Mental health issues can definitely mess with our body image and some mental health conditions can also actively change the way we look. It’s no secret that medical conditions like poor nutrition, thyroid disease, and various autoimmune conditions can affect your looks by impacting the health and condition of your skin and hair. But many people have no idea that mental health conditions can have similar consequences.
Can Your Mental Health Affect Your Hair?
Yes, just like your physical health, your mental health can have a detrimental effect on your hair. Stress, anxiety, and depression – as well as obsessive-compulsive disorders and even bipolar disorder – have been known to lead to hair loss.
The Nation’s Health, a publication aimed at public health education, points out that stress cannot only cause hair loss, but it can also lead to behaviors that can damage your hair. This includes disorders like trichotillomania, which is a condition that makes a person want to be tugging or pulling at their hair frequently. That hair pulling can lead to breakage, damage, and weakened roots leading to hair loss.
This 2012 study links depression to hair loss… saying that it could be the medications used to treat depression or the depression itself that was contributing to the hair loss. There was also a small chance that hair loss and depression were both associated with a different unrelated issue – such as stress from their job or a relationship.
Can Stress and Anxiety Damage Your Hair?
Whether the hair loss often seen in mental health patients is related to the disorders themselves or the medications related to treatment is unclear. But we do know without a doubt that stress and anxiety can lead to hair loss.
Stress from a variety of sources (everything from a divorce to the loss of a loved one) can cause a person to lose their hair. And when that mental stress is combined with physical stress, such as after the birth of a new child, it is very common for hair loss to accompany that stress and depression.
Unfortunately, it quickly becomes a question of which came first: the stress, the anxiety, the depression, or the hair loss? The National Institutes of Health has published numerous studies linking hair loss to low self-image, depression, and other mental disorders. But the reality is that determining how the two are interlinked is almost as hard as determining when hair loss switched from your normal shedding to something to be concerned about.
Precision Hair Restoration Has Answers For Your Hair Loss
When you come to your first appointment here at Precision Hair Restoration, we are going to ask you a lot of questions as we work to diagnose the reason for your hair loss. While we are not mental health professionals, we will be asking about your mental health and stress levels. We’re not being nosy – your mental health might be the cause of your hair loss.
With your help, we can isolate the cause of your hair loss and figure out a treatment plan that may help you with more than just looking better. Call us today to get started.
