Bad Hair Habits that Lead to Thinning Hair

Everyone wants a thick, healthy, full head of hair. However, some people have more trouble achieving this goal than others. While genetics can play a role in the thickness of your hair, your daily habits can also affect your hair quality. Read on to learn about four common bad hair habits that can lead to thinning hair.

4 Bad Hair Habits

1. Frequently Wearing Tight Hairstyles

If you are unhappy with the appearance of your hair or don’t have time to style it, then you may frequently pull it back into a tight bun, a ponytail, or braids. While wearing an occasional tight hairstyle is unlikely to damage your hair follicles, pulling your hair back tightly on a regular basis can lead to a condition called traction alopecia.

When caught in its early stages, traction alopecia and the hair thinning it can cause can typically be reversed by simply changing how you style your hair. However, the condition can cause permanent hair follicle damage when not addressed in its early stages.

The first signs of traction alopecia can consist of small, pimple-like bumps on your scalp. As the condition progresses, you may notice thinning in the areas of your hair that are pulled tightly when styling it along with scalp redness, soreness, and itching.

If your traction alopecia does not begin to diminish after you stop pulling your hair back so tightly, then consult a dermatologist who can treat your scalp symptoms and provide treatments that may help follicles that are not too damaged to recover and produce healthy hair.

2. Smoking Cigarettes

Another bad hair habit that can lead to thinning hair is smoking cigarettes. The chemicals you inhale when smoking can reduce the flow of nutrient-rich blood to your scalp and hair follicles. When your hair follicles are starved of the nutrients and oxygen present in blood, your hair’s natural growth cycle can be affected, leading to thinning hair.

In addition, smoking cigarettes can increase the body’s production of a hormone called dihydrotestosterone (DHT), which plays a role in the development of male pattern baldness. Excess DHT production can shrink hair follicles and cause follicles to produce weaker hair.

3. Overusing Heated Styling Tools

While the occasional use of heated hair styling tools is unlikely to damage your hair greatly, overuse of these tools can create the appearance of thinning hair.

Human hair is composed mainly of keratin protein and hydrogen bonds. When you style your hair with heated styling tools, including hair dryers, flat irons, and curling irons, you break down the hydrogen bonds in your hair. As hydrogen bonds are continually broken down due to overuse of heated styling tools, your hair can become weak and brittle.

Weak, brittle hair can snap and break mid-strand, compromising hair fullness and create the feel and visual effects of thinning hair.

Thankfully, these heated styling tools rarely affect the hair follicle. That means that after you begin to limit your use of these tools, the new hair growth that replaces your heat-damaged strands should appear thicker and healthier than your current damaged hair.

4. Eating an Unhealthy Diet

You may be surprised to learn that one bad hair habit that can cause thinning hair is eating an unhealthy diet that lacks the nutrients needed to support healthy hair growth. Thankfully, reversing hair thinning caused by nutrient deficiencies is typically as simple as changing your diet to include foods rich in the nutrients that your current diet lacks.

To encourage optimal hair health, be sure to eat plenty of protein-rich foods, since protein is one of the main components of human hair. Eggs are great protein-rich food sources that are also rich in biotin, which encourages hair growth. Proper biotin intake helps your body produce keratin.

Also, consume plenty of foods rich in vitamin C, such as citrus fruits and berries. Vitamin C is a potent antioxidant that protects your hair follicles from damage caused by free radicals. This vitamin also helps your body absorb iron to prevent anemia, which may cause thinning hair.

In addition, be sure to eat a diet rich in zinc, as a deficiency in this important mineral can cause thinning hair. Oysters are great sources of zinc.

Another vitamin important for healthy hair growth is vitamin D3. While your body does create its own vitamin D when your skin comes into contact with sunlight, many people in the United States suffer from vitamin D deficiencies due to the use of sunscreens that block the sun’s UV rays or lack of time spent outdoors.

While vitamin D is added to some enriched beverages and foods, such as vitamin D milk, you can also obtain this vitamin by eating shrimp or taking a vitamin D3 supplement.

If you struggle to eat a diet rich in the nutrients needed to prevent thinning hair, then take a supplement designed to support healthy hair growth as you continue to improve your diet over time.

If your hair is thinning or has lost fullness and volume, then take steps to correct these four bad hair habits that can lead to thinning hair and start a regular regimen of supplements that includes Phyllotex hair vitamin today.