If you've noticed that your hair has been falling out, it can be a sign that something is off nutritionally; use these tips to help keep your body and hair healthy! Styling tools, pulling, tugging and harsh hairstyles can wreak havoc on your hair, but they’re not the only things that can hurt it. Find out what you can do to help your hair where it belongs: on your head!
1 Eat Good Protein
Protein is a must for healthy hair and one of the first tips to help stop your hair from falling out is to eat more protein, preferably from really good sources. Protein should be eaten in forms with all essential amino acids. They help produce collagen in the body and hair is made of collagen fibers. Without sufficient protein, your hair will be weak, dry and break off at the drop of a hat. Good sources include wild fish,organic chicken, pastured organic eggs, organic non-fat yogurt, organic grass-fed beef, hemp seeds, almonds, spirulina, chia seeds and vegan protein powder.
Frequently asked questions
2 Eat Enough Fat
You can’t skimp on fat and have healthy hair. Your hair will be lifeless without good sources of fat, and it will be lackluster in shine. It will also be more prone to breaking and split ends. Eat good sources from hemp seeds, chia seeds, flaxseeds, almonds, walnuts, pumpkin seeds, coconut, coconut oil, avocados, cashews, Brazil nuts, 100% cacao, and pecans. All these are excellent for you and your hair! Don’t count your fat grams. Eat 2 tbsp. at every meal you eat.
3 Watch Your Sugar
Sugar actually breaks down collagen in the body - in your hair, skin and nails. This is bad news for wrinkles, strong nails, and strong hair. Avoid it like the plague and choose naturally sweet foods or sugar-free alternatives like stevia.
4 Wash Every Other Day
Washing your hair everyday can cause it to fall out quickly. It aggravates the scalp and increases how much you pull, tug and have to dry and comb through your wet hair. Wet hair is most susceptible to breakage above all other methods. Washing every other day still keeps you pretty clean and will increase the life and strength of your hair.
5 Get a Detangling Comb
I love the Goody brand detangling combs. They are wonderful for preventing tearing to your hair, but they also help brush through the hair without causing damage of any kind, not just tearing. They won’t cause knots, tangles, or even cause split ends like some combs can. Comb through your hair wet or dry with these. They’re not expensive and worth every penny!
6 Get Enough Zinc
If you’re doing everything right but still not having success, try taking a zinc supplement of at least 15 mg. or more. Zinc is a mineral that is wonderful for your hair and increases the length and strength of your hair. Sometimes, zinc from our food isn’t absorbed as efficiently as a supplement is for a variety of reasons. .
7 Take Biotin
Biotin is B vitamin found in egg yolks and other animal sources of protein. If you’re vegan, I suggest taking a supplement. I like Garden of Life multivitamins which have extra Biotin added for vegan and vegetarian diets, along with lots of other nutrients for your hair and body. Biotin is the hair, skin and nails vitamin that many people know about. It is very important to increase the rate and strength at which your hair grows. You can buy a supplement of at least 1000mcg to see good results in a month if taken daily.
8 Avoid Stress
Of course this sounds impossible, but sometimes it's what is best for your health and your hair. Stress is a known factor in hair loss, so try avoiding stressful situations or find little ways to relax like meditating, working out, reading, or whatever it is that helps to calm you down. By avoiding stress your hair should stop falling out as much, because there is a good chance that's why it's falling out in the first place.
9 Cut down Heat Exposure
It's normal these days for women to blow dry, curl, flat iron, and do a lot of other things to their hair that involves heat, but it's really not good for your hair. All of the heat exposure starts to weaken the hair follicles and causes your hair to become damaged and fall out. It's frustrating to not be able to style your hair the way you want to, but sometimes you need to put your hair's health over how cute you look.
10 Natural Juices
There are a few juices such as garlic juice, orange juice, and onion juice that will help to keep your hair from falling out. Just take one of these juices and rub it into your scalp before your go to bed and then wash it out in the morning. It might sound kind of gross, but if you do this a couple of times a month you should start to notice less of your hair falling out.
11 Green Tea
No this doesn't mean drink green tea, even though it does have a lot of other health benefits that you should consider. For this you'll just need to make green tea (two tea bags in one cup of water) and then apply it to your scalp for about an hour. The antioxidants in the green tea will help to prevent your hair from falling out and boost your hair's growth.
12 Massage Your Scalp
Did you know that hair loss can be due to impaired circulation to your scalp? A good thing to do is to massage your scalp! It's a simple and effective way to boost your scalp circulation and in turn, reduce falling hair. Just use your fingertips and gently move in small, circular motions around your scalp. For an even bigger effect, dab some coconut oil on your scalp or hands before massaging!
13 Maintain Your Hair
An easy tip to help stop your hair from falling out is, well, try your best to take care of it! Get regular trims to prevent split ends and breakage, deep condition your hair once a week, and follow the rest of these tips!
Don’t just ignore that your hair is falling out. While the hair does progress into shedding and growing stages, it shouldn’t be consistently shedding for over a month at a time. If you have ever had your hair fall out, what’s your best tip? Did you get your back to a strong healthy state again?
This article was written in collaboration with editor Lydia Sheehan.
