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Tips to Detangle Depression Matted hair, trigger positive mood, and set the vibes!
Whether you know it or not depression matted hair affects millions of people in more ways than one. Recently I had someone ask me about what my routine is to untangle knotted hair, which inspired this article. I’m all about getting good content to my audience, so shout out to T for the article inspiration!
Now let’s get to the topic! There are many reasons for depression and hair knotting, but in combination with each other, they can be devastating. This article is intended to be a feel-good read for people battling depression and help detangle matted hair. With that said, expect plenty of my corny humor as well as great information… Let’s get to it!
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What is matted depression hair?
Matted depression hair is when the human hair is tangled from lack of grooming due to depression or extreme stress. Often people with high anxiety may not feel like or have the energy to comb or brush their hair. During the state of mental exhaustion, the hair isn’t properly cared for and as a result, it causes knotted hair.
Does depression make your hair matted?
When someone is experiencing dark days due to high stress or depression it feels like the world is weighing on their shoulders. The last thing on your mind is how your hair looks… Being in quarantine has not made things any better. The isolation of working from home, taking online classes, and closure of social environments have been harsh on mental state and their hair.
Usually, matted hair and depression go hand and hand… It’s difficult to separate the two, however, it is possible to do it. Keep in mind those feeling may cause you to be discouraged. Let’s go over some of the symptoms of depression and hair matting.
When you’re suffering from depression, you’re more likely to spend more time in bed which will result in hair tangling. A similar example of this is hospital and nursing home patients… They often have limited mobility and are in bed for long periods of time. This is commonly referred to as hospital matted hair.
Though, people who suffer from depression can move on their own but are unmotivated which results in hair knotting. Depression hair occurs from pressure from the weight of your head against the suffice of your headrest and constant head movement. The excessive head movement against a pillow surface and lack of hair grooming accelerate afro hair tangling.
People who are of African descent with coarse are highly susceptible to hair matting during depression. I should also point out that mixed-race hair matting can occur within biracial individuals if your hair is on the thicker coarse side.
Can depression cause hair breakage?
Natural Hair tangling from depression can cause hair breakage if you are not careful while you’re detangling it. When the hair is being unknotted and isn’t moisturized beforehand it will cause hair breakage in African male hair. Let’s go over a quick rundown of what factors in hair breakage.
I should point out, besides rough hair grooming practices, hair breakage could be caused by many reasons. Note, strong healthy hair depends on an inner cuticle with a covering that keeps your hair strands together. When the hair shell falls apart it leads to dry hair and ultimately separates, resulting in damaged hair. This causes weakened hair that leads to split ends, hair breakage, and other damage warning sign like dryness and frizz.
Three simple things you should do before you untangle knotted hair!
The goal is to get you into a good space before you rid of matted hair from stress. A few simple things you can do to lighten your mood and make the detangling process go smoothly! I have a few exercises I’d like you to do before you start.
Brighten the room.
I can’t express this enough, but simply illuminating the area you’re in could positively impact your mood! You want to be in the best mood as possible to rid of depression and fix your tangled hair.
Consider a mood light to help cheer yourself up. You can find a surprisingly cheap and good Rechargeable Wireless Light Therapy Lamp on Amazon.com. It’s rechargeable and portable, and best of all you can use it as light while you detangle depression knots out of your hair.
Deep breathing
One of the quickest and easiest things you can do to feel better is to do some deep breathing exercises. This will allow more oxygen in your lungs and to your brain! Before you start ridding matted hair, I want you to try the 4 7 8 breathing technique.
To do the exercise you will need to sit up straight, and with a closed mouth inhale gently through your nose. The key to feeling better is a harmonious combination of calm and mental counting.
What you want to do is to hold your breath and count until seven. Once you’ve counted to 7, softly exhale completely through your mouth. The sound you should make when done correctly is a whoosh sound as you count out to eight. You want to repeat the cycle of counting, inhaling, and exhaling exercise about three to four times.
Upbeat music
After you’ve brightened your room, and have done some breathing exercise, it’s time to play music to lift your spirit! Whenever I am down, my go-to music choices are UK grime, Haitian Kompa, Soca, Dancehall… Basically, any music that has a high tempo with a positive message! Now that we’ve taken the necessary step to cheer you up let’s proceed to unknotting that hair!
How to get your hair looking better so you can feel better?
All it takes is one bad week. Too much time at work, feeling a little down, or simply don’t feel like combing your hair for a few days. Depression matted hair is hard to deal with, but you’ve got some options. Let’s talk about what you can do to set things right.
How do I detangle depression matted hair?
The beauty of the provided tips is you can do it all on your own and the best part you can detangle matted hair at home. One of the ways to stay under the radar is when you’re not feeling the greatest is to improve your appearance. This will allow you to bypass the dreaded “are you OKAY” questions. The first step to getting out of that dark place is to muster up some energy, then unknot that tangled hair!
To detangle depression matted hair at home, you will have to dampen it, treat it with oils or conditioner, and slowly comb it out. Be patient so you don’t do any more damage…Trust me, everything will be okay. I’ll give you some great information to help you safely undo tangled hair at home.
What do I need to get started?
First off, you’re going to need a few things to do this right. Depression matted hair takes a little work, care, and time but it’s doable. Yo, we’re feeling good and relaxed… Things are great right?! Now, we’ll need to get the following items ready, and then we can get this ball rolling:
- One full spray bottle of water
- Deep conditioner or some detangling oil
- 3 combs – One wide-tooth, one ‘medium’ spaced comb, and one standard comb.
- A small set of hair scissors (we’ll talk about those more in the ‘combing’ section)
Note: If your hair is extremely sensitive or refined, or if you just don’t like using most commercial products then you can use the following for detangling: Below are some organic options you can use, you can surely find these things in your kitchen!
- Moroccan Argan oil
- Olive oil
- Coconut oil
Once you’ve gotten these items together then we are ready to start the process. It will take you some time but don’t rush it. Your hair can easily be damaged if you hurry, so take your time.
Related article: 9 Coconut oil hair mask recipes – 5 Minute DIY Treatments
What do I do next?
The detangling technique whether you’re using an organic option or hair products, you’ll need to moisten the hair before detangling. This is important because too much water in your depression matted hair can cause breakage and severely damage your hair. So, avoid drenching your head and use the water bottle to give your hair a light spray and light massage.
Next, you need to put in your deep conditioner of choice and pay attention to the instructions. They’ll tell you how long to leave it in your hair. If you are using the oils, then you want to leave them in at least 30 minutes. No longer than 2 hours with the oils, though. Everything in moderation.
Start with your fingers.
After about half an hour the conditioner or oil has started working its magic. Gently un-knot the easiest spots that you can. Keep in mind some areas might be tougher to untangle than others… Tangled portions near the scalp will need additional moisturization time but that’s okay. The conditioners and oils are still working.
Now that you’ve loosened up that depression matted hair, we can break out the heavy artillery. Here come the combs! I swear, sometimes I sound like a general leading a brigade lol!
Combing it out: Large, medium, and then the small
This part is the most time-consuming but again, don’t rush, or you might have to see the barber. The trick is knowing how to comb. Use the widest-spaced comb and focus on the ends first. Hold your hair firmly and lightly comb the ends.
As your hair starts to detangle, work your way towards your scalp.
Once you’ve got it loosened out a bit, try combing with the ‘medium spaced tooth comb. Finally, you can use the smallest to confirm the ‘detangle’.
Now, we mentioned scissors earlier. Don’t get scared, but you might have to use them. If a section of your depression matted hair refuses to come loose, first get a good hold of it. Then just run the scissor blade lightly on the underside of the matted hair.
Tug at it gently while you do this and see if it loosens. Most of the time just thinning it a little this way will work. If it doesn’t then you might want to see the barber if you are worried that too much may come out.
This process is going to loosen up a lot of hair, by the way. So, don’t be alarmed if it seems like you are losing a lot. You lose about 100 hairs every day anyway, but it’s easy not to notice. If you don’t see it when brushing, then check the shower or your pillow. It’s there. So, relax and give this a try.
With a little practice, the next time you have depression matted hair you’ll have this down.
That’s it, you’re done, but start keeping those combs with you.
If you want to avoid depression matted hair in the future, keep those 3 combs handy. Use the widest every day, even quickly, every now and again to help avoid depression matted hair in the future. Comb more thoroughly when you can. A little bit goes a long way and hey, your hair will always be looking good.
Remember, besides combing your hair daily to hair knots, moisturization is important as well! This will help prevent breakage from detangling depression hair tangles. The 3 key steps to loosening depression hair is to dampen, condition, and comb. It’s really that easy!
Don’t forget, when you’re undoing matted hair, you’ll need to get yourself in the right mood… Use the opportunity to do some deep breathing, lighting up your space, and bumping some upbeat music to vibe to! In closing, mental health is wealth… Like my older brother uses to tell me “Keep your chin up, chest out, and your shoulders to the sky!”! Take care of yourselves, stay positive and just know everything will be okay!
Hopefully, you found this article about depression matted hair helpful. Now show your appreciation by liking, subscribing, and sharing this post… Let’s continue to build our community together! Also, read the other article from AfroCurlsandCuts.com.
