A new study shows that stress really can give you gray hair. Researchers found that the body's fight-or-flight response plays a key role in turning hair gray.
At a Glance. Stress can cause hair to gray prematurely by affecting the stem cells that are responsible for regenerating hair pigment. The findings give insights for future research into how stress affects stem cells and tissue regeneration.
Causes of Gray Hair
"Hair naturally cycles through growth and resting phases. As we get older, usually around the age of 35, each time it enters a growing cycle, the pigment-producing cells generate less pigment and over time can stop altogether, resulting in gray hairs."
Does gray hair from stress go away? Research from 2020 suggests that graying hair is a permanent effect of stress. Once the melanocyte stem cells are lost, you can't regenerate pigments anymore.
Dr. Kraleti doesn't recommend plucking or pulling the hairs out. “If there is a gray hair you must get rid of, very carefully cut it off. Plucking can traumatize the hair follicle, and repeated trauma to any follicle can cause infection, scar formation or possibly lead to bald patches.”
Despite the claims made online and by product marketers, it's not possible to reverse white hair if the cause is genetic. Once your hair follicles lose melanin, they can't produce it on their own. As melanin production slows, your hair turns gray, and then white when melanin production has completely stopped.
Vitamin B-12 deficiency is one of the most common causes of prematurely graying hair. Researchers have noted that vitamin B-12 deficiencies are often concurrent with folic acid and biotin deficiencies in people whose hair has started to turn gray early.
Most people start noticing their first gray hairs in their 30s—although some may find them in their late 20s.
Does lack of sleep send my hair grey or white? Lack of sleep can have a negative effect on many aspects of the body, not only can it lead to tiredness and lack of concentration, but longer term effects such as your immune system and stress. Stress has been proven to cause grey hair as mentioned above.
Yes, stress and hair loss can be related. Three types of hair loss can be associated with high stress levels: Telogen effluvium. In telogen effluvium (TEL-o-jun uh-FLOO-vee-um), significant stress pushes large numbers of hair follicles into a resting phase.
It can be a shock to find your first gray hairs on your head, especially if you're only in your 20s. But women's expert Dr. Kirtly Parker Jones says a few gray hairs is perfectly normal, even for women in their late 20s and early 30s. However, stress, genetics and other factors can play a role.
It's most common for graying to begin in your 30s, though some people spot a few grays in their 20s. If you think you're going gray unusually early, there are a number of possible reasons why. Smoking, for one, has been linked to the early onset of gray hair.
Slowing Down Gray Hair
According to the LiveStrong Foundation, women may begin a vitamin regimen in order to prevent and/or slow the graying process which includes the following vitamins: Vitamin B12, Vitamin E, Vitamin B9, and PABA. This is the recommended protocol: when you eat breakfast, take 2mcg of vitamin B12.
A medical condition termed "diffuse alopecia areata" can result in sudden hair loss. The biochemistry of alopecia isn't well understood, but in people who have a mix of dark and gray or white hair, the uncolored hair is less likely to fall out. The result? A person can appear to go gray overnight.
Grey hair and genetics
The average age for grey hair varies greatly, and one of the main causes of grey hair in your 20s is genetics. The age at which a person's hair turns grey is influenced by the IRF4 gene, and one specific variant (rs12203592) is a marker for premature greying.
Aside from the time investment of a salon session, there's how long it takes to fully transition to gray hair, which is anywhere from six months to a year, Ferrara says.
Vitamins B6 and B12 have also been proven to boost melanin production. Goddard says that vitamin B6, also known as pyridoxine, has been found to trigger the production of enzymes and chemical reactions that boost the metabolism of the hair proteins (keratin and melanin) in the hair follicles.
Low copper levels can lead to premature graying, according to one 2012 study. Good food sources of copper are beef liver, lentils, almonds, dark chocolate, and asparagus. These are superfoods for white hair, helping in its reversal.
Some studies have demonstrated that grey and ageing hair can recover its original colour when nourished by diets rich in zinc and supplements formulated with this element.
Biotin has many benefits. It triggers hair growth, it treats hair loss related disorders, and it thickens and strengthens the hair. One of our favorite beneficial effects of Biotin is that is can reverse premature greying of hair.
Rather, it seems there's a “threshold” where hair starts to turn grey, and becoming stressed closer to that threshold may push one's hair over the edge. For this reason, learning to meditate or reducing the stress in one's life won't reduce the grey hair one may have at the age of, for example, 70.
Stress itself doesn't cause sudden hair whitening. Over time, chronic stress may lead to premature gray hairs, though. You may also experience hair loss from severe stress.
Hair graying may be caused by (1) depletion or dysfunction of melanocytes producing melanin in the hair matrix near the dermal papilla of the hair follicle (the theory of Tobin and Paus), (2) defective hair bulge MSC self-maintenance via genotoxic stress (the theory of Fisher and Nishimura), and/or (3) oxidative or ...
Although the primary cause of premature hair graying (PHG) is considered to be genetic, certain environmental factors also play a role. Trace element deficiencies such as Vitamin B12, Vitamin D3, and calcium may also be associated with PHG.