A full head of thick lustrous hair is not only a sign of good health, but it can also make you feel good about your appearance.
When we are young we tend to take those full locks of hair for granted, but as adult life starts to catch up with us, our hair often becomes the victim of our busy or not so healthy lifestyles.
Hair loss can be caused by a variety of factors.
Nutrition, lack of hair care or the wrong hair care, illness, and stress can cause us to shed far more hairs than we are supposed to.
The first goal in re-growing hair is to stem the speed in which you are losing hair.
Once you decrease the loss of hair, the focus shifts to maintaining the health of your existing hair and helping it growing properly.
Keep in mind that everyone loses 40 to 100 hairs a day, that is normal and healthy.
When your hair is short you might not notice this amount of hair loss, but when you have medium length to long hair, it will become much more noticeable.
Check to see if the thickness of your hair has changed, that will help you determine if you really need to worry about hair loss or not.
Re-growing thinned Hair starts with paying attention to nutrition, but for healthy thick hair it is also important to focus on your hair care routines and what products you use.
In other words, you have to pay attention to the inside and outside if you want your hair in peak condition.
The goal is to maintain the health of existing hair and to stimulate circulation and growth at the hair follicle.
Hair growth relies on having the right nutrients because like any other tissue in your body it must be built.
If your follicles do have the appropriate tools to do the job, not only will hair growth slow down, but in many cases, it can stop all together and start shedding hairs.
Your hair has three growth cycles.
In the Anagen phase your hair your hair is growing.
This phase typically lasts three to five years if your hair and body are healthy.
Catagen phase is very short and is more of a transition stage which only lasts two weeks.
In the final stage, telogen your hairs rests until as a part of the cycle, the older hairs are shed.
If you are dealing with any type of nutritional deficiency your body goes into alert, shifting all nutrients to vital tissues and depriving skin and hair first which it considers to be not as important as say the brain or the heart.
It is at this point that your hair shifts from the Anagen growth phase (often prematurely) and into the telogen rest/shedding phase.
Your goal is to stop your hair from leaving Anagen before it is time which will stimulate growth and slow hair loss.
Your Hair is made of about 90% Keratin which is a protein and the most important building block for your hair.
If your goal is for your hair to grow faster, it is important to make sure that your hair has access to ample protein.
There are two ways to provide protein for your hair.
One is to consume plenty of protein in your diet and the other is to use commercially prepared protein treatments for your hair.
When deciding how to add protein to your hair care regimen it is not a matter of one method working better than the other.
Protein treatments applied on your hair can repair damaged hair by coating the outside of the hair and follicles.
This coating protects them from additional damage while helping to repair existing damage.
The stronger healthier hair and follicle will help prevent the hair from leaving the Anagen cycle we discussed above.
There are four different types of protein treatments you can try:
What you put on your hair only has minimal effect on the follicles where hair is actually grown, so if you really want to increase the rate of growth, pay attention to what you put in your body.
Keep in mind that eating protein does not mean that you must eat lots of meat.
While vegans and vegetarians might struggle with getting enough protein due to not eating meat, there are plenty of protein sources available to them as well.
Nuts, seeds, lentils, beans, and rice can fill out your protein requirements perfectly.
It is important to note that your hair needs more than protein, fats are essential to keep scalp and hair from becoming too dry which can lead to brittle fragile hair.
According to research from the Cleveland Clinic, iron deficiency has been shown to cause of hair loss and slow hair growth, so returning iron levels to optimal can also increase hair growth.
Lean red meat, turkey, egg yolks, whole grains, and beans can help increase your iron levels.
Dark leafy greens are rich in A and C which can help produce Sebum, the scalp oil that is natures best hair conditioner!
And fruits and vegetables are essential to keep hair strong and less prone to breakage.
The less damage you do to your hair and the more nutrition you give it the faster it will grow.
How you treat your hair can have a big impact on how well your hair grows as well as how healthy it stays.
Careful, thoughtful hair care can make your hair look and feel better, and when it looks healthy chances are good it will grow healthy as well.
The amount hair products you use, using heat, and how you brush it can all affect the state of your hair.
Your grandmother told you to brush your hair 100 strokes, to help it grow, and yet some experts say that if you brush it too much it can make you lose more hair?
This is not an easy question to answer, because both are to a certain extent right.
Brushing your hair carefully helps to spread your hair’s natural oils (sebum) from the scalp where it is produced in the follicles all the way out to the tips of each strand of hair.
Use a good boar bristle brush and brush very gently, being careful not to break individual hair strands or rip them out of your scalp.
Keep in mind that brushing your hair in this manner also helps to stimulate the flow of blood to your scalp.
This helps bring more nutrients to the scalp and hair follicles, which helps to stimulate hair growth.
At the same time, if you brush your hair too frequently or for extended periods of time, it can lead to damage and the inability to grow long healthy hair.
Excess brushing can cause friction which can lead to damaged cuticles.
The more you brush your hair, the more breakage is likely to occur, which is especially true for those with long hair.
You can avoid breakage by starting at the tips and working your way to the scalp gently.
Once your hair no longer has tangles, you can use the boar hair brush to help spread the sebum throughout your hair.
Many people still think of massage therapy in terms of sore muscles or physical therapy for sports injuries.
When it comes to a head massage, the average person has a hard time keeping a straight face.
Yet a good head massage has been known for centuries to help improve blood circulation in your scalp.
A massage helps to bring more nutrients in and take away more toxins, leaving a healthier and more productive scalp behind.
You can massage your scalp dry (you can take a short break at your work desk) and achieve good results.
Or you can use your favorite oil (coconut is an excellent choice) and not only improve blood flow, but at the same time add more protein to your follicles and individual strands.
Once you have finished massaging the oil into your scalp, run your fingers through the rest of your hair and leave it for at least an hour or better yet overnight before washing it out.
Your hair will become stronger and healthier if you do this on a weekly basis.
While there are no guarantees to any method of hair regrowth, there are many things you can do to reduce hair loss.
The most important thing to keep in mind, is that the health of your hair is directly connected to your overall health and in particular your diet.
When you work hard to eat right and take good care of your hair and scalp, you can stimulate more growth, especially in areas where the hairs have been damaged all the way to the root.
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