Depending on your age, regaining color could be in the cards.
Had the shock of your life? Worried over the hill and beyond about your bills? Your hair might be showing your stress. The bigger news is that all that new gray could actually be reversible.
A study done at Columbia University Irving Medical Center has linked psychological stress with graying hair. The myths of people having their hair turn white with shock might not be entirely, well, mythical.
Researchers looked at subtle variations in hair color in 14 volunteers. The changes were examined under a high resolution scanner while participants also recorded their levels of stress weekly in a ‘stress diary’.
“Just as the rings in a tree trunk hold information about past decades in the life of a tree,” said the study’s senior author Martin Picard, PhD, “our hair contains information about our biological history.”
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Researchers looked at levels of thousands of different proteins and how they varied throughout each hair.
“Once hairs grow out of the scalp, they harden and permanently crystallize these exposures into a stable form,” said Picard. “If you use your eyes to look at a hair, it will seem like it’s the same color throughout unless there is a major transition. Under a high-resolution scanner, you see small, subtle variations in color, and that’s what we’re measuring.”
It was found that when you are stressed, the mitochondria in your hair cells react. This is what causes your hair to turn gray. And in some individuals, once the stress of daily life is removed, the hair regains its color.
But It All Has Its Limits
Researchers were excited about their findings. The results could impact further research related to how we age, they expressed. But removing yourself from all the pressures in your life isn’t going to bring back all your color, they warned.
“Based on our mathematical modeling, we think hair needs to reach a threshold before it turns gray,” Picard says.
This borderline, for most people, lines somewhere in middle age. When you combine your biological age with other facts, stress can easily push everything over the limit. This being said, you won’t be able to stress a 10-year so much that they cruise over the gray threshold. And conversely, decreasing the amount of stress in a senior’s life will not eliminate their salt-and-pepper styling.
Still, for those in their 20s and 30s, the results could have an impact.
“There was one individual who went on vacation, and five hairs on that person’s head reverted back to dark during the vacation, synchronized in time,” Picard noted. .
What Else Can Turn Your Hair Gray?
It’s not only stress that can alter your hair color. According to Harvard Health, a vitamin B deficiency, thyroid disease, vitiligo, tuberous sclerosis, and something called neurofibromatosis can also cause your hair to turn gray. Some of these are inherited diseases. Others, like the vitamin deficiency, constitute a condition that a few lifestyle changes can likely fix.
Enjoying your grays and looking forward to more? Check out this post on how to make the most of your new look.
photo credits: waewkid/Shutterstock.com
