Mini: Can Stress Turn Your Hair Gray?

Why We Do What We Do

The idea that stress turns our hair gray has been the punchline of many jokes. Do those of us with anxiety gray sooner? We do a quick dive into the science of graying hair and to what extent stress may be related to the accelerated pace of graying.
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Links and References:

1. https://newsinhealth.nih.gov/2020/04/how-stress-causes-gray-hair#:~:text=A%20new%20study%20shows%20that,pigment%2Dproducing%20cells%20called%20melanocytes.
2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2022/12/19/gray-hair-causes-stress-genetics/
3. Zhang B, Ma S, Rachmin I, He M, Baral P, Choi S, Gonçalves WA, Shwartz Y, Fast EM, Su Y, Zon LI, Regev A, Buenrostro JD, Cunha TM, Chiu IM, Fisher DE, Hsu YC. Hyperactivation of sympathetic nerves drives depletion of melanocyte stem cells. Nature. 2020 Jan;577(7792):676-681. doi: 10.1038/s41586-020-1935-3. Epub 2020 Jan 22. PMID: 31969699; PMCID: PMC7184936.
4. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/06/210622154339.htm
5. https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/health-wellness/2023/04/14/does-stress-cause-grey-hair-yes-but-may-reversible/11634233002/
6. Ayelet M Rosenberg, Shannon Rausser, Junting Ren, Eugene V Mosharov, Gabriel Sturm, R Todd Ogden, Purvi Patel, Rajesh Kumar Soni, Clay Lacefield, Desmond J Tobin, Ralf Paus, Martin Picard. Quantitative mapping of human hair greying and reversal in relation to life stress. eLife, 2021; 10 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.67437
7. https://psychcentral.com/stress/does-stress-cause-grey-hair#stress-and-gray-hair

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