One of the scariest things any women can observe is an increase in her hair loss. Let’s stop right there. Yes, I said an increase in her hair loss and that’s because normally, women and men are losing hair every day, they just don’t know it or see it. So today I’d like to discuss normal hair growth and normal hair loss that everybody experiences every day and in another episode I’ll discuss abnormal hair loss or “real” hair loss. All hairs have a growth cycle and in the growth cycle most of them are in the active growth phase. In an active phase, the hair follicles are actually building longer and longer hair shafts or your hair is actually growing, and you manage that growth by getting haircuts from time to time. The active phase lasts between 2 and 3 years for most hairs but after that 2 to 3 years, the active phase turns into the resting phase and in the resting phase, the hair follicle stops making the hair and the hair actually falls out. It stays in the resting phase for about 3 months and then the scalp hair returns to the growing phase and starts to grow again. In a normal scalp, about 90% of your hairs are in the active phase at any given time and 10% are in the resting phase. Well, if 90% are in the active phase, than on any given day a certain number of them are in the resting phase. To be exact, about 100 to 150 hairs enter the resting phase on any given day so it’s normal to lose 100 to 150 hairs everyday - they’re supposed to fall out. But guess what? On the same day, 100 to 150 resting follicles re-enter the active stage and start growing hair. So, on any given day, there’s no net change in the number of hairs that are falling and the number of hairs that are growing and you keep the same density of hair in your scalp. Want to know what happens to the 100 to 150 hairs that fall out every day? You’ll see some of them in the shower, some of them on your sweater, some on your pillow, and some are very peacefully floating in the wind.
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