Is it bad to touch your hair a lot

Is it bad to touch your hair a lot? I am very guilty of doing this. When I style my hair, I excessively scrunch my hair to compensate for my lack of texture.

Like most people though, I don’t usually notice when I’m touching my hair, let alone how. Something that my friends agreed with too (turns out we’re a bunch of frantic hair fiddlers).

Psychologists have associated it with everything from a coping mechanism for anxiety to feeling flirty. You could also just be doing it out of boredom too.

But more often than not, it’s probably because you’re feeling stressed or self-conscious, or you’re trying to feel sexy (although if I’m trying to feel sexy, I guarantee you that I’m also feeling stressed and self-conscious too).

As I sit in front of the computer, deep in thought, I subconsciously play with hair. I twirl it and run my fingers through it, and I don’t realize the harm I’m doing.

Over scrunching your hair and touching your hair too much actually causes frizz and breakage. When your fingers touch your hair too much, they can actually steal away essential oils, leading to dry and easily broken hair strands.

Solution: don’t scrunch too much — once you apply product to your hair, scrunch it in 1-3 times to enhance your hair texture and prevent frizz.

When you are at home and tempted to play with your curls, put them up in a loose bun or cover them up with a satin scarf or cap.

Why is touching your hair too much bad

Hand in hair syndrome can result in bad symptoms such as weaker hair, split ends, and breakage. All of these things make it hard to maintain healthy hair and/or retain hair length. So with all this in mind, can touching your hair really cause your hair to fall out? Yes and no.

If you’re taking proper care of your hair, regularly touching it throughout the day shouldn’t be a big problem. But it certainly can have a negative effect over time.

No matter how clean you think you are, your hands are dirty. They touch a lot of things throughout the day. So naturally they accumulate dirts and oils that your hair doesn’t like.

If you have a habit of pulling your hair with your fingers, then external dirts and oils can mix in with the natural oils in your hair and hair product to create build-up.

We mentioned it earlier, but it’s worth repeating: If your scalp environment isn’t clean, your hair won’t grow very well… and it might even cause hair loss.

When you touch your hair, not only are you putting foreign dirt and oils into your hair, you could also be removing natural oils that make your hair look good.

This can disrupt your hair’s moisture levels. When your hair is less moisturized, it’s less elastic. Less elasticity means it’ll be more prone to breakage when you run your hands through it.

Running your fingers through your hair is not going to be the difference between thick, luscious hair and going bald.

But if you’re starting to see hairs fall out when you run your hands through it, there’s a bigger problem, and playing with it is not the issue.

How do you keep your hands out your hair

Get a protective style

This is probably the best thing that you can do to keep your hands out of your hair. Protective styling offers the ability to keep your strands tucked away.

You will not be able to mess with your actual hair while in a protective style. Give your hair a break and install a cute protective style. A few good protective styles to try are Marley twists and crochet braids.

Wear low manipulation styles

Low manipulation styles like mini twists, buns, and halo braids are also a really good option to avoid putting your hands in your hair. One simple style we love is this halo braid.

Rock an updo

Updos are another style that can help to keep your hands at bay. There are so many cute updo styles that you can create, and they also can last a few weeks. Check out these super cute updo inspirations.

Wear a head wrap

Head scarves are a stylish means of keeping your hands out of your hair. Learning how to wrap your hair can be challenging, but once you get the hang of it, you might get addicted. Check out these super cute head wrap styles for some fierce inspiration.

How can i protect and strengthen my hair from touching?

Rather than being afraid to touch your hair, strengthen and protect it. Here are a few things you can do right away to protect your hair:

Wear your hair down

Wearing tight, intricate hairstyles causes a lot of stress to your follicles. Give your hair a break by wearing it down or in a low-manipulation hairstyle like a loose French braid more often. Going a few days between ponytails will give your hair and scalp time to recover.

Avoid friction

Ditch the cotton pillowcases in favor of satin or silk sheets. These cause much less friction, which means your hair won’t get as tangled and your follicles won’t get as pulled while you sleep. Friction is the enemy of damage-free hair growth.

Get a hair growth vitamin

A daily hair supplement that has the important hair growth nutrients like biotin, iron and vitamins C and B3 can help the overall strength of your hair.

If you’re taking care of your hair the right way, you shouldn’t have to worry about the effects of touching your hair. Just be conscious of when your hands are extra greasy or your hair already has products in it.

You don’t want to add in any foreign oils that could cause problems, or take out the natural oils that are giving your hair that good moisture. If you can’t help it, just make it a point to wash your hands more often!

Get your mind (and hands) on something else

Prevent idle hands by focusing on something else. Try to engage in activities that keep your hands busy such as exercising, writing, cooking, or whatever hobby rejuvenates you.

Personally, cleaning is my way of getting my mind off of things when I find myself touching my hair too much.

What is Hand-In-Hair Syndrome

Hand in hair syndrome is a disorder where people with all types of hair can’t keep their hands out of their hair. They pull at their curls, brush their hair too much, touch their hair when its drying, twirl it around their fingers, and other acts of over-manipulation. Here is a guide on how to keep hand in hair syndrome at bay.

5 Ways to Treat Hand-In-Hair Syndrome

1. Take a good look in the mirror before you leave the house.

Sometimes, you may touch you hair for a few reasons. Maybe you’re nervous about your appearance. You feel like you have pieces of hair that are out of place so you’ll constantly try to fix it. Stop this problem by keeping a compact mirror on you at all times so you can check discreetly, even whenever you’re out in public.

2. Never ever ever brush your hair when it is not sopping wet with conditioner.

Brushing hair while it’s dry causes breakage and split ends. This is because your hair curls and twists around itself and you are ripping the knots out with your brush. When a lot of conditioner is used, the slip that is necessary to safely detangle allows you to detangle the hair without ripping pieces off.

More: 2 Ways to Finger Detangle

3. Style your hair while you are in the shower.

Apply a leave-in while your hair is still soaking wet. That way you are not manipulating your hair when it’s dry so it does not break easily. Do not touch it once you are done styling it or it will frizz up.

4. Avoid mindless tasks.

A lot of the time when I wear my hair down, I find myself playing with my hair absent mindedly while I’m doing things like watching TV or surfing the internet. Whenever I’m doing more engaging things I feel more aware of my actions and I’m more effectively able to stop myself from playing with my hair.

5. Put your hair up.

Pull your hair in a ponytail or bun to stop yourself from pulling and twisting it. When your hair is up, you have to do more to reach it and hopefully this will make you more aware of what you are subconsciously doing so you can consciously put in an effort to stop yourself.

Conclusion

Thanks for reading my article about Is it bad to touch your hair a lot, Keeping your hair healthy is top priority, and letting it get damaged by over touching your hair is never a very pleasing outcome.

touching the hair may seems harmless, but you may not know touching your hair very often you are damaging your hair and scalp.

Play with your hair creates frizz, and makes your hair tangle, disrupt your hair moister levels, and makes your hair greasy with a-lot of dirt build up in your hair.

in the worst case possible, it can thin out your hair and can lead to drastic hair loss. Who wants to end up in this situation? therefore it is highly recommended that you don’t play in your hair too much.

This may sound like a achievement that is very difficult to attain, but you can do it by following these tips that i laid out in this article.

they are very practical which can help you break the hair in hand syndrome. Please checkout my other post about Why are we drying natural hair with T-shirts