Gray Hair And Stress: Are They Related?

According to the legend of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, after being sentenced to guillotine death, she woke up the morning after her doomsday with gray hair. Was it stress over hearing the phrase that made her hair gray, or is this story a purely fictional part of pop culture?

A recent story is that of Eric Moody, the heroic pilot of British Airways Flight 9. All the engines failed, but he was still able to steer the plane and land, thus saving the lives of all the passengers. A year after this amazing act, he was surprised to find his head covered in gray hair.

“Gray hair and weapons win battles.”
-Anonymous-

Why does the hair turn gray?

The hair turns gray when the hair follicles stop creating a substance called melanin. This is what gives our hair its natural color. This degeneration in the process of melanin production usually begins in our 30s and 40s for Caucasian peoples and later for African Americans.

This means that the progressive gray color in hair is associated with age. But extraordinary cases, such as those we mentioned in the introduction, where the person’s hair turns completely gray in a very short time, are affected by something more: stress. Stress comes from the mind, but it can affect the whole body, including the heart.

For Eric Moody, the pristine pilot, a year is a very short period for his hair to turn gray. So stress is a fundamental factor to consider. But we must draw conclusions carefully: various studies looking at this connection have not yielded conclusive results.

This is because it is unethical to put people under the level of stress that endangers their lives. Instead, they must use stress-triggering factors that produce a far less severe reaction than a death sentence or the danger of a plane crash. However, these studies have focused on more chronic stressors that are more common. And they have not found any decisive results using them.

Marie Antoinette syndrome

There is a type of baldness called “Marie Antoinette Syndrome” because what happened to the queen is not considered as a sudden change in hair color, but rather an abundant loss of it, resulting in a color change.

The appearance of color loss in this case occurs because darker hair falls off first. So if there was already some gray hair, it will be seen more. However, this type of baldness does not happen in just one day. It is rather a few weeks about to develop.

Stress is believed to trigger this process, but for it to happen, it must be combined with a genetic predisposition. Nevertheless, this syndrome occurs in only 0.2% of the population. So it is difficult to learn about cases other than dermatological consultations.

Stress, age and crying hair

By adhering to the above , we can conclude that stress can also affect the presence of gray hair if the stressful situation is at such a high level that it is determined that it is dangerous to the person’s life. The relationship between stress and gray hair is not clear if the stress-triggering factors are more like the ones we face every day: less acute and more chronic.

Still, it is that you live, are happy with what you have, and enjoy life as much as possible, always good for your physical health, your mental health and of course the presence of gray hair.