Featured Image Credit: Getty Images/Maskot
Topics: Science, Health, Sleep, Mental Health
Britt Jones
Being stressed for multiple days at a time can do some pretty weird things to your body.
We all get a little stressed from time to time, but prolonged stress can completely transform your body.
Now, this isn’t just the day-to-say grind we’re talking about - we're talking about constant stress that just doesn’t let up.
Once it takes hold of you and doesn’t let go, there’s a very noticeable sign that you’re over stressed, and other people will be able to tell too.
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Mental health expert Colleen Marshall, who is a licensed marriage and family therapist in California, shared that prolonged stress impacts you physically.
From break outs, to weight loss or gain, headaches, trouble sleeping and irritable moods, stress is not good for anyone, at any length.
But Marshall has shared a surprising way it can show up as she says, it ‘can definitely impact your hair.’
How? By turning your hair white.
This is because stress releases norepinephrine, a chemical that signals the body’s fight-or-flight response.
When you’re under stress for prolonged periods of time, the body becomes flooded with high levels of norepinephrine, cortisol, and more, which can change the pigments of your hair, as well as the other things listed above.
But while you might think this happens after months, it can actually happen within a week.
According to recent research, grey hairs can begin at the cellular level just over the course of five days of being stressed.
When mice were exposed to extreme stress, their fur began to turn grey.
But with people, it might take up to a couple of months to see it happening in your hair.
There are other ways stress can manifest, too.
This includes eczema or psoriasis flare-ups, brittle nails, and more.
Harvard University researchers isolated the mice for five days, and exposed them to major emotional distress, which triggered a depletion of melanocyte stem cells - the producer of hair pigment.
Those stem cells died, and when they could not be regenerated, the mice’s turned grey or pure white.
The reason mice were able to show the changes so quickly is because they have rapid hair growth and shedding, while human hair cycles are much longer.
When exposed to stress, it could create gradual changes to the pigment, but that depends on how significant the stress is that you’re exposed to.
It also depends on the person’s health, age and genetics too.