How To Make Your Hair Grow Faster

“How DO You Make Your Hair Grow Faster?”

Paired with different variations of “how do I get through the awkward stage,” these are the most common questions we get by far.

It’s understandable. Awkward stage hair is a pain.

It’s the biggest reason there are relatively few men with long hair. The awkward stage weeds out the experimental and noncommittal members.

Compare it to business, physical fitness, long-term travel, and frankly anything in life that’s worth a damn. Nothing worthwhile comes easy, or fast. If you could grow long hair overnight, every guy would do it, even if just for the weekend.

But you can’t. There’s no such thing as a longhair weekend warrior—although quite a few guys had their night of glory this past Halloween.

Can You Make Your Hair Grow Faster?

The answer is...kind of. You can grow your hair as fast as your personal genetics allow. In other words, you can reach your maximum growth potential—or fall short of it, if you don’t do the right things.

Within that context, the myth that there is a method, formula, or voodoo practice that can grow your hair faster is simply not true.

With that said, you can do a few things to secure your best head of hair possible. You can make it the fastest, healthiest version of itself, based on the genes you were born with.

Hair’s Life Cycle

Hair growth happens in three distinct phases. The most important being the foundational Anagen phase. Do your best to care for your hair in this phase, and you’ll have a mane primed for a life of health and luxury through the following two phases.

Anagen

This is the growth phase. What you do for your hair in this stage is arguably the most important, as it creates the foundation for your flow. Unfortunately the length of this phase depends on genetics, lasting between two and six years. Remember, the hair you start growing on day one is the hair you’ll be rocking years down the line. Care for it early.

Catagen

This is the transitional stage. At this point, your hair is no longer growing. The follicle shrinks, the papilla detaches, and the hair no longer receives nutrients. Your dietary intake no longer affects the health of the hairs in this stage, but these hairs will remain anchored in the scalp.

Telogen

This is the end of the road for your hair, its final resting phase. The follicle remains dormant and anchored in place. Eventually the follicle will weaken and shed. The time for this to naturally occur (not by force) will again depend on genetics.

Dive deeper on hair and it’s life cycle:

Am I Balding Or Shedding?

Is Hair Shedding Normal?

3 Ways You’re Damaging Your Hair

Health

Health is an umbrella term. Consider more specifically your mental health, as it can positively and negatively impact your hair growth. How do you care for your own mental health?

Prioritize Needs

Figure out what your non-negotiables are. Maybe you need early mornings alone, or to have meals with your family. Set aside time for those needs every day. It doesn’t have to be long. Just make sure you take care of yourself.

Manage Stress

Stress can have a negative effect on your hair growth, and it’s not because you simply want to pull your hair out. Your body releases the stress hormone cortisol as a reaction to adverse experiences, and over time it can actually lead to hair loss. Less stress leads to better hair.

Balance Activities

Build in fun activities that offset the challenges of daily life. You can’t control what happens at work, during your commute, or in the grocery line. However, you can make sure you hang with the bros, play sports, recreate outdoors or whatever gives you juice.

More on long hair and mental health:

Community Counts In Mental Health

Long Hair and Confidence

2-Year Hair Update Reveals Concern

Nutrition

A healthy diet isn’t just for cutting fat or getting jacked. Your diet contributes to how you look but also how you feel and how your body functions. Better nutrition leads to better hair growth.

Hair cells are among the fastest growing in the body, requiring a good source of nutrition. If there is a shortage of nutrients, your hair is the first to suffer as your body considers them “non-essential” cells.

There are several different “ingredients” your hair needs to be its healthiest. There are numerous benefits to many of these, but we’ll focus on how they contribute to hair health.

Confirmed

Proven to help with healthy hair growth and maintenance.

Vitamin A

Helps balance scalp sebum, which is the oily fluid on the hair and scalp (Odchique, 2015). Ensuring you have a sufficient intake of vitamin A will give you a good baseline of your hair’s natural oil production. Once you achieve this baseline, you can start adjusting your hair care routine in order to add or strip oils as necessary.

Vitamin C

Prevents free radical oxidation of hair follicles and hair loss. Without it, hair becomes brittle and the scalp weakens (Odchique, 2015). For you science buffs, a free radical is an atom with an unpaired electron in its outer shell, and may also be linked to aging, as it is defined as the accumulation of free radical damage.

This harm is achieved by altering lipids, proteins, and DNA, as well as triggering a number of human diseases (Lobo, et. al. 2010). The way to combat this is by the consumption of antioxidants (found in blueberries), which are molecules that can safely interact with free radicals and terminate the chain reaction before vital molecules are damaged.

Vitamin E

Increases oxygen uptake into tissues, improving circulation and increasing hair health (Odchique, 2015). Anything to increase your circulation means that fresh nutrients are delivered to your hair in a manner that allows it to grow at its optimal rate.

Proteins

In a basic sense, proteins are building blocks. Your hair acts as a time capsule, adding new proteins to the base of the strand as it grows. The strand is then pushed out of the hair follicle, creating a timeline of your eating habits.

“What you consume influences the proteins of that moment’s hair growth...such as whether someone is using food they eat for energy or consuming their own tissue for energy due to lack of protein” (Collins, 2006).

Zinc

Contributes little to the hair growth game, but shows prominently in the hair loss one. Alopecia is often a sign of zinc deficiency (Lynn, 2010).

Not Yet Confirmed

Suspected to help with hair growth, but lacking the research to confirm.

Iron

Suggested to aid in the defense against hair loss. Without iron, your body doesn’t produce the hemoglobin that carries oxygen to grow and repair cells, including those that stimulate hair growth. However, with current research, there is not yet a causal relationship established between the intake of iron and maintenance of normal hair growth (EFSA, 2012).

Biotin

Touted as the end-all, be-all for hair growth in magazines and blogs, you’ve undoubtedly heard the craze surrounding this one. The proof that biotin helps non-deficient individuals is nonexistent. To date, the only randomized controlled trial to study the effects of biotin on hair quality and quantity showed a significant increase in thickness of the hair on 90 female subjects experiencing thinning.

“Biotin as a dietary supplement for normal healthy people without deficiency or any inborn error of metabolism on its own may not be an ergogenic aid for hair health.” (Soleymani, et. al. 2017).

In other words, if you’re not experiencing hair loss, biotin has not been proven to help your hair grow—though further study is warranted.

Your Hair Care Grocery List:

It’s rather intuitive; your hair grows out of your body, so if you take care of your body, you take care of your hair. Check out our suggested foods for the next time you visit the local grocer to ensure your hair is getting all the nutrients it needs to grow at maximum potential.

Grocery Item	Nutrition Goal
Avocados, peanuts, sunflower seeds, vegetable oil, broccoli	Vitamin E
Carrots, sweet potatoes, cantaloupe, apricots	Vitamin A
Citrus Fruits, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, tomatoes	Vitamin C
Spinach and dark leafy greens	Iron
Eggs, soy, lean beef, milk	Protein
Blueberries, dark chocolates, pecans	Antioxidants
Oysters, red meats, poultry, cashews, baked beans, chickpeas	Zinc

A balanced diet is the goal here. If you feel as though you are lacking in any nutritional areas, speak to your doctor before self-prescribing supplements.

Exercise

With eating better, you’re likely to find yourself with more energy. Put it to work in getting your body moving and pushing nutrients to your hair follicles.

Choose Activities You Enjoy

Exercise comes in many forms. The goal is just to get your body moving. The CDC recommends 150 minutes of aerobic and/or muscle strengthening activity each week, or 30 minutes a day.

It could be yoga, walking, biking, powerlifting, gardening, playing soccer, or so many others. Any movement is better than none. If you’re a real savage you can even train like The Longhairs.

Nourish Your Hair

Movement that increases your breathing and raises your heart rate gets fresh oxygen into your body. More oxygen and nutrients in your bloodstream means more potential growth for your hair follicles.

Reduce Stress

Again, reducing stress in your life helps to avoid premature hair loss. As you become active, your body releases “feel-good hormones,” called endorphins. These hormones help alleviate the symptoms of stress, which can include a number of endocrine, metabolic, autoimmune, and psychiatric disorders, as well as actually inhibiting growth (Charmandari et. al. 2005).

Hair growth is the goal. So make sure you’ve got some workout classes booked or go for a walk when it’s sunny, because it’ll do more for you than just get you out of the house.

Can You Grow Your Hair Faster?

The hard truth is: there is only so much you can do to make your hair grow faster.

Overall good health, avoiding damage, and taking in the right nutrients can help, the details of which you can read in Quick Tips. Beyond that, it’s up to genetics. Patience and commitment are the name of the game...the long game.

Once you accept that fact, there’s a certain sense of pride that comes with it. As men in the awkward stage, we must embrace the struggle. Instead of being concerned with just getting through it, we should wear it proudly. Like a poor-looking badge of courage, ragged in appearance yet standing tall.

This cold realization begs the next question: ok, if you can’t make your hair grow faster, what can you do to mitigate the awkward stage? Glad you asked.

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Awkward Stage Hair

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