I have read that hair grows on average about 1/2 inch per month. So why is this important? Well if you look at the colour of your hair, for example, you can see how your stress is being illustrated through it’s slight tonal changes. One of the biggest emotional stresses one can go through is grief. ‘Grief can trigger an excessive release of hormones known as prolactin and melatonin in your hair that will disturb the normal growth cycle and cause more shedding than usual,’ explains Dr Bessam Farjo, Medical Director of the Institute of Trichologists. ‘The same hormones can also affect the melanin, the pigment in your hair, and cause it to lose pigment so that it turns grey.’
Much like the story of the frog in the pot of boiling water. At first one does not notice the stress that their body is experiencing, and before you know what is happening you are boiling in a pot of water. “I’m fine” is the normal response to our stresses or even “I can manage”, is often used by individuals. While yes, both of those comments might be true to an extent, you are most likely not performing at your optimum or even functioning at your normal level when you are living with stress.
After my mom died I shut down my life and focused on what I considered to be important, which were processing my own emotions (as I wanted to move through my grief versus having it get stuck within me). I began studying the language of emotions and I began to learn who I was in this world without my mom and the loss I felt with her passing. You see within a split second of hearing that a loved one has died, you have changed instantaneously and you no longer can go back to the person you were before you heard those words. The world you knew has changed forever.
It was months later that I realized that maybe I was not as functional or as “fine” as I had thought. I used to prepare homemade nutritious meals for my family yet four months after my loss, my family had never eaten so many pancake dinners. My house use to be extremely clean, but I realized months later that it was being over taken by dust bunnies. My relationship with my husband had been extremely strong, but months later I realized that we needed to get to know each other again, as the loss of my mom changed us both.
Everything in life changes and you have two choices. To stay where you are, or to grow and learn from the experiences you have been given to become the best version of yourself. So here we are nine months after the death of my mother, my house is clean again, meals are made with whole foods again, my relationship with my husband has never been stronger, I cherish my children and my relationships with others more and I have four inches of thick white hair on my head (and yes, I did measure it). You might think that stress does not affect you but your body is illustrating to you that it is affected.
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