Nourish your hair…for GOOD by feeding it inside and out. Our hair is built of proteins (80-90%), so along with a balanced diet to get you the vitamins and minerals you need, make sure to eat protein-rich foods as well. Great sources are organic, grass-fed chicken, beef, cheese and eggs. If you are vegetarian or vegan then plant-based substitutes to get you the protein you need are legumes, nuts, tofu, seeds and hemp (hemp seeds are nutty tasting and delicious!). Eating at least 5 ounces daily (150 grams) will do it. For those vitamins (especially B) eat kiwi and pumpkin seeds. Healthy hair also needs the essential fatty acids from such sources as walnuts, avocados, flaxseeds and wild salmon. Important minerals for healthy hair production are zinc (found in seafood and legumes), silica (found in potatoes, red and green peppers and bean sprouts) and magnesium (found in green vegetables and nuts). Diets low in iron can also contribute to hair loss or poor hair quality, especially in women.
Our hair follicles are considered a “non-essential tissue” by the body’s computers, and therefore they are one of the last to receive nutritional substances. Anytime our bodies go for too long without enough proteins and other nutrients necessary for optimum growth, these follicles which produce our hair cannot keep up and our hair begins to thin and fall out. Before this, the hair shafts begin to show a lack of optimum health by becoming duller and prone to more breakage as they grow out. Due to a decreased capability of the follicle, the hair that is produced is thinner as well.
We also need to feed our hair on the “outside”. There are many new “hair systems” out now that claim to contain (elastic) proteins to coat the hair shaft and make it more resilient and resistant to breakage. The way some of these sound, it seems that they are claiming to “revive” your hair even if technically it is dead tissue once it leaves the follicle chamber in your scalp. However, many of these products do coat the strands or keep the scalp clear of built-up oils that can clog the follicles. Clogged follicles become constricted and end up producing a finer hair that has less sheen. Part of this is due to the physical constriction and part is due to a lack of air circulation that keeps your scalp healthy. Beware of super drying shampoos, however. You may feel like your scalp and hair are squeaky clean, but scalp and hair (just like skin) need some oils to keep from drying out and flaking or breaking. The perfect balance is what we are striving for here.
So, feed your body properly in order to feed your hair from the inside, and make sure hair is cleaned but then fed with good conditioners on the outside. Sometimes outside influences (dry heat, prescription medications, illness or stress) damage our follicles and we need an extra boost to make our hair fuller, shinier, stronger or even to fill in balding patches where follicles are beginning to fail all together. In that case, an increase in the blood flow that actually carries the nutrients to the follicles may need a boost. The Nutreve Personal Hair Therapy Laser uses cool laser waves to stimulate the blood flow at the correct depth of the follicles creating a natural thinning hair treatment. This laser hair brush feeds the root of your hair, so it is not only fed inside and out, but also nourished from the bottom up!
