How does hair know when to stop growing?

Hair has a great influence and significance in our lives. It plays an important role in the appearance of a person. People look for different ways to enhance their appearance with the help of this element of natural beauty. A lot of them struggle to make it grow faster. Sometimes, people believe that there is something that stops the hair growth. Is this concept true? And if it is, then how does it happen and how it affects everyone’s life?

Hair is one of the defining characteristics of mammals. The human body, besides areas of glabrous skin, is covered in follicles that produce finevellus hair and thick terminal hairs. People’s beliefs and attitudes towards different forms of hair, like hairstyles and hair removal, vary widely among different cultures and historical periods. Sometimes, it is considered as an indicator of a person’s beliefs or social position, such as their age, sex, or religion.

Hair is made up of a tough protein called keratin. Microscopically, they are complex than their gross appearance and play a vital role in both men and women’s lives. They are helpers to transmit sensory information and also help to create gender identification.

Hair is a protein filament that grows through follicles within deep skin. It grows on most of the other parts of the human body and not just on the head. Most noticeable parts are face, nose, ears, head, eyebrows, eyelashes, legs, and armpits. Its growth depends on genetics. Everyone’s hair growth is genetically controlled to stop growing at a specific length.

What helps in hair growth? In general, hair grows about 1cm every month. The faster-growing hair on the human body is facial hair. On average, human scalp hair grows almost 0.4mm/day. Male hair growth is much faster than the female’s.

Various factors affect hair growth, including age, health, diet, etc. These also result in hair loss. Some medical conditions like trauma, stress and anxiety are also the main cause ofaffecting hair growth and resulting in hair loss. They reduce blood and oxygen supply in the scalp which is essential for healthy hair growth.

As we now understand that hair growth is dependent on genetic factors, it is clear that hair does not know how long they have to grow. But they have a finite lifetime. This lifetime is controlled by genes. After that, they stop growing and start to fall out. But there is always new hair growing. This balance of falling out and new hair growth is the result of the equilibrium. That is the terminal length where you think that hair is no longer growing.

Each part of the body having hair also has different growth level and lifetime. Body hair, for example, has a much lower lifetime than the hair on our head. This results in different growth patterns of hair at different body parts. Now it is understandable why eyebrows are shorter than the hair on the head.

Now here comes a concern about how we can stimulate our hair growth? We have already discussed above that there are some factors like age, health, and diet that influence hair growth. Eating a healthy diet and maintaining healthy living habits can help in healthy hair growth. Also, scalp health care, hair care practices, medications, and other health conditions can help stimulate its growth pattern.

Haircare practices play an essential role in maintaining healthy hair growth because if your hair follicles are damaged, they will grow slowly,or even may not grow at all.

There are some beliefs that if we don’t cut or trim our hair regularly, they will not stop growing. This is wrong. If you don’t cut your hair, it will also reach a terminal length and will look like it’s not growing at all.

Also, some people believe that regular trimming of hair stimulates hair growth and increases its length. This is not right. Cutting your hair makes it healthier by removing split hair. Yes, regular trims allow maintaining the length of your mane, but it will not increase hair growth.

All in all, hair growth is dependent on genes and can be maintained by using healthy hair care practices.