For a while back there, people would hang out and chill to cool music. No matter what was going on around them, they made a little space for themselves where they could be calm. At least, that’s what the marketers would have us believe. In the real world, everything was jumping and you had to jump to keep up. Stress has been a feature of modern life ever since the women challenged men to find somewhere better to live than caves. Anyway what’s wrong with a cave? Plenty of fresh air and running water. Just make sure you have cable and all is right with the world. Ah well. Arguments like this are enough to make you tear your hair out. Which, of course, some people do. It’s a symptom of really serious stress. Not that everyone needs to literally pull their hair out. With enough stress in your life, your hair will fall out without any help from your hands.

What "stress" has this effect? Well, it can be severe physical stress produced if you fall seriously ill, run a high fever and generally make as if you are going to die. Or it can be the emotional kind of stress. The medical term for this unfortunate effect is telogen effluvium, so named because the effect of the stress is to force the scalp into its telogen or resting phase. So, when hair falls out (which it does every day), it’s not replaced and you can go bald quite rapidly. Obviously, if the physical illness is bad enough to have this effect, there’s not much you can do except wait for the doctors to produce the cure. Then a little patience will see your hair grow back again. Yes, you are seeing words of reassurance. Your hair will grow back naturally without you having to do except wait. Emotional stress is slightly more under your control. Although it’s always tempting to take one of the anti-anxiety drugs, it’s far better if you can sort out your life’s problems without having to pop pills out of their blisters. Saves you money as well. The answer, as the title to this article suggests, is to chill out, talk through your problems with a partner, relative or friend, and get your head into a better place. If your head is better inside, hair will start growing again on the outside.

So here’s the challenge for you. If your hair loss is genetic and not aggravated by stress, the answer is Propecia. As a long-term treatment, it slowly reduces the amount of dihydrotestosterone in your bloodstream. This encourages your hair to stay attached to your head and, in most cases, to regrow. But if the cause of your hair loss is emotional stress, taking Propecia will not help. You should be able to tell the difference because male pattern baldness produces the characteristic M shape whereas stress-related hair loss produces a faster and more patchy loss all over the scalp. If you are not sure, you could wait. Except clinical trials show you get the best regrowth if you start taking Propecia early in the cycle of loss. Rather than gamble, you should take Propecia once it’s clear the hair is receding from your temples, and start studying relaxation and meditation techniques. If you chill out while taking Propecia, you are covered whichever way the diagnosis turns out.