The Myth - Stress Causes Grey Hair Overnight

The idea that a nervous shock can result in grey hair overnight and is even medically termed as canities subita is just one of those fabled tales that you might think is true. There have been certain cases in medical literature that are based on rapid grey hair and reports going back to the antiquity age that have been based on renowned figures such as Marie Antoinette and Thomas More.

When it comes to the biological study of this phenomenon, it suggests that cognitive biases along with hormone imbalances are responsible for the uproar of the myth. The human hair has a complete lifecycle: theres the growth stage (Anagen), the resting stage (Catagen) and lastly, the dormant stage (Telogen). The hair follicle is colored by the production of pigments known as melanin during the anagen stage.

According to hormonal levels and your genes, the length of the anagen stage can vary from person to person. It could be between 2 to 8 years. Its during this time that your hair follicles receive messages to stop producing more hair and end the anagen stage, and thus prepare for the telogen stage. The telogen stage continues for about 6 to 8 months and then heads back to the anagen stage. During this ongoing process, your hair follicles begin to lose pigments after 10 cycles and produce hair that has no color. Although the hair color is white, we still refer to them as being grey hair.

An intense level of stress can affect a large amount of hair follicles during the telogen stage, which produce a large amount of uncolored hair. This process is known as telogen effluvium.

The result of telogen effluvium is usually caused by drugs that have been known to cause hormonal imbalance in the hair cycle. This includes anti-Parkinsons drugs and chemotherapy drugs. Whats interesting to know is that these hormonal imbalances will be less effective on uncolored hair, but will immensely affect hair follicles with pigmented hair, thus causing the production of white hair. This could even occur during stressful periods such as work load or even your execution, but it can also be the result of auto-immunity known as alopecia areata, which is where antibodies focus on pigmented hair follicles instead of non-pigmented ones.

So, the problem with the myth is that this entire process cannot happen overnight. There are many valid explanations for these reports, such as the case of Marie Antoinette who was seen by the public during her execution, but in her case, she was deprived of her hair dye and wigs to cover up her white hair she might already have grown. And as for people such as President Obama, we can see that during a period of months and years, he visibly turned greyer and greyer, which could usually be the case of age where hair follicles are on their last pigment cycle.

Its because of these confirmation biases that allow many to believe that stressed out people look much greyer than those who arent stressed. However, were inclined to ignore people who turn grey at an early age and who hardly seemed stressed. Theres a simple explanation too that has more to do with their genetics than it does with stress.

So it might be helpful for you to know that although you may be living a stressful life and are going grey before time, your hair cannot turn grey overnight.

To reverse the grey hair process, you can try GetAwayGrey, a natural formula that increases the production of melanin (a pigment that gives your hair color).