Everyone knows how exercise can help you feel, look, and live better overall. What isn’t as known is that exercise can directly benefit the health of your hair. While exercise won’t magically generate more hair, a healthy, stress-free lifestyle is important to keeping your hair thicker, stronger, and less prone to falling out. Stress relief, cardio, a healthier diet, and even yoga all are linked to keeping your hair strong.
Along with your mind, body, and soul, let your hair be another reason for you to get moving. Here are some proven links between exercise and healthy hair.
Let It Go, Let It Grow
Stress is a major cause of many health issues, and hair loss is among the most common. Due to our sedentary jobs and busy schedules, lack of exercise often goes hand in hand with stress, which can negatively affect your hair follicles and cause skin conditions that can lead to hair thinning and loss.
Regular exercise helps reduce stress levels by producing more serotonin, a neurotransmitter that acts in a variety of functions in your body that are quite helpful:
- Reduces depression, regulates anxiety, and improves mood
- Heal wounds and maintain bone health
- Regulates appetite to prevent stress-eating
- Increases sex drive
Sweating It Out
All-natural products are the way to go, and it doesn’t get more natural than your own sweat. Rather than applying a product to your skin’s surfa
Let There Be Blood
Improved blood circulation is beneficial to relieving stress and tension throughout your body. While cardio never fails at getting your heart pumping and your sweat pouring, yoga also forces you to stretch the limits of your comfort zone while increasing flexibility and blood circulation. Certain inverted poses can get the blood flowing to the top of your head, improving the supply of oxygen and nutrients to hair cells.
Healthier Foods
A healthy, nutritious diet is the soul mate to exercise. One can’t live without the other, and your hair will be one of the beneficiaries of this relationship. Here are the essential elements to include in your diet for strong and healthy hair.
Protein: Simply, your hair is made of protein, and if you don’t supply it with enough building blocks, your hair can turn brittle and dry. Keep up the physical activity as well as your protein consumption, including red and white meats, dairy, eggs, legumes, and nuts.
Essential Fatty Acids: Foods rich in omega-3s are important to the health of your skin, hair, and nails. These include fatty fish such as salmon, tuna, and mackerel, along with flaxseed oil, walnuts, and almonds.
Vitamins: In terms of vitamins that directly impact the health of your hair, you don’t have to look further than the B’s. Vitamin B’s come from different sources, but in general, they help to maintain cell health and give you energy. Look particularly for Vitamins B6, B12, and folic acid.
Iron: Lack of iron, also known as iron-deficiency anemia, can have a direct impact on hair loss. Iron is required for your body to produce hemoglobin, a protein that carries oxygen to your tissues. Hair follicles and roots need a steady supply of oxygen-rich blood, and if iron levels dip, anemia can interfere with the nutrients your hair receives.
The “Mane” Reason You Exercise
Your hair not be the most important reason for you to get moving, but don’t let that stop you from moving more and eating better. We can help your hair enjoy all the benefits of a healthier lifestyle to the fullest! Schedule an appointment at the 1924 Fine Men’s Salon in Lake Zurich for a professional hair salon service by booking online or calling us at (224) 633-2188. If you’re out and about, feel free to walk right in.
