If there’s anything worse than going out with mismatched outfits, that’s having a bad hair day. Having a bad hair day could happen due to several reasons. It may be because of the ever-changing weather, and your hair simply wasn’t able to keep up with it. Or you’ve been shampooing more often than needed, or your hair lacks it. It could also be due to stress, which may cause your cortisol levels to increase, making your hair appear brittle and dry.
Managing Your Hair
While some people can manage their bad hair day and recover from it the very next day, you may be struggling to achieve even one good hair day for once. Despite trying out different hairstyles and hair products and following haircare tutorials, you still couldn’t figure out how to make your hair better. And so you may be wondering, what else can you do to improve your hair?
Your hair is part of your body, which means you need to treat it the same way you care for your skin, nails, and face. Simply put, your hair quality is mostly dependent on your healthy body habits and lifestyle choices. Now that you’re aware of that concept, here are five lifestyle changes that could help improve your hair and reduce your bad-hair-day moments.
1. Follow A Healthy-Hair Diet
You may already be aware of the fact your diet could significantly affect your skin’s health. But the same logic goes for your hair, too. Nutrients such as omega-3, collagen, vitamin B12, and protein are essential to having healthy hair.
You can get more omega-3 from food like almonds, walnuts, salmon, and mackerel fish. On the other hand, to pump your hair with enough protein, you can incorporate protein-rich food in your diet, like lean meat, eggs, beans, and low-fat dairy. With enough protein in your body, your hair could stay strong and shiny, and it might even prevent you from experiencing hair loss.
Meanwhile, some food sources rich in collagen include citrus fruits, egg whites, chicken, berries, and red and yellow vegetables. You can also consider supplements to make sure your body is getting enough collagen for hair.
Overall, the goal is to follow a healthy diet to ensure your body, especially your hair, would get enough nutrients. Consider this as hitting many birds with one stone.
2. Be Active And Stay Active
For people looking for extra motivation to continue hitting the gym, here it is. Doing regular physical exercise (preferably cardio exercises) could promote healthy hair growth. As you exercise, your body tends to release higher serotonin levels in your brain, which could lead to better moods and reduced stress, which may eventually prevent hair loss and hair fall.
Moreover, staying active could improve your blood circulation, making it easier for your body to transport nutrients to your hair follicles. So imagine this, you’re getting a fitter and healthier body while growing healthier and stronger hair, too.
3. Do Activities To Reduce Stress
Indeed, stress is one of the leading factors that could cause bad hair days. When you’re constantly stressed, it could trigger physiological and emotional imbalance, leading to hair loss. Stress may also make you do certain behaviors, messing up your body’s internal balancing mechanisms. For instance, if you’re stressed because of work, romantic relationships, financial problems, or a loved one’s death, you’d tend to engage in unhealthy habits, like losing sleep, skipping meals, or overeating.
As a result, you may experience severe hair loss or frizzy and brittle hair. To alleviate stress and reduce your risk of hair loss, you can do some activities to help you cope or manage stress. You can start incorporating yoga or meditation into your daily routine. You can also try journaling, using soothing scented candles, or reading a book to relieve stress.
4. Hydrate
One of the keys to help you achieve stronger, healthier, and shinier hair is by drinking water. Just think of how your skin would become dry and rough when you don’t drink enough water. The same thing could happen to your hair. If you’ve lately noticed your hair is becoming dull and frizzy, ask yourself how much water you’ve been drinking lately. By assessing your hair, you may already be able to tell how dehydrated your body is and how you tend to overlook your daily water intake.
To enhance your hair quality and prevent hair breakage and dryness, make it a habit to rehydrate as often as you can. You don’t need to wait for your thirst before you help yourself with a glass of water. Your hair and entire body would surely thank you for that.
5. Strive To Get A Good Night’s Sleep
You may already know how sleep is imperative for your health. During sleep, your body gets a chance to rejuvenate, restore, and repair muscle tissues to prepare you for the next day. On the other hand, if you’re always sleep-deprived, you’re only taking away your hair’s chance to stimulate growth. As a result, you may wake up with drier and frizzier hair. So before even thinking of staying up late for another night, think of how it’d affect your hair.
Final Thoughts
It’s not only your choice of hair products or your hair care routine or how much you visit a salon that determines the health and quality of your hair. Sometimes, most of it has to do with your healthy lifestyle. By incorporating these lifestyle changes into your everyday life, your entire body, especially your hair, would reward you for your amazing efforts and ensure you won’t wake up with another bad hair day.