Healthy hair growth is a goal-oriented activity that takes time, diligence, and patience. You have to be extremely patient and careful if you want to see those long tresses.
Gaining inches to your hair especially when you lose 50-100 hairs each day can be seen as a never-ending story.
According to the American Academy of Dermatology Association, you have to learn how to grow these inches by paying attention to your lifestyle. That is, without commitment or determination, you won’t achieve much.
Unless you are one of those with really good hair and your hair does not need too much attention, this article is for you. Nonetheless, every woman needs these pointers to grow their hair length, so continue to read.
How to Grow Healthy Hair
First, you have to understand that hair does grow, you just won’t see it because of some common reasons. These reasons are:
- Shrinkage: This is one of the most common reasons, especially for natural hair. Natural curls draw up as they dry, thus deceiving. Shrinkage doesn’t mean yours isn’t healthy, in fact, it is the opposite. Shrinkage means the hair has good elasticity but it doesn’t encourage believing hair growth.
- Damage/Breakage: A damaged or breaking hair lacks growth retention. When hair is breaking as fast as it is growing, it is a sign that you are not taking the necessary precautions. To prevent damaged hair, you can put your hair in protective styling.
- Lack of Patience: When you don’t have time to take care of your hair, it will get damaged. Hair growth takes patience and diligence. You have to be patient with your hair to see it grow healthily.
When you know the common reasons why hair growth is not maintained, these are the tips to help you counter them and give you healthy hair growth.
1. Get a Good Trim
Yes, get that trim, and regularly too. Contrary to what you may think, trimming does help healthy hair growth. Having split or broken ends can lead to more hair damage. It also tends to make the hair look frizzy and untamed.
Trimming your hair helps by nipping the problem in the bud. Once you cut out the damaged part, this gives room for your hair to grow healthily.
If you are serious about your healthy hair growth, you have to trim the ends regularly like three to four times a year. You could either see a stylist or do it yourself with some good shears.
2. Wash Your Hair Properly
Healthy hair starts from beneath the roots. Healthy hair growth needs a clean environment and sufficient nutrients to grow. To grow your hair effectively, make sure to wash with a shampoo and conditioner to get the clogged pores free.
How often you wash your hair is up to you and your routine. It is important to note that cleansing with the right shampoo and conditioner for you is required to prevent harsher damage to your hair.
3. Carryout Special Treatments
Deep conditioning, hair exfoliating, steaming, and detangling your hair regularly will help your hair grow healthily. You don’t have to use a lot of products at the same time, but interchanging routines and carrying them out regularly will give you the fantastic result you are looking for.
If you are not too sure of products with unknown chemicals, you can make DIY creams to treat your hair. And if you are sure of the products you bought, make sure to follow instructions on the method of application.
SEE: Detangle Your Natural Hair Properly With These Guide
4. Take Your Vitamins
It’s common knowledge that most people do not get all of the nutrients that their body needs from their diet. Calcium, potassium, fiber, magnesium, and vitamins A, C, and E are the most lacking in the body system, and some of these help healthy hair growth. That is why supplements are necessary to give added nutrients.
Taking multivitamins will help the hair immensely because when the body is nourished, so is the hair.
5. Use Sulfur
The hair needs sulfur. Sulfur is what helps to protect proteins in our body like keratin (which is what our hair is made up of. It is also what helps to lengthen the growth stages of our hair. You can take sulfur as a vitamin pill or if you’d prefer to simply through your diet.
Some sulfur-rich foods include cabbage, collards, onions, garlic, fish, peaches, olives, walnuts, almonds, and sunflower seeds.
SEE: How to Stop Hair From Breaking- Discover the Prevention and Home Remedies That Work
6. Avoid Heat Tools as Much as Possible
For Healthy hair growth, you have to avoid heat. That means the dryer, the curl or straightening irons, or other heat tools must be used sparingly. Too much heat will lead to damaging your hair so try to avoid anything that will brittle, break, or cause dryness to your hair. You have to minimize your use of heat tools.
When using heat tools though, make sure they have a clear setting that ranges from low to medium, that way you can control the heat penetrating your hair.
Additionally, make sure your hair is well hydrated and moisturized before heating. That way the moisture will protect your strands when dry. Then use heat protectants to serve as a barrier between the heat tool and your hair to prevent damage.
SEE: Best Hair Dryer You Can Buy
7. Don’t Wear Protective Styling All the Time
Keeping your hair in protective styles is good, even better for hair retention. However, like they say, ‘too much of anything is not good’., so it is with protective styling. If you wear protective styles too much it can lead to stress and strain on the hair.
Down your edges and lead them to overstretch. You can wear box braids or crochets but you must space the frequency. This will allow your hair to breathe easily.
The best time to protect your hair is at night. You can switch to wearing satin scarves or bonnets to keep your hair from tanging and leading to breakage.
8. Keep Color Out of Your Hair
Dying your hair is cool but you are on a mission. That means until your healthy hair has grown to a length you desire, keep colors away from it. Dye has bleach and bleach can damage the hair cuticle and you might need to cut a significant portion of your hair off, setting you back on your journey.
If you like coloring your hair so much, you might have to put the love on a backseat and let that healthy hair growth. Instead, try some henna, colored hair wax, or herbs that don’t have bleach in them.
9. Care for Your Hair Follicles
Hair Follicles are what hold or anchor each one of the hair straps into the scalp. Within the hair follicles, there are hair bulbs and within each bulb, there are cells that develop and build the hair shaft. If you want healthy hair growth, you have to care for the follicles.
To do this, you can massage your hair once in a while, sleep right, use treatments and oils that focus on treating the scalp, and eat the right food diet.
Your diet must contain proteins, citrus fruits, and berries, potatoes, and vegetables. Drinking lots of water also help in caring for your hair follicles.
SEE: Protein Treatment for Hair: How to Redefine Your Weak Hair With It
10. Don’t Stress
Stressing is part of human nature. Telling yourself not to stress over hair growth is like telling a dog not to turn its tail, it’s a roundabout trip. Stress comes in two ways: worrying about your hair too much or being stressed by other factors in your life.
When you worry about your hair growth, you tend to do too much to get a quick result. Like all good things, you have to wait. Don’t over manipulate or try to get quick fixes, you can damage your hair in the process.
If you are also stressed in your work or personal life, it shows on your hair. Try as much as possible to relax when you need to. Don’t worry about the unknown and learn to breathe through crisis or life in general. The hair is the window to the soul.
11. Food for Healthy Hair Growth
Another way to maintain healthy hair growth is keeping a good diet. eating a balanced diet would improve your hair growth. However, you cannot grow hair faster than it should.
You should include food rich in protein like eggs and meat. You should also eat foods rich in vitamins and fatty acids. Foods like salmon contain vitamins and omega-3 fatty acids that help improve hair density and the antioxidant level in your body.
Eat foods rich in vitamins A and E, which would help promote sebum production and natural hair growth respectively.
SEE: Simple Tips to Make Your Hair Less Greasy
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you use a hair mask for healthy hair growth?
Yes, you can. You can wear hair masks to improve your healthy hair growth journey.
Protein hair masks are special hair masks used to help promote and strengthen hair growth. Additionally, you can use specialized hair masks to improve your hair follicles.
Does shampooing every day promote healthy hair growth?
No, it doesn’t. Shampooing every day does not improve the chances of your hair growing healthy.
You can experience thinning or dry hair if you over-shampoo your hair. Furthermore, you can your hair could become flat due to a lack of nutrients.
On the other hand, if you shampoo regularly, you would help maintain healthy hair.
Do natural oils grow your hair?
No, they don’t. No study confirms that natural oils like coconut oil, jojoba oil, olive oil grow your hair. However, they do promote hair health with their nourishing properties.
You can add oils to your hair routine to improve the overall health of your hair and keep it shiny and moisturized.
Conclusion
You need a good hair care routine to maintain healthy hair growth. You should also practice simple lifestyle hacks like wearing protective styles, staying hydrated, and avoiding hot tools as much as possible.
Afro-textured hair needs extra care. therefore, you have to be intentional with your care routine. If you have your goal in sight, be sure to achieve it as best as possible with the above tips for growing healthy hair.
Thanks for reading.
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