Regular exercise is one of the pillars of a healthy life. The health benefits that you get from workouts are too big to measure. Regardless of whether you’re looking to reduce the risk of heart disease, lose weight, or enhance your mental health, exercising will help you.
While exercise never hurts when done in moderation, people who take part in strenuous physical activity too often may experience some problems. In case you’re not a professional athlete and push your limits frequently, you may suffer from injuries. In the event of an injury, the best course of action is to act quickly.
There are also other reasons why strenuous activity can be too much of a good thing. For instance, you may start to experience significant hair loss if you exercise more than you should. In order to enjoy the benefits of workouts without any unpleasant side effects, it’s crucial that you learn when exercising can do harm.
Does Overtraining Cause Hair Loss?
Hair loss as a result of overtraining most commonly occurs among people who’re on a weight loss workout program. The problem is not in the fact that they’re losing weight, but rather only happens to people who try to shed excess pounds too quickly.
When you’re attempting to lose weight, you’ll not only have a physical but also a mental battle to win. It’s easy to lose motivation in your weight loss journey if you don’t see the numbers on the scale drop quickly. That’s why many people try to come up with a way to shed those extra pounds as fast as possible.
This approach is not recommended for anyone who is trying to lose weight. Understand that this is a difficult process that takes time. Although this type of statement may seem discouraging, it shouldn’t make you lose your motivation to work out. When you manage to reach a healthy weight, you’ll see that it was worth it all along. You’ll look and feel better, have more energy, as well as a stronger immune system.
Aside from all of these benefits, your hair will also be healthier. The reason why hair loss is a common problem among people who attempt to lose weight in a short time period is that they more stress on their body than they can handle. This can lead to conditions like telogen effluvium, a condition that involves excessive shedding of hair. According to dermatologists, telogen effluvium is the second most common condition that causes hair loss.
Of course, you don’t have to be overweight and putting yourself through a strenuous workout regimen to experience this problem. Any person that puts more stress on their body than they can handle can develop telogen effluvium as a result of overtraining.
When and How to Over-Train Properly
If you put too much stress on your body often, it’ll likely make most of your hairs enter a phase of rest prematurely. In case you take part in frequent strenuous anaerobic training sessions, this will also speed up the hair loss process. According to health experts, aerobic exercise will actually benefit your hair and reduce the risk of hair loss.
You shouldn’t be afraid of experiencing any problems like this if you push your limits during a workout. Problems like this occur only if a person is overtraining on a regular basis. Aside from hair loss, overtraining can cause other problems, including insomnia, lack of appetite, fatigue, and soreness.
In some cases, you can reach the next level of athletic preparedness when you’re overtraining. But even if you decide to take this extreme approach to exercise, you should still give your body adequate recovery time. If you’ve pushed a particular muscle group to the limit, it’s important not to put stress on it during the next one or two workout sessions.
In the event that you’ve been overtraining for a long time, you should take at least a week off from exercising to allow your body to heal properly.
Additional Steps to Minimize the Risk of Hair Loss
Apart from overtraining, another factor that can cause or speed up the process of hair loss is poor nutrition. In case you like to work out, it’s vital to be mindful of your eating habits. Make sure you consume enough fresh produce to provide your body with the nutrients it needs to function properly.
There are a number of nutrients that contribute to healthy hair, including protein, biotin, zinc, vitamin C, omega-3 fatty acids, iron, and more. In case you don’t consume an adequate amount of these nutrients on a regular basis your body’s ability to build new hair follicles may suffer.
While nutrition plays a very important role in maintaining hair health, there are also other contributing factors. For instance, drinking a lot of water every day will help keep your hair healthy. However, you should also know what’s bad for your hair.
In case you drink alcohol often, you might experience hair loss. Another unhealthy habit that has been linked to hair loss is smoking. There is a lot of evidence that suggests smokers are more likely to experience balding. Smoking and drinking can have extremely negative effects on your overall health. These unhealthy habits can damage your immune system and increase the risk of cancer, heart attack, diabetes, and lung disease.
Final Thoughts
Too much of a good thing can lead to unexpected consequences. In case you exercise regularly and gradually work your way up as you get fitter, you won’t experience these problems. On the other hand, if you take part in strenuous physical activity more than you should, then you might experience problems like hair loss or injury.
In case you want to minimize the risk of hair loss, it’s important not to push your limits too often. Additionally, you should be more mindful of your eating habits and cut down on harmful habits like smoking and drinking.
