If a gradual, long-lasting uptick in daily hair shedding or a relatively short, intense period of excessive shedding has left you with a noticeably thinner scalp, you’re not alone. Hair loss is an unwelcome and often distressing reality for tens of millions of adults in the United States at any given time.
Common causes include:
Of all the things that can trigger hair loss, perhaps the most stressful is, well — stress. As a board-certified anti-aging expert who specializes in hair restoration, Jennylle Zanzi, FNP-C, and our expert team at RVA Regenerative Wellness know how upsetting stress-induced hair loss can be and we’re here to help.
It’s normal to shed 50-100 scalp hairs every day. If you see a significant increase in the amount of hair you find on your pillow, in the shower, or your hairbrush, however, you may worry that you’re starting to lose your hair.
While hair loss can certainly begin this way, the problem can also be a sign of excessive hair shedding induced by stress — a common condition known as telogen effluvium. This temporary form of hair loss is often triggered by a significant physical change, such as:
It can also be prompted by major emotional stress, such as the kind that occurs with job loss, divorce, the death of a loved one, and other stressful life events. Situations that give rise to chronic stress, like caretaking for an aging parent or dealing with ongoing financial problems, can trigger excessive hair shedding, too.
Excessive shedding isn’t technically considered hair loss in the sense that it’s usually a temporary problem that eventually resolves on its own. A typical case of excessive hair shedding following childbirth follows this pattern:
To understand this pattern, it helps to know a bit about the hair growth cycle. Every follicle on your scalp grows a shaft of hair for a few years, then rests for a few months, sheds, and restarts the growth phase. Telogen is the name for the resting stage of the hair growth cycle. Telogen effluvium occurs when a stressor prematurely pushes your hair follicles into the resting state.
Essentially, when a stressor causes a “shock” to your system, it can force up to 70% of the active-growth hairs on your scalp into the resting phase, prompting excessive shedding about two months after the stress.
Excessive shedding can be short-term (acute), fully resolving several months to a year after a triggering stressful event, or it can be long-term (chronic), continuing indefinitely for as long as stressors remain. Ongoing telogen effluvium is most likely to affect people who are routinely facing high stress.
With acute excessive shedding after a major weight loss, severe illness, or childbirth, hair loss reverses itself in due course. Along the way, it can be very helpful to identify your daily stressors and take steps to minimize them or actively adjust your response to them.
If elevated stress levels are normal in your daily life, diffusing acute stress (i.e., stressful surprises) and managing chronic stressors (i.e., routine responsibilities and worries) can go a long way in helping you reverse hair loss caused by long-term stress.
When it comes to reversing excessive shedding, stress reduction and management are of utmost importance. Our team can accelerate the process with our holistic hair restoration approach, including optimized nutrition and platelet-rich plasma (PRP) therapy:
Nutrition therapy supports healthy hair regrowth by giving your follicles the nutrients they need to thrive, including protein, essential fatty acids, iron, zinc, and B complex vitamins. This can be especially important when excessive shedding is a result of weight loss brought about through crash dieting and insufficient protein intake.
PRP is a serum of powerful growth factors derived from a small sample of your blood. When we inject your personal PRP serum into areas of scalp thinning, its growth factors help “flip the switch” on resting hair follicles, encouraging them to enter the active growth phase.
If you’re dealing with stress-induced hair loss, we can help. Give us a call at 786-224-6878 today, or use our online booking feature to schedule a visit at RVA Regenerative Wellness in Midlothian, Virginia, anytime.
