by hope | Jun 23, 2021 | Lifestyle
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Hair loss affects close to one-third of the world’s population. Many factors trigger hair loss, from hormonal changes to certain medical conditions. Take, for example, baldness, which is very common in men, although some women experience it. It can be a gradual hair loss process but sudden for others, leaving them with patches of baldness on their head.
Note that hair loss is a natural process. Therefore, you shouldn’t worry about a few follicles falling off. Fortunately, there are a couple of ways to stop unwanted hair loss.
Consider Using Prescription Medications
There are certain clinically approved medications like finasteride and minoxidil that help with hair loss. Finasteride works by inhibiting dihydrotestosterone (DHT) hormone from causing follicle shrinkage, leading to hair fall out.
Also, it promotes improved hair growth and regrowth. You should start seeing some noticeable hair growth results within three to six weeks of using this medicine.
Apart from finasteride, minoxidil increases blood flow and the fast uptake of nutrients to the hair follicles, thus encouraging hair regrowth.
Increase Your Nutrients Intake
It could be that your sudden hair loss associates with nutritional deficiencies. If that is the case, your hair loss treatments could be as simple as eating foods rich in iron, copper, zinc, and protein might work wonders for you.
Also, vitamin D deficiency could be another reason for your hair loss. In fact, you should consider using multivitamin supplements. However, you need to talk to a physician if you have any other health issues before using supplements.
Many supplements link to hair growth, such as biotin, rich in vitamin H or B7, and Ginseng that contains phytochemicals that promote hair growth. Having a doctor’s prescription on the type of supplement to take helps avoid any allergic reaction.
Better Hair Care
If you’re experiencing hair loss, anti-DHT shampoos are your best option because they help combat it. Hair shampoos with 1-2% ketoconazole ingredient block conversion of testosterone to DHT thus, preventing hair loss.
Also, it would help if you avoided hairstyles that cause a strain on your hair. Importantly, let your hair air dry to eliminate any irritation to the scalp. Please, don’t use heat stylers that lead to damage or breakage of the hair shaft regularly.
Remember, chemical treatments such as hair color or perms cause damages to your hair and scalp. If you must color your hair, choose products that don’t contain peroxide, ammonia, or para-phenylenediamine (PPD).
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Make Use of Laser Comb
Similar to finasteride treatment, laser combs are currently the only FDA-approved way of stopping hair loss. A study that included a couple of men who had patterns of hair fallout showed increased hair growth after several weeks of applying a laser comb across the scalp at least three times a week.
The study didn’t explain how the laser treatment works, but it recommended that using the lasers at lower power has a healing outcome on hair follicles.
You can combine the laser comb with a scalp massage. Massaging your scalp daily for four minutes stimulates blood flow to the head hence increasing hair growth.
Avoid Hot Showers
Hot water tends to strip your hair of essential oils meant to protect it from damage due to dryness and inflammation. Hot water might not link directly to hair loss, but scalp inflammation caused by too much heat leads to miniaturization of the hair follicles and hair thinning.
Alternatively, warm or cold water helps close up your cuticles and pores in the scalp, therefore, sealing in the hair moisture to increase hair growth.
Stay Hydrated, Avoid Alcohol and Smoking
Naturally, the biggest percentage of your body contains water. That goes without saying that the hair shaft, too, requires water for increased hair growth. Taking a minimum of four glasses of water every day keeps the hair follicles hydrated enough for healthy hair growth.
Sadly, your hair loss might be due to excessive alcohol consumption. Reducing or eliminating alcohol intake gives your hair a chance to grow. Like alcohol intake, smoking reduces blood flow to the scalp, leading to decreased hair growth and an increased risk of baldness.
Go for a Transplant
In case you’ve tried all of the above hair loss prevention and treatments, and nothing seems to work yet, a hair transplant might be your best bet. The specialist acquires hair follicles from a donor then grafts them onto your scalp. The hair follicles donated should come from head regions like the back and sides since those areas are DHT-resistant.
There are other new ways of carrying out hair transplants, like using hair stem cells that accelerate hair growth. What makes this method more appealing is the fact that it allows for repeated transplantations if necessary.
De-stress
Once your hair grows back, you should understand how to keep it looking healthy. Stress is a significant contributor to decreased hair growth. De-stressing yourself plays a part in ensuring increased hair growth.
You can fight stress through meditative exercises like yoga and meditation, which help with hormonal balance and stress elimination. They’re also a form of self-care, suitable for your general wellbeing.
You can also engage in active activities like physical exercises every day. These exercises can include walking, swimming, or bike riding for 30 minutes a day.
Conclusion
Hair loss is inevitable at a certain point in your life, especially from pattern baldness. Above are several options to choose from if you’re looking to avoid hair loss or regrow your hair. The effectiveness of each method varies from one person to another. Some see positive results with just a few adjustments like switching to a better diet and so on.
Others might need to go an extra mile, like the use of hair treatment medications. However, no matter the option you choose, always ensure that you practice better hair care to avoid future hair loss.
Additionally, check with a trichologist if you’re planning on trying any hair growth method or supplementation. It’s advisable to visit a dermatologist or trichologist if you have a severe hair fall as well. You might be having a more serious health issue other than hair loss. Don’t ignore any unusual hair loss because you need proper guidance on achieving healthy hair goals.
by hope | Oct 23, 2018 | Core Functional Fitness
Working your pelvic floor: three things to know.
The uncomfortable stare you get back, when during your yoga class you utter the words “anal sphincter” or “vaginal passage way”… or worst yet “soft tissue behind the scrotum”.
This is the initial middle-schooler-discomfort my studio room usually filled with when I would connect the exercise or request with a direct body part. You could just feel the air get thick with discomfort. But why? These are body parts like any other. So why not the bicep? Or the glute? The thigh or abdomen? Taboo that lurked in the shadows around such body parts soon became my mission to bust through. Not for my sake as a teacher, but for my students’ bodies.
About 15 years ago I started questioning my grounds for being a teacher. I started questioning the ‘whys’ behind the movements and when my students were complaining things hurt or felt funny and my trained response was “that’s normal” or “it will get better”. I began to soon realize that it wasn’t my students who had to change, it was me and how and why I was doing what I was doing in the class. Because truth be told… I didn’t even really know!
I had completed my 500 hours for yoga and had taken almost a dozen training’s in the Pilates arena, but I still felt unequipped to explain the why’s and how’s to my students. And I could perform some fairly complicated postures, and was able to guide students though amazing classes and posture progression. But lacked one very important skill, the ability to take them deep into their body and see for themselves what should be going on. What should be happening. What should be firing or not firing in order to have the best experience possible in the pose and class.
At that time it became very clear to me I wasn’t going to find that in the yoga arena and decided to step outside the yoga box and start to study the body and how it moves in real time, and specifically how it relates to the core.
And when I came back, it was go time to re-educate, re-inspire, and re-focus my students so they could heal their bodies, and take back their lives. Starting with the pelvic floor.
3 Things You Should Know about Working your Pelvic Floor:
1. Your Pelvic floor is located at the bottom of your torso
ONE: When working your pelvic floor, you should know that your pelvic floor is located at the bottom of your torso, and refers to the numerous muscles that attach to your pelvic and thigh bones. These muscles need to be located directly below you, so like a houses foundation they can appropriately support what is above. So if you have poor misguided posture you could surely find yourself with pelvic floor pain, back pain, hip flexor strain or injury, or lack of good core (even glutes) strength. I often guide my students to what is sometimes called “pelvic neutral”. This serves as a “home base” in that like anything, where should I start. This is essential in assisting other muscles to begin to do their jobs as well. It doesn’t mean you walk around like a robot, but rather if your body is out of alignment, getting back there will surely serve in healthy recruiting of all muscles-pelvic floor included.
TIP: Place your hands on your (front) hip bones and pubic bone and work to align this structure to be parallel with the wall, ceiling or floor you are facing. This may seem off if you are not use to this type of posture. Start here, and try to find this posture during the day to help your body find it’s home base again. Putting your pelvic floor back underneath you and core back inside of you.
2. Incontinence is not a normal part of aging
TWO: When working your pelvic floor, many women (and men) believe that incontinence is a “normal” part of aging. However, at no point is incontinence a part of the aging process in reflection to your pelvic floor. And what has become very clear to me is very few (even the most “fit”) don’t really understand how to contract the pelvic floor, in that they bear down rather than contract up and in. If you have incontinence issues and have had a child, endured some sort of trauma, or injury, neuromuscular retraining may be in your future.
TIP: I tell all my students: “first you have to understand it, then you have to visualize it (or at least be able to guide yourself there if you are not one who can visualize), then feel and perform to truly create that new fully functioning pathway. Being anywhere on that path is a successful step in the right direction. And being told to “contract your pelvic floor” (unless you know the where’s and how’s of those muscles) is not enough.
3. Squeezing doesn’t get the job done
THREE: When working your pelvic floor, many people believe that just squeezing “down there” gets the job done. However that could not be farther from the truth. For many squeezing what they believe to be the pelvic floor is only the engagement of the glutes or hip flexors, or even just part of the pelvic floor. This is exactly why it is vital to invest time in feeling out these parts of the body upon engagement. I work to explain to my students that when one area of the body isn’t cooperating or maybe can’t hear or understand the command, other neighboring body parts step up and say “I got this”. Except the body can only do “other” jobs that aren’t that area’s for so long. Eventually you will feel pain, dysfunction, or experience injury – many times in the form of a random occurrence that has no trailing back to the how or why.
TIP: During your yoga or exercise class slow it down and ask yourself “what muscle(s), what body parts (think locations, no need to know exact names) are getting the job done? Most just do and never slow down to see. When you can see what’s going on you can change it’s course. You will then find a huge improvement in how you move and the quality of movement as well.
Pelvic floor dysfunction is a real thing and not just a title deemed for those who have experienced a large physical trauma or have had a baby. Our sedentary culture obsessed with extreme movement is a cocktail that can and is wrecking havoc on our bodies with no bridge to fill the gap between no movement and extreme variations of.
Consider a class, session or guide who can take you through the exercises with an understanding and education so you can start to better understand both how your body moves and how it currently does not. Learn what to focus on and what to do or not do to begin to heal the areas of concern, one being the pelvic floor. Because if they don’t talk about it, is it fair to assume they don’t understand it. And if they don’t understand it, how will you?
“Take care of your body, it’s the only one you have and replacement parts are never as good as the originals” ~ Hope Zvara
Want to work with Hope and begin the journey to a more powerful pelvic floor? No fancy moves! No hard to understand language! No fluff!
Just moves that make sense in a program made just for you!
