Stress and Hair Loss- Twin Brothers?

by Svetla Bankova

“My hair is falling, there’s hair on the bed, there’s hair on the comb, there’s hair everywhere, except on my head”- This may sound humorous. But it is true. The main cause for hair loss is stress. Stress and hair loss are just like twin brothers.

Stress and hair loss are inter related. This is commonly noticed among people who gulp down coffee for breakfast, swallow the burgers for lunch and puffs the cigar to kill the stress. 

Most of the people are under severe stress because of an overdose of work. Stress and hair loss are the important factors to cause premature graying among the youth population. Your hair is the first part, which shows that you are in severe stress. Medication, imbalances in nutrition, and illness are the factors which cause stress and hair loss.

If you have been changed from one office to a new office, you may be in severe stress. At this time stress and hair loss can easily be visualized. Desire to earn and work pressure are the two main troubles causing stress and hair loss. It is extremely important to manage your stress levels especially if you suffer Graves’ Disease or hyperthyroidism. 

Lack of exercise, hectic work schedules and most of the people are running helter-skelter from one place to another. Working women are facing more stress from both home and job. Stress at home and at the working place have a drastic effect on food habits. Very often a lack of vitamins and thus hair loss is a result of wrong food habits.

All these reasons are known to contribute initially for the onset of Graves’ Disease. Accordingly- to cure your Graves’ Disease you need to change how you handle different situations, your nutritional habits and how in general you treat yourself in everyday life. This is what I call change of lifestyle.

Sometimes if you have undergone surgery for any ailment, your mind and body both are under severe stress and finally, you may suffer from hair loss as a result. This condition can not be corrected automatically. So don’t panic because stress and hair loss are interconnected elements.

In general, if people are not eating regularly green leafy vegetables and other healthy foods, they will go for iron deficiency, which in turn will lead to anemia and finally severe stress and hair loss.

Methodical treatment, including de-stressing, meditation, yoga, hair—care advice, and correct nutrition will alleviate stress and hair loss problems. Relax, quit smoking, and manage your day better to feel lighter and fitter for impede stress and hair loss. This will help also the cause of your Graves’ Disease and will speed your recovery.

Graves’ Disease Causes

Every day I receive a lot of emails from people asking “Why do I have Graves’ Disease or Hyperthyroidism? Why exactly me? What happened or what I did wrong? What is the cause for Graves’ Disease?

You didn’t do anything wrong. There is an explanation for everything and everything happens for a reason. You’ve heard that before, right?

Well, let me start from the beginning with a little bit history here…

The disease is named after Robert Graves, the 19th century Irish physician who first discovered the condition. Graves’ Disease is caused by a generalized over activity of the thyroid gland (which looks like a butterfly), and is the most common cause of hyperthyroidism.

In this condition, the thyroid gland is diffusely enlarged and hyperactive, producing excessive thyroid hormones. It has lost the ability to respond to the normal control by the pituitary gland via TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone).

Although Graves’ disease is the most common cause of hyperthyroidism (80% of the cases), not all patients suffering from hyperthyroidism have Graves’ disease and not all patients with Graves’ disease have hyperthyroidism symptoms.

 It is believed that the triggers for this disease include stress, smoking, radiation to the neck, medications, and infectious organisms such as viruses… Finally, who can tell for sure?

I personally believe that STRESS (in a very broad term) is one of the main reasons for Graves’ Disease and Hyperthyroidism. Not stress generally- but how you personally react to this STRESS! This stress could be emotional, work related, family related, event related, or a prolonged state of unhappiness to whatever reason. And suddenly, there is a triggering event that brings Graves’ Disease!

I would like to add a few things that may trigger Graves’ Disease or Hyperthyroidism– the reason I know them is because I read the emails and surveys from my subscribers and this is what they say:

Graves Disease Causes

1. death of a spouse

2. divorce

3. marital separation

4. spending time in jail

5. death of a close family member

6. personal illness or injury

7. marriage

8. pregnancy

9. retirement

10. switching jobs

11. unemployment/ laid off

12. moving your home/ house

13. excessive traveling schedule

14. marriage problems

15. dealing with problem kids

16. time pressure

17. financial problems

18. career related problems

19. long term abuse at home or at work

20. concerns about money

Some of them seem unrelated and probably you are asking yourself- well, this is happening to everyone, but not everyone gets Graves’ Disease or Hyperthyroidism?

And you are absolutely right. The questions is how you handle these events in your life. And how you handle your Life in generally, or your life handles you? Now, these are your immediate triggers, but what actually stays behind? Let me summarize that for you, to the best I can:

Four BASIC reasons why YOU may develop Graves’ Disease:

1. Inability to speak up for yourself

2. Inability to be creative or lack of creativeness

3. Inability to ask for what you really want

4. Inability to make decisions based upon real needs and therefore creating a life style based upon these needs

Once you have realized where the problem is, it’s easy to change. Everybody  has different methods for that.

Also, stress can be avoided. Anxiety is #1 reason for the stress. That’s why I have written a few articles about anxiety and stress and how to handle them.  Check them out, you may find one or 2 methods how to handle that more effectively and accelerate your healing process.

Anxiety and Stress

If you can read other people’s stories, you’ll find out that a year or two before the Graves’ Disease diagnosis they have been through some kind of stress, or emotional dis-balance, or unhappiness. I never heard of someone, who is happy and sick. Diseases doesn’t go to happy people who respect their emotional and body needs.

I’ve also created a book about their real life stories (as told by themselves) and how they managed to cure their Graves’ Disease and Hyperthyroidism. Feel free to check their stories now:

Life Stories for Graves’ Disease Ebook