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Medically reviewed by Katlein Franca, MD
- For healthier hair, you’ll want to incorporate habits that encourage growth and reduce breakage.
- Handling hair gently, limiting heat and chemical treatments, and trying scalp massages may contribute to healthier hair.
- Following a nutritious diet can also help support your hair from the inside out.
There are lots of different factors that affect hair growth and thinning, from genetics and hormonal changes to aging. While some things are out of our control, the way that you care for your hair each day plays an important role in how healthy it looks and feels.
Here are eight haircare strategies to incorporate into your everyday routine to help protect your scalp, reduce breakage, and support your overall hair health.
1. Keep Your Scalp Clean
Regularly washing your hair with shampoo helps remove excess oil, sweat, product buildup, and dead skin cells from your scalp. While this doesn’t necessarily promote greater hair growth, regular shampooing is associated with less odor and flaking, better scalp health, and fewer inflammation markers.
How often you should shampoo depends on your hair type. If you have an oily scalp or straight hair, you may need to wash every day or every other day. If you have curly, textured, dry, or thicker hair, washing once every one to three weeks may be enough.
When you’re shampooing, remember to cleanse your scalp rather than your hair—massage the product into your scalp and let it rinse through the rest of your hair.
2. Handle Hair Gently
Hair is more fragile when it’s wet. To avoid breakage, wrap your hair in a towel or T-shirt after you wash it—just make sure not to rub your hair to dry it.
It’s also a good idea to let your hair air-dry for a bit before detangling it with a wide-tooth comb, especially if you have straight hair. If your hair is curlier or textured, it’ll be easier to comb when it’s damp.
Be gentle when your hair is dry, too. Excessive brushing can sometimes cause damage or split ends, especially when you’re forcefully combing through tangles. To reduce breakage, avoid pulling through these knots and use a moisturizing conditioner or detangling product instead.
3. Limit Heat Styling
Using blow dryers, flat irons, and curling tools often can weaken hair strands over time. This excessive heat can strip the hair of moisture, leading to dryness, frizz, and breakage.
Limit your use of heat tools and allow your hair to partially or completely air-dry as often as possible. When you do style with heat, make sure to choose the lowest effective temperature setting and apply a heat protectant product to reduce damage.
4. Massage Your Scalp
Massaging the scalp each day may promote hair growth or curb hair loss over time. This could be due to an increase in blood flow to the hair follicles, though more research is needed.
There’s no firm recommendation for how to properly complete a scalp massage, and researchers have found benefits linked to various times and methods. That said, you can try to massage your scalp while you’re shampooing or try using a massage tool.
5. Eat Nutritious Foods
Good nutrition provides the necessary building blocks to grow healthy hair. Protein is particularly important since hair is primarily made of a protein called keratin.
Certain micronutrient levels may also play a role in hair shedding or hair growth. Low levels of vitamin D, iron, zinc, and biotin have been linked to hair loss, while too much selenium, vitamin A, and vitamin E may also sabotage hair growth.
Following a varied, healthy diet rich in vegetables, dairy, eggs, legumes, and seeds can help people maintain healthy nutrient levels. But if you’re concerned about a possible deficiency, make sure to talk to a healthcare provider.
6. Protect Hair from Environmental Damage
Frequent exposure to sunlight (ultraviolet rays), pool chemicals (like chlorine), and pollution can damage your hair and lead to dryness, brittleness, or split ends.
However, simple habits can help protect your hair from some of this environmental damage, including:
- Wearing a swim cap when swimming in pools
- Rinsing your hair immediately after swimming
- Wearing a wide-brimmed hat when spending time in the sun, particularly if you have hair that’s been color-treated, permed, or relaxed
- Using a deep conditioner, especially if you swim in pools often
7. Use Chemical Hair Treatments Sparingly
Coloring, bleaching, relaxing, and perming your hair can make it weaker and more prone to breakage and damage.
Because of this, it’s good to give yourself ample time between treatments (around 10 weeks) and avoid overlapping them whenever possible. After a chemical treatment, it may also be helpful to do a deep-conditioning treatment to improve hydration and reduce damage between services.
8. Wear Tight Hairstyles in Moderation
Tight braids, ponytails, buns, locs, weaves, and extensions place tension on the hair and scalp. Over time, this can lead to a type of hair loss called traction alopecia.
Traction alopecia is often visible first as hair breakage along the hairline, and can also cause headaches and scalp pain or stinging. This kind of hair loss is more common among Black women, as well as military personnel who have to wear their hair pulled back.
To lower the chances of traction alopecia, choose looser hairstyles or natural hair. If you regularly wear braids or other protective styles, give your hair breaks between installations and avoid any styles that feel painful or too tight.
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