We often hear that “pull out one grey hair and ten will grow back”? Is this true?

According to the "News Hyperlink" of China National Radio and Television, recently, someone encountered a "white hair pulling" service while traveling in Sanya: the service staff combed the hair with a comb to find the white hair, and then pulled them out one by one with tweezers. The fee was 50 yuan per hour.

From some videos, we can see that those who experience pulling out their gray hair are generally not elderly people, but mostly young and middle-aged people; netizens' comments are mostly in a joking tone.

Netizens have mixed opinions on gray hair removal services

What is the difference between "pulling gray hair" and traditional services such as ear cleaning and massage? Can pain also be addictive? Why do young people mind their gray hair more?

01 Graying of hair is a natural process

Why does human hair turn gray? Graying of hair is a normal physiological phenomenon in the aging process. It is usually because the cells that produce melanin in the human body decline to a certain extent with age, causing the hair to turn gray.

Some people have some white hair at a young age, which is mostly related to the secretion of melanin in the human body. Some people will have "premature graying of hair", which is mostly caused by family inheritance; if the human body lacks some trace elements, such as potassium and copper, it is also possible to have premature gray hair.

02 If you pull out one root, will ten grow?

Many people have heard the saying that if you pull out one grey hair, ten will grow back, but there is no scientific basis for this saying.

Each hair has its corresponding hair follicle, and the melanin in each hair follicle will act on the hair produced by this follicle; even if the white hair is pulled out, the degenerated hair follicle still lacks melanin, and the hair that grows again may still be white, and the number will not increase.

Some people think that pulling out gray hair can "exercise" the scalp and hair follicles, so that the newly grown hair will turn black again. This statement is also untenable, because pulling out gray hair cannot cause the function of local hair follicle melanocytes to recover and resynthesize melanin. Instead, it will cause local alopecia due to frequent damage to hair follicles, or even cause hair loss in a larger area.

In fact, occasionally pulling out white hair is not a big problem, but if the frequency is too high and the amount of hair pulled out each time is relatively large, the hair follicles and scalp on the head will be damaged. Wu Jianbo, chief physician of the Department of Dermatology at Wuhan University Zhongnan Hospital, said: Pulling out white hair will damage local hair follicles, and once the hair follicles are damaged, external bacteria or fungi may take advantage of the opportunity to enter the hair follicles and cause infectious folliculitis, which sometimes spreads and worsens. In addition, frequent pulling out of white hair may also damage the scalp and cause the skin on the head to loosen.

Scalp structure diagram

03 Can’t stop pulling out your gray hair? It may be a mental illness!

Some people pull out their gray hair out of curiosity, some to relieve stress, and some to look younger and better. In fact, most people who change their appearance are trying to find confidence.

Some people may transform the pain into a sense of achievement when they are under great pressure, which can relieve anxiety to a certain extent. But more people gain a sense of visual confidence from pulling out their gray hair - it seems like they have returned to the days when their hair was black.

Many people are keen on ear picking and massage, which are quite different from pulling out gray hair. Massaging acupuncture points can relieve stress, while ear picking can give people pleasure because there are many sensitive nerves on the ears. However, pulling out gray hair brings more pain. If a person particularly likes to pull out gray hair, an extreme possibility is that he suffers from trichotillomania. In psychology, there is indeed such a disease in which patients like to pull out hair, eyebrows and other body hair to get pleasure from it. If it really presents a pathological psychology, psychological intervention and psychological treatment are needed in a timely manner.

04 Instead of focusing on the amount of gray hair, it is better to strengthen self-identity

People generally have a nostalgic attachment to youth and anxiety about aging. The graying of hair happens now, and its symbolic meaning may be the pressure of entering a life with elderly parents and young children, or it may be the resistance encountered in expanding work, which never happened when we were young.

But the youth with black hair may not be as beautiful as imagined. Whether it is growing white hair or adding wrinkles, these are natural laws and signs of growth; if you pay too much attention to these, it may be a manifestation of insufficient self-recognition. For example, if you always feel that your current state is not good, then pulling out the white hair may just be the beginning, and it may also lead to a series of behavioral changes, becoming more and more unconfident and nostalgic for the past.

Pulling out gray hair is actually trying to pull out the panic in our hearts, or the details that we don’t identify with ourselves.

It is much more reliable to focus on the present and make use of your strengths and advantages than to relieve stress by pulling out gray hair.