Spring is officially in the air in the Northern Hemisphere. Picture this – it’s a sunny Spring day, the breeze is blowing lightly as you swing gently back and forth in your hammock. In one hand, a can of something delicious sweats cool beads of condensation between occasional sips.
The other hand runs lazily through your lush mane as you’re enjoying the gorgeous day – until you pull it away to find it full of tangled strands of your pride and joy.
What is going on? Are you going bald? Or maybe the apocalypse has finally arrived? Calm down, mate, it could just be the time of year that’s causing you to shed.
Men’s seasonal hair loss is a fact of life. You may have actually noticed that your hair seems thicker at certain times of the year and then thinner at other times. It’s not your imagination. Believe it or not, studies have clearly shown a link between the time of year and the amount of hair we shed.
So, in this article, we’ll discuss the possible causes behind male seasonal hair loss and offer some tips and tricks for alleviating this calendar-related follicular exodus.
Is hair falling out normal for men?
Now, it’s perfectly normal to lose strands of hair, no matter the time of year. Every strand of hair falls out once its life cycle is complete, which typically takes two to eight years.
The average person loses between 50 to 100 strands a day. So finding half a dozen silky strands in your hands after you finger comb your hair – or even a soppy wad of hair in the drain every now and then – isn’t a big deal and, in fact, happens to every man.
Plus it really only takes a few strands to clog up that drain.
Is seasonal hair shedding common for men?
You know you’re an animal – a tiger in the sack, a bull in the boardroom, a dog with your mates. But you are also a literal animal, as in, a warm-blooded, milk-drinking mammal covered in hair follicles. As a mammal, your hair growth is tied to the ever-changing seasons.
In fact, mammals adapted to seasonal living for centuries—and even though we’re now living in comfortable climate-controlled towers and sipping iced beverages year round, our bodies aren’t just going to magically forget what they’ve learned over millions of years.
Seasonal hair loss has been observed in a wide variety of mammals. Researchers believe we, as humans, have also evolved in this way to keep us cooler in warm weather and, similarly, warmer when the temperatures start to drop.
One study even showed that hair loss is more common in the summer and fall, which makes perfect sense if you may have noticed that you grew a bunch of extra hairs during the winter as nature’s cure for keeping you nice and toasty.
What causes seasonal hair loss in males?
Male seasonal hair loss isn’t just about being an animal, though. Plenty of other reasons can make it more likely to see your hair shed at certain times of the year.
Some point to the harsh conditions hair has to endure throughout the summer as one reason for men’s seasonal hair loss. Sea salt, chlorine, and the harsh rays of the sun all do a quite a bit of wear and tear on hair.
And then there are some men – those who are genetically predisposed to hair loss – who are even more likely to be aggravated by seasonal change.
Diet and lifestyle can impact hair loss in men
Just because male seasonal hair loss is a widely experienced phenomenon doesn’t mean that there’s nothing you can do to lessen the effect of hair loss for men.
For one, diet plays a major role. Be sure to eat plenty of protein, as hair is the fastest growing tissue in your body – and your body uses protein to build tissues. B vitamins also are essential for healthy hair growth and maintenance.
Also, keep up your cardio routine to improve circulation to the scalp and also to all other parts of the body. And finally do whatever you can to avoid stress (easier said than done, we know) because cortisol is a stress hormone related to testosterone, which can spark even more hair loss.
Stress can sometimes also cause trichotillomania, a syndrome that makes you pull out your own hair as a nervous tic. Don’t need to make the problem even worse because too much stress is getting you down!
