Most of us have different
interpretations of stress. Some focuses on achieving such situation and others
may over react the situation itself. I had a college friend before who used to
become the most popular and pretty due to her intelligence and confidence but
suddenly the glow from her face weakened after her parents died in an accident.
She became dry, thin and sluggish. The used to be active and team leader before
rarely participate activities and became aloof. Because she hardly manages
sleep and too afraid of her severe hair fall, she asked medication to her
doctor and little by little she recovered from a self inflicting and stressful
moment of her life. Our fight-or-flight response is our body's systematic
reaction to a stressful event that makes our body produces larger amounts of
chemicals such as cortisol, adrenaline and noradrenaline, which trigger a
faster pulse rate, over tensed muscles, too much sweating, and hyper alertness.
Other system functions slow down, such as our digestive and immune system resulting
to rapid breathing, high blood pressure and alertness. All these factors help
us protect ourselves in a dangerous or challenging situation when we are in
fight-flight response mode.
Stress either physical or mental
is one of the major factors aside from heredity, hormonal, disease or illness
and even mechanical damages and some others which greatly affect hair fall or
hair loss (Alopecia). It usually occurs 2-3 months after a stressful event but
will completely revive after stress has overcome. In most cases it is temporary
but may trigger the onset of a genetic hair loss or may worsen existing
Androgenic Alopecia. Stress causes hair follicles to enter telogen phase
prematurely, making them to stop growing new hairs and eventually shed hairs.
