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Why You Don't Have to Look Your Age
Debra Murray
As a person ages, they may notice that their hair color and texture also changes. Some people might even have even been led to believe to expect thinning, gray, hairs as a natural part of growing old. However, we now understand a lot more about what causes your hair to age faster than you would like it to do. It can be due to extensive chemicals from too many permanents. It can also be due to poor health, caused by a malfunctioning thyroid or poor nutrition. The hair needs to eat the same way the rest of the body needs nourishment. There is now also a great deal of scientific evidence that even adding an anti-aging hair conditioner, with emu oil, to your beauty routine can provide the right ingredients to continue to fight off the vestiges of aging and thicken hair. Emu oil can even help heal underlying scalp conditions that could contribute to hair loss. An anti-aging hair conditioner is a simple beauty aid that can help you retain your hair color, improve hair texture, and promote new growth, without the costly expense of hair weaving or transplants. With the regular application of an anti-aging hair conditioner, the hair will become shinier, stronger, and less prone to breakage or split ends.
How Does it Help My Problem?
People who experience hair loss may approach it one of two ways. They may go into denial until it is too late to do anything about it. Or, they may go into a panic, trying all sorts of expensive treatments that promise to avoid the appearance of embarrassing bald spots or thinning hair. They can end up being prone to unscrupulous marketers who will sell them high-priced solutions that focus on symptoms and that don’t really address the underlying problem: Loss of health in the body and hair. There is no law that says everyone who ages has to expect hair loss, gray hairs, or dull follicles. These may be a result of years of not caring for the hair and body properly, but they are not something that cannot be reversed. Once you understand why your hair has lost its youthful vigor you will understand how adding a few simple, and natural, routines to your life can turn it all around. There are simpler, less costly, solutions out there that work to improve your hair's appearance that aren’t going to require harsh chemicals or drugs.
There are a variety of causes of hair loss, but underlying most problems is how your hormones are changing as you age. The thyroid gland regulates the body’s metabolism and also the hormone levels in the physical body. As we age, these hormones can shift and the thyroid then becomes sluggish. It is known now that an under-active thyroid gland will eventually lead to brittle hair and subsequent hair loss. In addition, other hormones are shifting in the body as we go through other processes, like menopause, which will lead to more androgen being released in women. This will lead to hair growth in unpleasant places, like the face, and hair loss on top of the head. Even blood sugar imbalances can end up causing hair loss. However, most of these conditions are not absolutely preordained to happen just because you get older. It all depends on how fit you are and whether you have been nourishing the body and the hair enough to maintain a state of optimum health.
Holistic solutions start with improving the appearance of fine hair, giving you time to adopt more routines that will boost your health over time. This can be achieved by using an anti-aging hair condition in combination with a shampoo designed specifically for thinning hair. You should avoid commercial brands of shampoo that contain harsh ingredients, like sodium lauryl sulfate, that has already been implicated in hair loss. This chemical is added to most mass-produced shampoos for its ability to produce thick suds, but does not actually contribute towards creating a healthier head of hair. If you are going to use anything on your hair, make sure it is as natural a product as possible, and that it is specially formulated to increase the vitality of the hair.
The hair requires natural oils, vitamins, and nourishing ingredients to look and feel its best. Adopting a shower routine that includes a healthy hair shampoo in combination with an anti-aging conditioner can go a long way towards adjusting the health of your scalp and hair. Look for natural ingredients that promote hair growth, like emu oil. However, also include ingredients like vitamins and keratin protein to help feed the hair topically. This is a basic first step in reversing the damage caused by using harsh chemicals and treatment on the hair. However, it is far from the last thing you may want to try to create a holistic health plan to boost your body back to its natural healthy state, hair and all.
Health Tips to Recapture a More Beautiful You
Inner health yields outward beauty, so it’s no surprise that one of the biggest contributors to healthy hair is what you eat. You may have trouble getting all the nutrition you need with just diet alone, however, and should also include supplementation in your diet. If your primary concern is to get your hair to grow, then you will need to focus on the dietary elements that are known to produce more hair growth.
A Healthy Diet
Your hair is almost entirely composed of protein. Include whole proteins in your diet. Meat is the one item that can quickly amp up the protein in your diet, but not everyone likes or wants meat in their diet. There are still other options to increase the protein in your diet, like combining beans and rice to create a complete protein from two distinct non-meat sources. Other sources of protein that you can include are nuts, seeds, and milk. Eggs are also an excellent source of protein and iron. Iron deficiency has been implicated in hair loss, too. Organic eggs can have higher concentrations of fatty acids, which are also excellent for the health of your hair. Iron is a necessary element for women who can suffer hair loss due to anemia. To include even more fatty acids into the diet, add more fatty fish like salmon and tuna to your diet.
Proper Supplementation
Not everyone wants to revamp their diet, but almost anyone will be okay with popping a vitamin pill. You can get a multivitamin that is specially formulated for hair and nail strength. Otherwise, you will need to make sure to include vitamin A, B, E, and zinc if you want to supplement for the hair only. The B vitamins are very important as they can help the body process fatty acids, which is essential for healthy hair. In addition to the normal vitamins and minerals associated with healthy hair, you will also want to look into natural supplementation for thyroid conditions or sugar imbalances in the body. By targeting an underlying condition that could be causing the hair loss in the first place, you have a better chance of speeding up the recovery.
Avoid Sun Exposure
As summer approaches, you may be tempted to go out and get some natural highlights. However, sun exposure tends to create free radicals in the body that can produce premature signs of aging in the skin. It will also dry out your hair and make it more brittle. However, you can use products like an anti-aging conditioner to reduce the effects of free radicals on your hair with emu oil, which is a natural antioxidant. Coating the hair after you shower with the conditioner is one way to protect your hair without covering it when you go outside.
Reduce Exposure to Harsh Chemicals and Treatments
As mentioned earlier, many household shampoos and conditioners include harsh chemicals that can cause hair loss after prolonged use. However, even hair treatments and styling at a high-end salon can do similar damage. Avoid too much blow-drying and styling, or it can lead to some hair loss and isn’t absolutely necessary. Also, cover your hair, with a swim cap, when you visit the pool, which can expose your hair to chlorine.
Give Yourself a Scalp Massage
This one is not obvious, but can be a pleasant way to boost the flow of blood to the hair on your head via the scalp. This will naturally re-invigorate your follicles and keep them healthy. Even using a soft bristle brush can provide a stimulating effect for the scalp.
Exercise Often
In any health program, exercise is essential and hair care is no different. Regular exercise boosts the metabolism and helps the thyroid to become more active. In addition, exercise is a well-known method for weight loss that can help you regulate blood sugar levels. Both of these factors can be contributing to your hair loss. By adding exercise to your regular routine, you can start to feel better on a fundamental level, which will follow through to the health of your scalp and hair, too.
As can be seen, hair loss doesn’t just have one cause or one solution. The more a person focuses on a holistic model of health that can target all potential problem areas, the more likely they will succeed in stopping hair loss and increasing the vitality of their hair and the entire body. It can start with a small step, like including a natural shampoo formulated for thinning hair and pairing it with an anti-aging hair conditioner to protect it further. However, ultimately, you will want to boost the health of your entire body to weed out any underlying hair conditions that could be contributing the hair fallout.
Recent Studies Prove Traditional Remedies Work
The NYU Langone Medical Center conducts research on a variety of conditions, including alopecia. Alopecia is better known as “male pattern baldness” because it presents in males more than females, however both genders can suffer hair loss from alopecia. In females, it may not show up as the tell-tale bald spot at the top of the head, but it will still reveal itself in a receding hairline or the thinning of the hair across the entire scalp. Conventional doctors may try to treat it with drugs like minoxidil, but there have been studies that showed natural treatments could also stimulate hair growth in people with alopecia. They cited a study using a combination of essential oils that was applied topically via massage to stimulate hair growth. Once the results were in, the treatment group with alopecia had 44 percent of its participants experiencing hair growth, compared to only 15 percent that did so in the control group.
Oils have long been associated with optimal hair care, and that’s why products like anti-aging conditioners with emu oil, have solid scientific evidence that certain oils can help you grow more hair. In another study, done the Boston University School of Medicine, emu oil was applied topically to depilated mice over a two-week period. Over 80 percent of the hair follicles that had the emu oil applied, instead of the control substance, experienced hair growth.
However, emu oil is not the only oil that can produce antioxidant effects that protect the hair and stimulate hair growth. Other studies show that tea tree oil and lavender oil are natural anti-androgenic compounds. These can help with the androgens that cause both hirsutism and hair loss by blocking the androgens from creating imbalances in the hormone levels. Getting a shampoo that includes tea tree oil doesn’t just provide deep moisturizing, but it also applies an anti-androgen directly to the site where you are experiencing hair loss.
In the News
The news doesn’t stop there. You can also find plenty of studies that support the claim that taking care of your overall health can have a huge impact on the quality of your hair growth. Anti-aging topical ingredients will only go so far, if you’re suffering from an imbalance in your diet or supplementation. You need to address the underlying causes.
The British Thyroid Foundation shows a clear link between thyroid disorders and hair loss in both men and women. Hair loss that is associated with a thyroid condition tends to occur across the entire scalp and not just in one localized area. The loss is sometimes even triggered when using drugs to try to treat a hair loss condition. The good news is that it is temporary and once the condition is addressed, the patient has the ability to recover their hair loss over a period of a few months. However, it appears that natural methods to rebalance the thyroid might be safer when trying to retain more hair.
A news story by US News also points to diabetes as a potential reason for hair loss. This can be quite surprising for people who haven’t made the connection between overall body health and hair care. They might, in fact, just think they are getting old and not bother going to their doctor to see if they have diabetes. However, diabetes is a serious disease that needs to be diagnosed and treated early for best results. If you have found that you do have diabetes and it is contributing to your hair loss, you might still be able to use a glucose support product to balance the sugar levels in your blood. It will depend on what type of diabetes you have as to whether you are diet-controlled or not. Some forms of diabetes rely on insulin shots, but even so, paying attention to your health is important for anyone with this disease.
These are just a few of the causes that can instigate hair loss. The sad fact is that in today’s modern society, there are multiple factors that can contribute to hair loss and often do. In a recent Health report, there were 21 different factors associated with hair loss. They included stress, vitamin B and iron deficiencies, steroids, anti-depressants, birth control pills, polycystic ovarian syndrome, and chemotherapy. Even having too much vitamin A in the diet can cause hair loss. You may not be able to control whether you have to undergo chemotherapy or how much stress you have in your life, but you can control the nutrition you put in your mouth. You can opt to buy any multivitamin, but it might not be as effective at targeting hair loss as a specially formulated hair, skin, and nail formulation.
Products for Beauty that’s More than Skin Deep
Get started on a beauty regime that is more than skin deep and you can yield results that produce anti-aging effects throughout your entire body. You’ll not only look younger, but you will feel younger, too. You can start to change your routine by adding some topical hair care products that are all-natural, but with proven traditional remedies that have worked well for many others in addition to performing well in the lab. Then, gradually change your diet and start to determine what the root cause aggravating the condition might be. Go for a physical, if you suspect a thyroid or sugar imbalance as these conditions need medical attention. However, once you are diagnosed, you may still be able to take advantage of holistic all-natural solutions like formulas for thyroid and sugar balancing that don’t introduce toxic substances into your bloodstream, unlike conventional drugs. Remove any harsh chemicals from the health and beauty section of your home and start to depend on more natural solutions. This can go a long way to determining what might be aggravating the hair loss and stopping it before it goes too far. Even if you are diagnosed with alopecia and told the condition is not curable, take hope in newer information that comes in through up-to-the-minute research that shows that you can still combat it with anti-androgenic compounds like tea tree and emu oil. There is still much to learn about hair loss and how many things actually contribute to this embarrassing condition. However, the more we know, the better off we are to find a solution that works for you, even if it doesn’t work for everyone. If research and news stories can be believed, hair loss is not permanent in many cases, and with the proper treatment, people can recover the hair they lost and even the color they had before they went gray.
References:
Hair Loss Treatment Report (2012) Sodium Lauryl Sulfate and How it Contributes to Hair Loss. Retrieved from http://hairlosstreatmentreport.net/sodium-lauryl-sulfate-and-how-it-contributes-to-hair-loss/
HairSite (n.d.) Emu Oil and Hair Loss. Retrieved from: http://www.hairsite.com/hair-loss-info/emu-oil.htm
NYU Langone Medical Center (n.d.) Alopecia. Retrieved from http://www.med.nyu.edu/content?ChunkIID=21376
Possible efficacy of Lavender and Tea Tree Oil in the treatment of young women affected by mild idiopathic hirsutism. Retrieved from: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23211454
British Thyroid Foundation (n.d.) Hair Loss and Thyroid Disorders. Retrieved from: http://www.btf-thyroid.org/index.php/thyroid/articles/hair-loss-thyroid-disorders
Steinberg, K. US News (2010) 9 Shocking Diabetes Indicators. Retrieved from: http://health.usnews.com/health-news/family-health/diabetes/articles/2010/10/19/shocking-diabetes-indicators
Health (2013) 21 Reasons You’re Losing Hair. Retrieved from: http://www.health.com/health/gallery/thumbnails/0,,20727114,00.html
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