How to Prevent Hair Loss

Both my grandfathers, on my dad’s and mom’s side, are bowling ball heads. And they say that the genes jump every second generation like that (my dad has a healthy, full head of hair).

At around 30 something I started noticing a horrible amount of hair in the drain catcher after every bath. The amount of hair filling up that little plastic catcher was so much that, at that rate, it didn’t seem like it would take long for me to lose everything. And my hair was already thinning, and I could sort of see through in the top section.

Because I have always taken pride in a healthy head of hair, and considered it a proud display of virility and looking young, the prospect of looking like one of those aging balding men utterly horrified me. I didn’t want to go down without kicking and screaming and doing everything possible to avoid it. So I rolled up my sleeves and was ready for a big battle ahead of me.

Never really thought about it at the time, but after explaining to one friend my various efforts to avoid hairloss, she liked one strategy in particular. After explaining to her all my various tactics, I concluded with, "Oh yes, and in the very beginning, I dropped to my knees, fists clenched together with fingers turning blue, looked up to the sky and cried, 'PLEEEEEEEEEEASE GOD DON’T LET MY HAIR FALL OUT!’" She got a great kick out of that and kept repeating it around Prague.

Anyway, whether or not that strategy had an influence, I tried many other things, and think I may have this licked. You can try all of them.

First of all, hair is a living organism < . And as with any living organism, it needs food. And healthy food. If we were to eat only pasta, our faces would eventually turn white, and we would probably die in time, since our bodies need certain nutrients for certain things (they did an experiment on rats, feeding them only bread, and they eventually died).

I did some internet research and found honed in on pumpkin seeds as something rich in the nutrients that hair likes. So that became part of my regular diet. As did sesame seeds, which are full of calcium and vitamin C, and crunching on them is good for your teeth.

So while working at the computer, I’d have a couple of jars full of these two, and I’d nibble on them over the course of the day. Actually, nibbling like this is healthier for you than pigging out on big meals. You can also sip on juice over the day, for plenty of vitamins, although I found that citrus or orange juice eventually caused joint problems. My favourite was pineapple juice with fibre in it, to help keep my intestines nice and clean.

But anyway, the pumpkin seeds have good nutrients and I’d munch on that. Other times I’d get sick of it, so it is good to listen to your body. Or you might forget about it for a while, then buy a healthy bag and eat that over a day or two, and then have nothing again for a week.

When I started to travel Europe, I neglected this routine, and in about six months I noticed my hair was falling out again, leaving behind a light bed on my pillow. So I made an effort to resume the pumpkin seeds, and found that in a few weeks my hair stopped falling out. So I feel rather convinced about this approach.

Now, putting the right nutrients in your mouth is a good thing, but the nutrients have to get to your hair, don’t they. Hair being on the top of your body, their roots at some of the smallest capillaries in your body. I imagined the rich nutrients could be like little chunks in the blood which were heavy and found it difficult to get way up there. After all, why would hair mostly fall out on the top of one’s head but not on the sides? They say it is mostly genetic, but even if so, why on the top and not on the sides? What kind of crazy gene is that?

Anyway, my readings on the internet stated that it was good to get the blood flowing in the area, talking about scalp massages with the fingertips. I don’t bother with that but occasionally I’ll use my finger nails and scratch my scalp a bit, not like a normal scratch with my finger nails digging perpendicularly against the hair follicles, but sliding across my scalp from side to side. When doing so I can feel how the blood is stimulated and moving through the small capillaries, and I can almost feel the sigh of relieve from my starving hair roots.

Or sometimes I’ll scratch in the normal way, because I feel a layer of skin has built up. They say that 85% of household dust is from skin. Your skin is your largest and a very important organism of your body < , and constantly grows and replenishes itself. But where the dying skin might get rubbed off on other parts of your body, it might just lay there and build up under your hair. So I am sure that scratching it off once in a while should be a healthy thing. Mostly I find the built up layer on the top part of the head. As if other sediments from the environment around me have settled on it, which could also be true. You should be able to feel the layer.

So keeping the skin surface clean and stimulated promotes healthy blood flow and delivers valuable nutrients to your hair roots.

Another trick I like to do is to hang upside down or do hand stand push ups. So much blood comes to my head I feel my eyes will pop out, but I’m sure it could be quite healthy for my hair, imagining all those heavy nutrients deposit into my upside down scalp.

Of course we could add to this general exercise, with a healthy heart pumping blood throughout the body.

I also started being careful of the shampoo I was using. They say you should rotate through different shampoos. Whether that is true or not, what I was concerned about was the chemicals in it. I began to scrutinise the active ingredients, and try to go for something natural. Some shampoos seemed to make my scalp tingle, like they were laden with all sorts of chemicals and my scalp skin was reacting to it. Whenever I shampooed, I would examine the foam in my hand and look for hair follicles. Good, natural and healthy shampoos did not seem to result in any hairloss, so I tended to stick with a chemical lacking and natural shampoo I found that did not produce hair in the foam. Or if over time it did, I’d try switching to another shampoo. If I tried a shampoo that seemed to yield more, I’d give it to someone I know and buy another one, and try that. Once your hair roots are dead, I think it is late, so you don’t want to tamper with this.

And I stopped washing my hair so frequently. It is unnecessary anyway. Personally, I can go weeks without problems. I wont even wet my hair, if I don’t have to. You can experiment with this, but if you are obsessive about some commercial looking, glazy, glistening and shiny hair, well, you might find yourself with none to glisten at some point. So don’t pound it with all sorts of chemicals which are supposed to make you look fantastic, and think of your hair as a living organism, which it is, and let it rest. The natural oils in your skin could be good for it. Sure, if it starts to get stinky and pasty looking, give it a gentle wash, but every day or two is certainly not necessary. Personally, I find my hair looks better after about three days. Directly following a shower, it seems all fly away and unmanageable, but after about three days, some natural oils have set in, and it holds well, with a nice natural curl. Towards about two weeks it starts to get that pasty look. Also it might depend on where you live. In the city there could be lots of pollution, or humidity in some places might also have an affect, so this is something you will have to experiment with.

Of course I like to use a healthy and natural conditioner, preferably with some nutrients (beer might be good), to give it a healthy look and so it won’t be so light and fly away. <read on internet for other tips, for healthy hair in general – I think I already downloaded some, no?>

I also found some products like Regain < , but I didn’t like how it made my hair gunky, and I don’t like chemicals in the first place, so I quickly stopped using that.

But another treatment I like to do, perhaps once a year together with my annual fast, is to cut it all off. Go right down bald and, are you ready? Smear pig fat all over it. In pig fat apparently is the active ingredient they use in Regain and those other chemicals. Just smear that on in the morning, and over the day time massage it into your scalp occasionally. Perhaps shave your head a second or third time to extend the treatment for a longer period. Or maybe just do it once every few years, but after doing it the first time, several people remarked that my hair looked thicker and fuller. So you could try that as well. You could possibly buy it, or good ol’ bacon grease poured into a jar should do the trick. Keep it in the fridge and just smear it on like butter. Gives a nice tingly sensation, and could be depositing all sorts of delicious nutrients right into the hair roots. Wash it off before going to sleep (although I’ve tried a plastic pillow slip – rather uncomfortable I’d say), using a mild shampoo not to hurt the skin.

And that’s it!

To test my progress, I’ll occasionally run my fingers through my hair, at the top, then bring them together lightly and pull them away, tugging at my hair slightly. If I do not find any hair between my fingers, it shows that my hair has healthy roots and is holding well. Regulate it, keep your hair on your head, and the hair you do have there, feed it well so that, hopefully, it will get thicker and healthier over time. Just a little common sense like this is required. Forget about some chemical or drastic approach.

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