Doctor Yu’s Clinical Notes IX: Do not Let Stress Destroy Your Hair | 引起脱发的原因

Recently my child in primary school started to worry about things, and kept saying “Life is hard.” At first I thought it was cute and did not pay attention, until yesterday something happened.

Last Sunday we went skiing with another friend’s family. It was raining hardly, so after three rounds all our gloves got wet in and out, even though we were wearing water-proof ski gloves. At the second round, my child told me “Daddy, my glove is like a swimming pool!” I thought it was a good opportunity to teach a lesson of persistency, so I encouraged her to finish the last round even though my gloves are wet too. She was not happy about it, but still pushed herself to finish the last round. On our way home, she said, “I want a ‘shopkin’.” I thought she should be given a prize for keeping training in rain, so I agreed. However, after this we did not find a chance to go to the mall for several days.

Yesterday my wife went to pick her up from school, and on the way home my child started to cry hardly. She said all her friends have several sets of these shopkins, yet she only has one. “Life is hard!” she cried out, with a broken heart. She even wrote “Life!” on a piece of paper to express her sadness. My wife told me what happened and I was amazed how my energetic, joyful little girl has so much stress. Indeed, every human being has stress no matter of age, and stress can develop from anywhere.

Talking about stress, I recall many of the hair loss patients I treated. There are two patients who are classical examples of hair loss among them:

Two years ago, a patient came for serious hair loss problem. Her situation was so bad that by just touching much hair would fall. It turned out, that she could not sleep well due to stress and started to lose hair. I made careful plans for her treatment and she fully recovered after 15 sessions.

The other patient started to lose hair because of business related stress. She started losing hair several months ago. In the beginning she found several circular shaped areas of no hair on her head. Eventually these areas connected each other and became bigger. I treated her carefully, and due to her excessive stress, it took several months until new hair started growing on her head.

These two cases are classical examples of stress related hair loss. Many people still do not realize the effects of mental stress on hair.

There is a saying among the chinese-speaking community in Vancouver, “The water of Vancouver is too pure, lacking mineral, so drinking the water will cause hair loss.” When I first started operating Traditional Chinese Medicine in Vancouver decades ago, I did not know whether this saying was correct. Therefore I recommended my hair loss patients to take mineral pills besides acupuncture. In fact, after several years I realized the water has nothing to do with hair loss. In fact the water of Vancouver is one of the best in the world. These people lost hair because they were new immigrants experiencing many challenges and difficulties. They could have stress because of different social environment, culture shock, languages barrier, and different customs. These problems usually created many troubles for them and that was the major reason many new immigrants suffer from hair loss.

Of course, mental stress is not the only cause of hair loss, but in my practice over 90% of the hair loss patients have stress problems.

If you are having hair loss problems, please consider whether you are suffering from stress. Furthermore, please be thoughtful before taking any anti-stress drugs, because these drugs can also cause hair loss as a side effect.

Dear friends, acupuncture and Traditional Chinese Medicine have very good results healing hair loss. Next time I will introduce several acupuncture points so that you can massage at home to treat hair loss effectively.

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这几天，一件小事让我觉得非常有趣。我那正在读小学的小女儿，连续几天说同一句话：“life is hard.” 我第一次听到的时候，很不以为然，直到发生了昨天的事情。

大约上周日，我们约好和一个朋友一家去滑雪，由于下起了大雨，在滑三次后，手套就已经全湿透了。尽管我们都穿着防水的手套，我女儿在第二次的时候还是说：“手套已经像个游泳池了。”其实我的也是，但还是鼓励她滑完第三次。她虽然很不情愿，还是坚持滑完了。在回家的途中，她突然跟我说，“我要一个‘shopkins’”。我很感动她坚持在大雨中锻炼了几十分钟，就同意了。然后一连几天我们都没有机会去商场，昨天太太在接她回家的时候，她就伤心痛哭，说她的朋友们多有几套shopkins，她只有一个，又说“life is hard”，并在纸上写一个“Life!”的字样。听了这些以后，我真的不敢想象我这个非常活泼乐观精力旺盛的孩子居然也有心理压力。看来，人的精神压力从小就有，而且无处不在。

谈到压力，我就会想起我治疗过的脱发病人们。有两个病人比较典型，我给大家讲讲，你们就能明白其中的道理：

两年前，一个女病人因大量掉头发前来找我治疗。她的掉发非常严重，用手一摸就是一大把。再细问一下，原来她最近遭遇了一些事情导致精神压力很大开始脱发。她又焦虑头发会不会掉光，这又加重了头发的脱落。我针对她这种焦虑引起的脱发做了专门治疗，在15次后就痊愈了。

另一个病人，因为生意上的问题引起恶性脱发（全秃）。病人从开始发现有数块圆形脱发，在几个月内发展成整个头部出现大量大小不一连接成片的全头快速进行性的脱发。由于病人的精神压力很大一时不能解除，用了数个月的时间才开始有新的头发长出。

以上这两个病例非常典型，都与精神压力相关。不过，现在很多人还远远没有意识到压力及精神刺激对头发的影响。在华人社区，经常听到有人说：“温哥华的水太干净了，缺少矿物质，喝了就会掉头发”。说这些话的人大多是移民，我在温哥华刚开始行医时，也不知道这种说法是对还是错，于是就建议这些病人在针灸治疗外再加上口服矿物质。经过几年行医之后，我才发现温哥华的水是世界上最好的水之一，与脱发并没有什么关系。这些人会脱发是因为他们作为新移民，面临各种挑战和困难，压力很大。除了生活压力，新移民也会因为社会制度的不同、文化的冲击、语言能力的不足、生活习惯的不适等等各种情况而产生精神压力。这些问题总是给新移民刚来的那几年带来挥之不去的烦恼，这才是新移民脱发的主要原因。

当然，脱发的原因当然不只是精神压力的一个因素，不过我在临床上所见的脱发病人90%都跟压力过大有关。

亲爱的朋友们，如果你有脱发的烦恼，请考虑一下你是否在面临着精神上的压力和不愉快。请千万不要随意服用抗抑郁药物，因为它的副作用也会导致脱发。

针灸和中药对脱发有非常显著的疗效。下次文章，我会教大家几个穴位，可以在家里按摩来有效解决掉头发的问题。