Have you noticed a few grey hairs recently? Here’s why stress makes your hair grey and what to do about it.
Timestamps 0:00 Introduction: Why does stress cause grey hair? 0:16 Causes of grey hair 0:35 Why stress causes grey hair 1:55 What to do for grey hair caused by stress 2:16 Share your success story!
Let’s talk about how stress can potentially turn your hair grey. Of course, other things can cause grey hair, like the normal aging process and genetic factors. But, there are epigenetic factors, which are above your genes, and you may be able to do something about your genes through your nutrition, environment, and more. But what about premature greying because you’re going through too much stress?
In the hair follicle, you have stem cells, which create pigment. When exposed to chronic stress, you get an elevation of noradrenaline. Noradrenaline is the precursor of adrenaline.
They found that noradrenaline causes stem cells to migrate away from the hair root and into the skin. So, you lose your stem cells and, with them, the ability to keep your hair pigmented. The key is to keep your stress low.
How to keep your stress low: • Sleep more • Exercise more • Take vitamin B1 regularly (nutritional yeast) • Identify the cause of the stress and do something about it
Now, I'm always trying to understand why things occur in the body, and so this is an interesting
topic. Why stress can potentially gray your hair. Now, we know that stress does that, but why,
right? I always want to know why. I found out, and I want to share this reason with you. Now,
of course, you have the normal aging process that causes grayness. You have genetic factors,
but there are also epigenetic factors, which are above your genes, so you're not defined by
your genes. You can always do something about it. Your nutrition, your diet, your environment,
etc. But what I want to talk about is premature graying because you're going through too much
stress. First, let's talk about what is the mechanism, okay? Well, here's what happens.
In the hair follicle, you have these little cells called stem cells, which creates the pigment,
okay? So you're looking at brown hair right here. That is created from melanocytes, which is created
from stem cells, which are actually directly contacting the hair root. Now, when researchers
tried to figure this out, they first looked into the possibility of it being an autoimmune disease
with some type of inflammatory thing, and that wasn't the case. Then they thought it probably
was high levels of cortisol, but they actually removed the adrenal glands and exposed the subject
to stress, and there was still a graying action. And then they found this. When a hair root is
exposed to chronic stress, you get an elevation of something called noradrenaline. Now, noradrenaline
is like the precursor to adrenaline. It's responding from the fight-or-flight mechanism.
And they found it was a neurotransmitter, noradrenaline, that causes these stem cells to
migrate away from the hair root into the skin. So you lose your stem cells, now you lose your
melanocytes, and you lose your ability to keep your hair pigmented. Now, the question is, what can
you do about it? Well, you want to keep your stress low. That is the key. You want to sleep more.
You want to exercise more. You want to take B1 on a regular basis. I recommend getting it from
nutritional yeast. And really just identify what is the cause of the stress. What is stressing you
out? And do something about it. All right, there you have it. Why stress can gray your hair.
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