by working out. We deny ourselves peace of mind by remaining ever vigilant over our bodies. We withhold from ourselves until we achieve a goal and then we withhold from ourselves to maintain that goal.

My body is wildly undisciplined and I deny myself nearly everything I desire.

 

 

Really lovely post that you should read in its entirety.