When you ask a couple of women what they want most in their hair, the chances are high they’ll tell you they want to add more inches to it. That’s because they know how beautiful and desirable long hair is and how highly coveted it is amongst women. However, as many as there are women who want it, only a few of them can give what it takes to get it.
Growing long healthy hair requires patience, effort, and willpower because hair growth doesn’t happen overnight. However, if you already have these and you’re willing to go through the journey, you’ve already passed the first stage of getting it. The next stage is adhering to some tips to assist you on this hair growth journey.
Here, we’ll recommend some tips to help your hair grow faster and healthier. But before we go into that, let’s discuss how the hair grows.
How Does the Hair Grow?
Every person has about five million hair follicles beneath the scalp, out of which hair grows. But this growth through the follicles isn’t a magical event that occurs overnight. Instead, it happens in three different phases: the anagen phase, the catagen phase, and the telogen phase. The transitioning from one phase to another is known as the hair growth cycle.
Hair grows through the activities of proteins under the scalp. The hair is made up of proteins, also known as keratins. These proteins nourish the growth cells to build hair within the skin. So when blood circulates to deliver hair growth nutrients and oxygen, the proteins multiply. The more they multiply, the more hair grows out of the skin.
When hair grows out, it passes through a channel where it’s lubricated. That’s why the hair has a natural shine when it grows. By the time the hair pops out of the skin, it’s already dead, and the process has started again. As new hairs are formed, it pushes the old hair out, and that’s what we see. These are the events that occur through the phases of the hair growth cycle.
What Are the Valuable Tips that’ll Stimulate this Process to Make Hair Grow Faster?
The following are some of the tips to grow your hair faster:
1. Get Regular Trims
Surprised? It’s expected. It may be counterintuitive to cut hair when you’re supposed to grow it, but it’s a proven method. While trimming your hair doesn’t influence its growth, it eliminates split ends that will cause hair breakage and loss.
When you’re trying to grow your hair, it’s important to let your stylist do the cut for you. While they are at it, ensure you inform them that you want a healthy cut, as this will keep them aware that you’re trimming your hair to grow it.
2. Eat Healthy Diet
You can’t downplay the importance of food to hair growth. However, you can supply your hair with the nutrients it depends on for fast growth through healthy feeding. Those hair care products need to be triggered to take full effect, and eating a healthy diet is a perfect trigger.
Since you’re aware of the importance and prominence of protein in the hair, it’s only logical to improve your protein intake. You can eat protein-rich food like red meat, fish, milk, beans, grains, nuts, etc. You can also boost it with vitamins, zinc, omega- 3 fatty acids, iron, minerals, etc.
3. Hydrate Your Hair
The hair is one of the driest auxiliary parts of the body. So it has a natural tendency to break from dryness. But this is something you should allow because dryness and breakage have far greater consequences.
As a solution to that, you need to hydrate the hair regularly. One way to do this is to add essential oils to the hair before brushing or combing. This improves moisture retention in the hair, keeping it shiny and moisturized. This is one of the most viable ways of encouraging new hair growth.
4. Avoid Heat Styling
Heat styling is a common styling pattern that most women always do. While its results are always fascinating, its consequences are very difficult to deal with. Too much heat styling can easily damage the hair follicles. If the heat tool isn’t regulated, you’ll either burn your strands or make them pretty dry, leading to breakage.
So when you avoid heat styling, you’re creating an environment where your hair is encouraged to grow properly. And if you must use heat tools, ensure you use a heat protectant that’ll mask your hair from the harsh effect of the heat.
5. Brush Your Hair Gently
The hair is fragile, and it’ll break at the slightest aggression towards it. So if you’re committed to growing your hair, you have to brush it gently. And forget those things they say in salons about brushing regularly. Instead, you should brush your hair only when you need to, two times a day.
And whenever you do, you have to do it the right way because there are wrong ways of brushing. To do it right, use the brush from the end of the hair. Then, get rid of the entanglements you notice and brush slowly.
6. Try Scalp Massage
A scalp massage isn’t only therapeutic; it’s also pretty effective in improving hair growth. You’ll certainly feel good about yourself afterward when it’s properly done. You can do it in two different ways – effleurage and petrissage.
While the former deals with the circular stroking around the hair, the latter deals with gentle lifting and kneading the scalp. Whatever method you choose remains effective if it’s done correctly. You should always start at the front and dab your way down to the back. You can add essential oil to make the massage better and improve the outcomes.
Conclusion
All these tips are proven ways to improve your hair growth. But if the results are too slow for you, you can enhance it with hair growth products recommended by your stylist or speak to your doctor about your hair condition.