I often get emails from people asking for advice about their hair thinning, shedding, or loss.
  Almost always, they can tell me approximately how many hairs they are losing each day.
I often hear comments like "I'm shedding well over 100 hairs per day," or "I sometimes lose as much as over 300 hairs each day.
I think that at this rate, I'll be bald soon.
"  I often ask them how they know these numbers, but honestly, I don't really have to ask.
  I already know the answer - they count their hairs.
  I know this very well because I used to do this myself.
  And, although I understand why you may be doing this, I also know first hand that this practice really does you much more harm than good, which I will discuss in the following article.
Why You Are Probably Counting Your Shed Hairs: My husband could never understand why I did this, but here's why people (myself included) typically participate in this practice.
  You really want to see how many over the "normal" 100 shed hairs each day you are losing.
  And, you want to be able to take a long range look at this so that you can get an "average" number.
  We know that our loss varies each day so we want to get an accurate look at what we are actually losing.
We also want to be able to compare what we are losing as we try new treatments and regimens.
  If we see a decrease in the shedding, then we can suspect that what we are trying is somewhat successful.
  Likewise, if our shedding goes up, then we can connect the dots that something is making our hair worse.
Why Counting Your Hairs Is Not The Best Idea:  Again, I understand your reasoning behind this, but here is what I know for sure.
  Continuing on with this practice will only draw your negative attention to it if things are not working out the way that you want it to.
  This becomes a very negative habit that contributes to your obsessing over your shedding.
  Now, I know that this is hard to ignore when hair is falling down all over you all day.
  However, when you count, you truly are holding yourself accountable for something that you just may not, at least at this time, have any control over.
  It's almost as though you are punishing yourself or causing yourself pain with something that is not at all your fault.
  Plus, sometimes treatments take a while to work or to not work.
  So, sometimes when we count, it brings about panic and might cause us to have a knee jerk reaction that is not necessarily the best route to take.
Also, just the logistics of doing this all day is a nightmare which can contribute further to an already bad frame of mind.
  You're picking strands off of yourself all day and then not ignoring them, but tallying them up.
  So, your panic continues to climb as your count climbs, pretty much ensuring that you're going to have a bad day even though there may well be good things happening all around you.
  I also find that, over time, you become so over over sensitized to the spent hairs that you become very upset over even normal levels.
What To Do Instead Of Counting Hairs:  I do understand that you want to track your progress but there are other ways to do this.
  If you've been counting for any amount of time, you can probably eye ball your little pile of hair in the drain and tell approximately how many are there.
  And, you can also eyeball your brush or think about how many you've felt hit your arm to tell if you are seeing improvement or not.
  I eventually got to a point where I would just eyeball what was there, throw it away, or vacuum it up and then busy myself as quickly as I could with something else.
  It's so important to understand that stress can affect this process.
  You must keep your stress level down.
  Counting hairs does not do this.
  I know that it is difficult to stop, but take whatever steps you need to in order to begin tapering down.
  I used to allow myself to count every other wash and then every weekend and then not at all.
  Sure, I had withdrawal at first, but the freedom that I eventually felt was so worth it.
  And, this was the beginning of my focus on treatments rather than what I was losing.
  And this is when it began to turn around for me.