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Do You Shed Or Lose More Hair If Your Hair Is Long?

I recently heard from a young woman who had been shedding a high amount of hair for about eight months. She knew that this wasn’t normal and she knew that her hair was thinning out at alarming levels. However, despite her best efforts, she still couldn’t determine if her hair loss was due to issues like telogen effluvium (TE,) androgenic alopecia (AGA,) alopecia areata (AA) or other autoimmune conditions, medications or illnesses, or other issues like scalp problems or allergies.

Since she couldn’t yet determine why she was losing hair, she was having trouble coming up with a regimen that actually helped or worked. But, she was looking for anything which would help her to lose less hair on a daily basis. One idea that she came up with was cutting her long hair. She asked me, in part: “does more hair fall out when it’s longer? Would cutting my hair short mean that I would lose or shed less hair?” I will discuss this more in the following article.

Your Hair’s Weight Or Length Isn’t Usually One Of The Reasons It’s Falling Out: I asked the young woman if there was ever a time when she had long hair that wasn’t shedding or falling. She told me that she usually wears her hair long because she much prefers it. She didn’t think short hair was flattering on her and she liked putting her hair up. Even with this longer hair for most of her life, she had never had any hair loss issues before eight months ago when the shedding started.

As you probably already know, there are many potential reasons for hair loss. But your hair being too heavy is not usually one of them. (Think about it. Men with very short hair often still have thinning.) Hair usually falls out because of a hormonal or medical issue or because the follicle itself has gone into the resting phase. Now, there is a condition called traction alopecia where hair can be pulled out when it is pulled very tightly for long periods of time. This sometimes happens when hair is put in corn rows or someone wears a weave pulled tightly for a long period of time without taking it out. The constant pulling can pull the hair out. However hair being pulled out is different than it being shed out or it falling out.

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And, if you can remember back to a time before your hair loss started, you can probably remember a time when you brushed or styled your hair quite vigorously and never noticed too much coming out as the result. In other words, people who have normal hair and normal scalps where the follicles are healthy and getting adequately nourished don’t have to worry about manipulating their hair. They wash it, comb it, twist it, style it and put it up (and not too carefully either) without concern.

It’s usually only when your hair comes out for another reason do you begin to question things like styling or cleaning as a contributing factor.

Should You Cut Your Long Hair Short When It’s Shedding?: This is an individual choice. And, there’s no question that people have told me that they have noticed less hair fall when their hair was short. I don’t doubt this. Short strands aren’t as noticeable on your clothing or on your floor as long strands are. And, just a handful of long strands can look like a huge wad in your drain when the same amount of short hairs would likely go right down that same drain so that you would never see it.

In other words, short strands are fair less noticeable when they fall. Also, most people have to wash their hair more when it’s short which can bring about at least a little bit of improvement if you have an androgenic issue. So, there are many reasons that folks can perceive that they are losing less shorter strands.

But at the end of the day, if you have a hair loss issue, you are likely still going to have it regardless of the length of your hair. And, any hair that was pulled out because of that same strand’s weight was in the resting phase anyway and was going to eventually come out.

So sure, having short hair may make this easier to manage. Some people find it to be a relief. But, some people find it makes their hair look more thin. And unfortunately, I honestly don’t believe that having short hair spares you any shedding or loss. So, cutting your hair should come down to which type of styles you prefer rather than attempting to stop the loss.

How do I know all of this? Because I lived it. I absolutely knew that my alarming shedding was not normal for me. In my quest to end my hair loss, I looked at my triggers, my iron, my thyroid, my adrenals, my hormones, and my scalp’s health in my quest to end the nightmare. It was a long, hard, frustrating journey which all but wrecked my self esteem but I finally found something that helped quite a bit. You can read a very personal story on my blog at http://stop-hair-loss-in-women.com/.