The hair root does not grow continuously, but rather in a cycle of stops and starts. There is an initial period of active growth that lasts about three years. As the period of growth ends, the deepest part of the hair follicle wastes away. The hair root then enters a resting period of about 90 days, during which no further hair is produced by the resting root. At the end of this phase, the hair falls out and a new hair is produced.
Human hairs are randomly distributed all over the scalp in terms of their growth pattern, so that at any one time, some hairs will be actively growing while others are resting. Only those hairs ending their resting phase are lost each day.
There is tremendous variation in the number of hairs that people shed each day, depending on the number of scalp hairs and the length of the growth cycle. As people age, their rate of new hair growth slows down, resulting in a gradual thinning.
It is statistically proven that people who are in their mid twenties to early thirties are at great risk of thinning hair and many that reach the mid thirties have a problem with hair loss and balding. If over the past few weeks or months your hair has started to thin tremendously, then it is time you learn about the possible factors that could have contributed to your thinning hair.
One of the most commonly known factors that lead to thinning hair is the diet of a person. If you are in the habit of eating at the wrong time and eating only junk food, then you can be rest assured that your hair would thin quickly. The problem is that junk food does not have vitamin or valuable nutrients, thus making your hair weaker and thinner. People who are into the habit of crash dieting would see worse signs of this detrimental behavior.
The next factor or combination of factors that are known to lead to thinning hair would be lack of sleep and increased stress levels. When you do not get enough sleep, your hair is known to thin really fast. Stress is one of the biggest contributors to thinning of the hair. If your work life or personal life has a lot of stress involved, then it’s possible that this could lead to your hair graying as well as your hair thinning.
Hair extensions, though, can cause permanent damage to the follicle, which can result to thinning hair later in life. When there’s stress or traction on the follicle, two things happen: The barrier that prevents bacteria from reaching the follicle breaks, which causes inflammation; plus, the follicle itself gets pulled and disfigured. This damage can either stop it from producing hair at all or alter the width and texture of the hair it will grow.
Joy Kennedy
Joy Kennedy works at Hair Heaven. She constantly submits online articles and blog posts about hair loss–related topics and writes about encountered hair and scalp problems and their respective treatments.
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