The Best Way to Exercise for Hair Growth: Complete How-to Guide
In this blog post, we’ll explore how to exercise for hair growth. We cover a lot of different ways that exercise can help your hair grow and improve blood flow and circulation.
Since you’ll have your own exercise preferences, during our research, we found many different types of exercises that should work well regardless of your fitness level.
Some of the exercises are more intense than others, although all of them should provide benefits and help you promote healthy hair growth. Choose the exercises that match your level of physical capabilities.
Table of Contents
Is Exercising Good For Hair Growth?
Exercising is good for hair growth because it opens the pores on your scalp, resulting in increased blood circulation for your scalp and increased oxygen levels, stimulating hair growth.
It’s a no-brainer that exercising regularly (as little as 3 times a week) can have major health benefits for your entire body — but these health benefits can apply to your hair as well.
For the lovely ladies with natural curls, this is especially important for you! Many ladies within the natural hair care community desire longer hair in shorter amounts of time.
Although it’s not that curly hair doesn’t grow; it’s just that many curly girls experience shrinkage, so it may be harder to notice the growth initially.
Not to mention that many women with natural curls experience dryer hair while other hair types experience different challenges with their hair.
When you exercise, you’re inviting the pores within your scalp to open up. This can increase the blood flow to your head, increase your oxygen levels, maximize the potential for stronger, more durable hair follicles and promote hair growth.
Plus, when your pores open when as you get up and move your body, natural oils moisturize your scalp from the roots down. Natural hair, no matter what type, loves to be rich and moisturized.
When you finish your workout routine — whatever it may be — don’t you feel that dopamine rush?
It’s actually scientifically proven that exercise increases endorphins (the happy hormone) to help you relax and enjoy the experience. However, many of us don’t necessarily look forward to our workouts unless we’ve been doing it for a while consistently.
We can all agree that the feeling after exercising is unshakeable and reduces mental and physical stress! Plus, we all know that stress can lead to hair loss (or hair fall) which we all want to avoid.
What Are the Best Exercises for Hair Growth?
Everyone is different, so we wanted to make sure that we provided many different ways for people to explore exercise to boost hair growth.
Whether you’re into hard workouts that push your limits and give you a good sweat to simple breathing exercises, we have something here for you to try.
Scalp Massage Increase Blood Flow and Promote Hair Growth
Let’s start off super simple with an easy, straightforward scalp exercise that you can use to affect hair growth.
As mentioned above, the scalp is where all the magic happens! From blood flow to holding your hair follicles and releasing natural oils, taking care of your scalp is one of the most important things you can do to aid hair growth.
One exercise (or technique) that you can use is a scalp or head massage. If you’ve never had a scalp massage before, we highly recommend that you get one.
Remember how amazing it feels to have your scalp shampooed at a professional salon?
Scalp massages feel even better with the rhythmic movements across acupressure points. Massages are not only great for promoting hair growth, but they stimulate blood flow and relieve stress.
Also, don’t forget about the nape of the neck, as you’ll want to get those neck muscles a bit of special attention.
How To Do Head Massage With Oil for Hair Growth
All you need is yourself (or a friend that’s willing to give you a scalp rub-down), a comb of sorts (we recommend a rat-tail comb), and natural oils (pick one or a few from the list below for the best results).
Best essential oils for natural hair:
- Lavender (stimulates hair growth and reduces stress)
- Peppermint (stimulates hair growth)
- Rosemary (promotes thicker hair growth)
- Cedarwood (helps treat dryness, dandruff, and hair loss)
- Lemongrass (treats dandruff)
- Thyme (helps treat and prevent hair loss)
- Clary Sage (Improves hair strength and reduces breakage)
- Tea Tree (cleansing, stimulates hair growth, anti-dandruff)
- Ylang-Ylang (improve hair strength and reduce breakage)
Keep in mind that essential oils should be diluted. Click on the link of your preferred oil above for a detailed write-up of how to use that specific oil.
Once you choose which natural oils you want to massage your scalp with, you’ll need to separate your hair into four equal sections. We recommend parting your hair down the middle, then parting each of those parts down the middle horizontally.
From there, you can part your hair into smaller parts if you would like and gently massage the diluted oil into your scalp. You can increase the intensity to improve blood flow to the scalp, but remember this is still a massage, so don’t be too rough.
Massaging your head is a very effortless, effective way to not only moisturize your scalp but it stimulates blood flow and relieves stress, thereby helping in hair growth.
Yoga Poses for Natural Hair Growth
Yoga has been practiced for millennia in ancient cultures and has proven to have many health benefits, including helping with hair growth. We have included a variety of different yoga poses that offer a variety of health benefits.
Pavanamukthasana: Wild Relieving Pose
This particular pose is great for the digestive system, which is directly connected to your inner stress levels. As we discussed before, the more that you’re able to reduce stress, the longer you will be able to not only keep your natural hair but stimulate hair growth as well.
This pose is super simple to do, too. All you need to do is lie on the floor comfortably and lift your knees up to your chest.
To hold this position comfortably, you can wrap your arms around your knees and hold them to your chest while you breathe deeply.
This particular pose helps to relieve any trapped gas within the digestive system, which can reduce physical stress and improve gut health.
Pandangusthasana: Big Toe Pose
This pose is a little more advanced than the last pose, but it’s still just as good for hair growth.
To start, stand straight with your feet shoulder-width apart. Then, while monitoring your breathing, you’ll raise your arms to the side simultaneously until they are parallel to the ground.
Your arms should create a single line from one end to the other, through the shoulders.
Then, you’ll need to slowly lift one of your legs up to the side until your hand can grab your toes. Your leg should be lifted to the side at a 90-degree angle. You can alternate between both legs as you please.
This pose will take a bit more concentration to focus on your balance, and it may even cause you to sweat a little if you’re not used to it — and that’s okay!
Again, focus on your breathing and enjoy the stimulation that your head receives through focused concentration.
Uttanasana: Standing Forward Fold Pose
This yoga pose is one of the best for hair growth because your head will receive an intense flow of blood and oxygen, which improves the quality of your hair!
To get into this pose, you’ll need to first stand straight with your feet together. Again, focus on breathing deeply as this increases blood flow throughout the entire body.
Then slowly, you’re going to bend forward and bring your head down as close to your knees as possible. You can grab your ankles to hold this position if this makes you feel more comfortable.
Or, if you cannot bring your head down to your knees yet, that’s totally fine. Just bend forward as much as possible, and you can grab the back of your shins if that’s more comfortable.
The point of this yoga pose is to increase blood flow to all areas of the body, especially your hair, to improve natural hair growth.
Ushtrasana: Camel Pose
This particular yoga pose may not be for everyone, but if you can do it, we recommend trying it to stimulate your hair growth.
Contorting your body into new poses not only pushes its limits (which is essential in exercise), but it also gets the blood flowing into different areas of the body.
With your head bent backward in Camel Pose, you’ll begin to increase blood circulation to your scalp.
To get into this position, sit on your knees with your hands placed on your waist with thumbs placed back. As you slowly breathe, begin to carefully bend backward and hold your feet with your hands.
This will give your back, thighs, and chest a good stretch as you explore this yoga pose. Try to hold yourself in this position for 30 seconds.
Shirshasana: Headstand Pose
Of course, the headstand pose is going to improve blood circulation as your hanging upside down. However, not everyone is ready to get into a headstand or try other neck exercises the first time they try yoga, but we highly recommend it to move blood down to the head to improve hair growth.
To get into your first headstand pose, you may want to use the help of a sturdy wall to keep you up and straight. First, sit down on your knees on a yoga mat.
Then, you’ll want to place your hands in front crossing your fingers. Next, try to bend forward and place your head in the hands where your fingers are crossed.
Now slowly lift your body, giving your legs a push for slight momentum. You can place your legs on the wall to balance yourself until you’re ready to try this position with less support.
If this is too much for you, consider trying the inversion method, which would provide similar results with less difficulty.
Sasangasana: Rabbit Pose
This yoga technique improves blood circulation as the crown of your head touches the ground, and you’re stretching your body in a way that it hardly experiences, which takes concentration.
To try this yoga pose, you’ll need to get on your knees on your yoga mat and then flow into having your hands on the mat directly under your shoulders. You should resemble a table.
Then, you’ll slowly move your head forward until your crown touches the floor. Move your hands down until they are holding your heels. Don’t forget to breathe here!
Believe it or not, many other yoga poses can help promote healthy natural hair growth, but we want to share other ways for people who want to explore more options than just yoga.
Using Cardio for Hair Growth
This section is for the active curly girls. If you’ve been conditioned to think that sweat is horrible for your hair, we’re here to debunk that myth. Cardio exercises are great for your overall health, including your external appearance, heart health, and even your natural hair growth.
As mentioned above, the more that you sweat, the more open your pores become on the scalp of your head.
We recommend a daily workout routine that includes cardio. You could jog outside (or on a treadmill if you’re unable to hit the pavement) or even jump roping in your front yard to induce a good sweat.
You shouldn’t leave your hair sweaty after a good, hard workout. You can either wash your hair with a gentle sulfate-free shampoo or co-wash it with your favorite moisturizing conditioner.
Breathing for Natural Hair Growth
This might sound silly, or you may think that breathing isn’t an exercise at all, but taking deep, intentional breaths can change your natural hair care growth for the better.
Throughout this entire article, we’ve mentioned it, but it’s important to emphasize the positive impact more blood, and oxygen flow has on the entire body, including your natural hair.
Specific breathwork exercises can increase oxygen and blood flow to both sides of the brain, which are expected to improve your hair growth. This will balance the body, reducing stress and potential hair loss.
To do this breathing exercise, gently close your right nostril with your thumb and inhale through your left nostril. After that, pinch off the airflow by closing both sides of the nose simultaneously using ring and pinky fingers.
Inhale through your right nostril, exhale slowly from the left. Repeat with the other nostril (right inhaled and left exhaled).
Then, of course, you can always practice regular breathing and meditation work daily to improve the overall health of your body and hair strands.
Which Exercise Is Best For Hair Growth?
The best exercise for hair growth is a regular scalp massage that can improve hair growth by delivering essential nutrients to your scalp. Hair follicles need a steady supply of blood in order to remain healthy and active.
Some people neglect their scalp when it comes to their beauty routines, but rubbing your fingertips on the scalp not only relives stress, but it also is great for people with headaches.
Is Sweating Good For Hair Growth?
Sweating helps to unclog the hair follicles on your scalp, which allows your pores to release dead skin, leftover hair products, and anything else that could be clogging your pores.
Sweat is good for hair growth because it stimulates the scalp, but salty sweat build-up isn’t great for your hair and can cause damage and inhibit healthy growth. It is important to wash your hair in order for the sweat not to remain on your head for too long and then cause folliculitis.
According to the Cleveland Clinic, folliculitis is a common side effect of certain activities like shaving or sweating excessively from exercise or outside work. Severity can range from itching and redness to dry scalp to acne-like bumps.
Can Exercise Reduce Hair Loss?
While there are several benefits to exercising for at least 30 minutes per day, treating hair loss isn’t one of those benefits. If you’ve ever combed your hair out, you’ll notice that it’s completely normal to lose hair daily.
Studies have found that we typically lose about 50-100 strands of hair a day, but just as we are losing them, new ones are growing in as well. Several factors could cause someone to begin losing their hair at an excessive rate.
Let’s face the problem of hair loss head-on: what are the root causes?
There are many people who have hereditary genes that cause them to lose their hair. This is very common, and there are medical procedures, medications, and some recommended holistic ways to mitigate early hair loss. This can happen to both men and women.
If you have certain medical conditions or sudden major shifts in hormones, your hair growth could be negatively affected. This could happen to women due to pregnancy, especially after they have a baby. Or, both men and women could face conditions like alopecia areata that cause hair loss in large amounts.
Certain medications or medical treatments could also cause hair loss. For instance, if you or a loved one have been diagnosed with cancer, the intense medical treatments could affect your hair growth.
Even medications to improve mental health could have physical side effects that can cause hair loss for both men and women.
Finally, being stressed out can cause unnecessary hair loss for both genders. To best reduce stress and the potential medical issues listed above, exercise is a key component. Although, consulting a medical professional is always recommended.
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Common Mistakes When Trying to Grow Natural Hair
The most detrimental thing that you can do when trying to improve your natural hair growth is to give up when you’re just getting started — which parallels your exercise habits, too!
Just like with any diet or exercise program, you have to commit to a lifestyle change. Your hair is another important part of your body that deserves love, care, attention, and high-quality products to take care of it.
The same amount of effort you put into changing your body should be applied to how you attack your natural hair care routine to increase growth, reduce breakage, and improve your inner and outer health.
