Winter has a way of slowing things down. Energy dips, routines shift, mood lowers, and your hair gets affected too. You might notice more strands on your brush and wonder if something is wrong. Hormonal hair loss can become more noticeable in colder months, and there are a few reasons behind it.
How Hormones Shape Your Hair Cycle
Hair doesn’t grow randomly. Each strand follows a cycle, and hormones help regulate every phase of it. To understand why, it helps to look at what hormones are doing behind the scenes.
Hormones are constantly sending signals throughout the body that tell different systems when to speed up, slow down, or adjust. You can think of them almost like biological managers, delivering information to cells and instructing them on what has to be done.
Among your hormones’ many duties is ensuring that hair grows and sheds. Hormones control when hair follicles enter and exit four distinct stages.
The Four Stages:
- Growing (Anagen): Under balanced hormonal conditions, approximately 85-90% of hair is in the growth stage. During this phase, root cells divide.
- Transitioning (Catagen): Next, hair growth stops, and follicles shrink. This typically lasts around ten days.
- Resting (Telogen): For around three months, the follicles take a break and hair stops growing.
- Shedding (Exogen): For two to five months, old hairs shed to make room for new growth. It’s normal to lose 50-100 hairs during this stage.
The Hormone Connection
Hormones tell follicles when it’s time to change stages. When levels are balanced, hair grows and sheds normally. But hormones don’t always stay balanced. When they shift, that rhythm can get disrupted. Hair may stop growing as fast as it should or shed more than expected. That’s when thinning becomes noticeable.
When hair starts to thin, often at the crown for women or the top of the scalp for men, it’s usually referred to as pattern hair loss. There’s also been growing interest in newer ways to support hair growth. One example is a study on Low-Level Laser Therapy (LLLT) published by the National Library of Medicine suggesting it may help stimulate hair follicles, signaling them to enter the growth phase early or continue growing. This helps avoid hormonal hair loss.
Not every disruption to the hair cycle is a bad thing. In some cases, the right combination of treatments and lifestyle changes can help support healthier, stronger hair over time.
What Throws That Balance Off
One of the most talked-about hormones in hair loss is dihydrotestosterone (DHT). When levels rise higher than usual, it can shrink hair follicles which can lead to hair thinning or stop growth over time.
Stress is another big factor. When you’re under pressure, your body releases cortisol, often called the stress hormone. When cortisol spikes, your body shifts into survival mode and activates your sympathetic nervous system. In that state, your body experiences increased heart rate, blood pressure spikes, rapid or shallow breathing, and muscle tightening.
Hair growth isn’t a priority for your body when it’s focusing on more immediate needs so the cycle slows down or pauses altogether. The technical name for this is “telogen effluvium.” Telogen means the resting phase of a hair follicle. When the hair follicles are in this resting phase, it can lead to significant shedding appearing within 3-6 months of the stress trigger. While the hair loss may feel sudden, it is actually a gradual process that started before the shedding happened.
Managing stress early can help reduce the kind of imbalances that lead to hormonal hair loss and other health conditions.
Why Winter Makes It Worse
Winter doesn’t just change the weather, it can also affect your mood and what’s happening in your body. Those changes aren’t always obvious, but they can affect things like hormones and, over time, your hair growth cycle. Let’s take a look at winter-specific factors that can disrupt the hormonal balance and hair growth patterns.
1. Changes in Sleep Hormones
Often taken as a sleep aid, melatonin is a hormone that regulates the sleep cycle. Excessive melatonin causes the growth stage to occur for a longer amount of time, possibly as a residual evolutionary response for growing more “fur” for warmth during the winter. When melatonin levels shift, it can influence other hormones involved in the hair cycle.
So, while melatonin isn’t itself considered a cause of hormonal hair loss, seasonal shifts in your body’s internal rhythm may still affect how consistently your hair grows and sheds.
2. Less Sunlight, Less Vitamin D
Vitamin D plays an important role in regulating the hair cycle. In winter, we usually get less sun, which can lead to lower vitamin D levels, and any deficiencies may slow down hair growth. It can also affect mood, which ties back into stress, and that can have a ripple effect on your hair as well.
3. Seasonal Lifestyle Habits
Winter routines tend to slow us down. People move less and spend more time indoors, often reaching for comfort-style foods. Over time, those habits can affect things like inflammation, stress levels, and overall hormonal balance.
A sedentary lifestyle can also increase stress, which may lead to higher cortisol levels and hormonal hair loss. Additionally, it can slow your metabolism, reducing hormone production. That imbalance can further interfere with the normal hair growth cycle.
The Good News
Seasonal shedding is usually temporary. Once your body returns to a more balanced state, the hair cycle often corrects itself.
In the meantime, small habits can help support your body. Make sure you get outside when you can, stay active, and eat nutrient-rich foods to help keep your hormones balanced and your hair growth cycle on track.
For those looking for additional ways to support hair health during colder months, LLLT products have been studied for their potential to stimulate hair follicles and support the growth phase. Devices like LaserCap offer a non-invasive option that some people choose to use alongside lifestyle changes.
For more general wellness tips to help you get through winter, explore more resources on HealthCare Bloggers.