Since I often write about shedding and hair loss, I often hear from people who are so discouraged by this process.
I often read comments like: "This hair loss has so negatively affected my life.
I've gotten so depressed and frustrated over this.
I feel like I can only react to this or can only helplessly watch my hair thin.
I don't seem to have any real control over it.
Nothing I do seems to help.
I feel like my only choice is learning to live with this, but I'm not sure how.
" I completely understand these feelings and concerns.
I had them myself.
I can recall telling my husband that I might be better off just to shave my head and be done with it since severe thinning (or even baldness) seemed to be the direction that I was going in anyway.
But, I have to tell you that things can change and improve.
If you give up or get discouraged, then you run the real risk of stopping just as the thing that might have helped was right around the corner.
I will discuss this more in the following article.
Taking Inventory Of What You Can Control When Dealing With Shedding Or Hair Loss: Admittedly, much of dealing with hair loss is reactive and that's not a lot of fun.
What I mean by this is that often you did nothing wrong, but when the hair loss starts, you sort of have no choice but to watch as it's happening and to try different things as a reaction to it.
Sometimes the treatments will provide some relief and sometimes they won't.
This can become quite frustrating and you can begin to feel like you've lost all control over what's happening to you.
Here's something to consider though.
Stress and raising cortisol levels can sometimes make your hair loss worse.
So, in terms of both your own well being and for your hair, it's important that you try to lower your stress levels.
It can help to take inventory over what you do have control over.
No, you can't change that this has happened.
But, you do have control over what you do in response.
You can control which specialists you see, how much you educate yourself, which treatments you try, and how you process your thoughts and actions.
I know that this is easier said than done.
I know that it's very easy to get discouraged and frustrated.
I know how it feels to not even want to look in the mirror or to be afraid to style your own hair.
But, if you want to look at it bluntly, you do have a choice as to whether you're just going to give up and give in or if you're going to try to make the best of it and successfully navigate your way through it.
Some days will be easier than others.
In my own situation, here's what I ultimately came to learn and what worked best for me.
Eventually, I realized that although I couldn't directly control how many hairs I lost each day, I could control my regimens, my thoughts, and my reactions.
So I decided to take a very methodical and detached approach.
I choose to educate myself on what might work, give each treatment a fair shake and then to discard what worked and to embrace what helped.
I also tried to stress to myself that I couldn't get so emotionally invested in every win and every loss.
Much of this wasn't within my control, so I just had to try to do the best that I could, keep moving forward, and to attempt to shift my focus when I found myself reacting negatively or getting discouraged.
I learned that, when I felt out of control or down, it was best to focus on anything other than my hair.
It's so easy to allow hair loss or shedding to take over your whole life or to invade many of your otherwise positive thoughts or joys.
In my own case, it helped to force myself to control what I could and to distance myself from the rest.
I also learned to take it day by day.
Eventually, I learned that my worst case scenarios often never came to be and, even if they did, it didn't make sense to live them until I actually had to.
Hair loss is bad enough without letting steal happiness from other areas of your life.