5 New Year’s Resolutions for Beards

If you want your beard to be the looking and healthier then its ever been then follow these 5 New Year’s Beard Resolutions

Beard Resolutions #1 – Drink Water

• Increase your water intake:
  • Drinking enough water will help with beard growth and beard hair health. 
    • Why is water so crucial to your beard?
      • Water is the delivery vehicle of nutrients and minerals in our body, and this includes the beard hair follicles (the root of your beard). 

By increasing your water intake it will deliver your facial hair with necessary nutrients and minerals to aide in growth, help with strengthen the actual hair itself to avoid breakage and beard hair loss as well and provide a healthier appearance.

• So how much water should you consume for beard health and overall health in general?
  • For a standard size/weight of a typical man – a good bet would be 1 gallon a day.  That is 1 gallon of water, alone.  Not including any additional liquids you consume or will consume during the day.

• If you are larger or smaller than a standard male in height or weight check out this calculator to get the amount you need – water consumption calculator

• If you are just starting out with increasing your consumption of water and think 1 gallon is way too much to start with… Set a goal that is realistic as well as challenging such as 80 ounces of water a day. And then slowly add more over the coming weeks

Beard Resolutions #2– Eat Protein

• Eat an adequate amount of protein:
  • A crucial part in beard growth and health is our hormones, and one of the biggest factors in our hormones is the food we consume.  So why is protein so important to our beard?
  • Not eating enough protein can cause hair loss.  
    • When you don’t consume a healthy amount of protein, you are missing out on key nutrients needed to help protect and build the hair on your face.  A few of the nutrients you are missing are:
    • Cysteine:
      • This is an amino acid that makes up to 18% of structural protein of the hair called keratin.
    •  Iron:
      • Iron is found in many protein rich foods and when your body lacks iron it cannot produce hemoglobin which carries oxygen to your hair. Not having that oxygen delivered will slow growth as well as not allow repair of cells.  (Study)

• Zinc:
  • Zinc is a mineral that aide in protein synthesis and is critical part in the overall function of hair protection, growth and recovery.
    • Study

But before you rush out and start slamming protein shakes and large amount of meat, having too much protein can also negatively affect your facial hair as well as lead to other health issues.  When you consume too much protein it causes an insulinlike growth factor which stunts testosterone production and puts your body in a state of stress, which is bad for hair (more on how stress effects facial hair later)

So what is the right amount of protein to consume?

• You should aim to consume .8-1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. That is the number that has shown to be the most efficient for maintain hormone levels without being too high or too low.

Beard Resolutions #3 – Exercise

• Exercise often
  • A standard New Year’s resolution is to exercise more. But how does exercise affect our facial hair?
    • By doing resistance exercises, such as weight lifting it increase testosterone production (Study) But it will also strengthen your muscle and improve bone density which will aide in delivery of blood (which we learned earlier in water consumption is the delivery vehicle of the need nutrients and minerals to our hair)
    • Increasing cardio activity.
      • Similar to doing resistance exercises, doing cardio will help improve heart function, decrease blood thickness all which is great for the delivery of nutrients and minerals.
    • Reduces stress
  • A warning – over exercising or doing too much and too hard of exercising can have negative effect on your beard and body.  If your body is being pushed too hard, too often it will lead to injuries, exhaustion and ultimately put your body into a state of stress. Stress will lead to beard issues, as we will address later.

So what is the right amount of exercising to do?

• Aim to do 45 mins of resistance exercising 3-4 times a week, as well as doing low impact cardio for 30 minutes 5-7 times a week.

Beard Resolutions #4 – Get better sleep

• Notice I said better sleep. Not more sleep.  You could sleep a lot but if it isn’t quality sleep, then it could lead to a number of issues such as low energy levels, decreased immune system & lack of regenerated hormones.
• In addition to the negative, when you get good quality sleep is helps with your body’s melatonin production, which has been shown in a study to increase hair growth.

So here are few steps to help improve your sleep:

• #1 – maintain a consistent sleep schedule.
  • When you don’t have a good sleep schedule, such as a set time you go to sleep and awake, your body’s ability to properly regulate its rhythms and cycles will improve.
• #2 – Aim for 7-9 hours of sleep a night.
  • By getting 7-9 hours of sleep a night, it will give your body the best chance to cycle through all the different sleep cycles which will allow your body to reset, heal and grow.
• #3 – Minimize the potential disruptions that you can control:
  • Turn off or silence your electronic devices, that way the screen lighting up or a notification beep does not prematurely wake you.
  • Close windows and blinds to prevent light disruptions
  • Turn on sound machines to help drown out noise
• #4  – Reduce stress

If you have noticed a common theme throughout this article is stress. Whether that is internal stress on your body and its functions or outside stresses that interrupt our daily life, reducing stress is our fifth and probably most important resolution for better beard health.

Beard Resolutions #5 – Stress

• When you stress, it produces and increases cortisol. Cortisol will negatively impact your testosterone levels, it will constrict blood vessels which will reduce the delivery of nutrients and minerals. When that happens, the hair does not the food it needs to survive and you start to lose more hair prematurely.
• It can also cause your hair follicles to not produce new hairs so as your current hair proceeds through its life cycle, new hair will not be growing to replace what is lost naturally, leading to hair loss.

Following the above 4 other resolutions of:

• Drinking enough water and stay hydrated
• Eating adequate protein and a balanced diet
• Exercising
• Getting better sleep

So here is some tips to reduce your stress:

• Positive self-talk and thoughts
• Writing down things you are grateful for
• Get a message
• Use aromatherapy methods
  • We are big believers in the power of smell and its effect on our bodies. That is why we have two different scent profiles that can help with stress:
    
• #1 – Our Spiced Citrus Beard Oil and Beard Butter
  • The citrus, clove and cinnamon blend we created will help stimulate the brain to induce energy, alertness and happiness.

• #2 – The scents we used in our  Unwind Beard Oil and Beard Butter were designed to help you Unwind from the events of the day
  • Peppermint – helps calm the nerves
  • Lavender and Bergamot – help with stress

We wish you much success, health and wellness in 2022 and know that if you implement these 5 items your beard will be healthier, stronger and better than ever before!