Lost my hair and confidence. Get it back! Here’s what to do!

Lost my hair and confidence. The psychological effects of hair loss.

With a heavy head in hand, I had lost my hair and confidence. I had hit rock bottom.

If you’ve never had to deal with the psychological effects of hair loss, it can be truly devastating.

One of the most life changing events that happened to me was that I had lost my hair and my confidence. The negative psychological effects of hair loss style=”font-weight: 400;”> were such that I thought would never be able to recover from. But I did, in fact I came out the other side stronger and more confident than ever before and you can too. Let’s look into why losing your hair can cause a loss of confidence as well as the psychological effects of hair loss and what you need to do to not only get out of it, but to become a stronger more self assured man than ever before.

What are the psychological effects of hair loss?

Although I’m not a psychologist, I have read a lot about the psychological effects of hair loss. 

So please don’t take this as professional advice, but take it from someone who has experienced the psychological effects of hair loss or at least some of them personally, and has come to his own conclusions. 

My advice should not be taken as professional psychological advice. 

If you have deeper seeded issues regarding your hair loss or your psychological state in general, please see a qualified psychologist.

The above being said, one of the not so obvious effects that hair loss has like psychologically on men is the realization of his own mortality. 

Hair loss is one of the first signs that a man will eventually become old one day and die.

I know that there are other stages in a man’s development where he acknowledges his aging. However, those before hair loss were actually for the most part, positive. 

For example, when a boy reaches puberty, he starts to grow a little peach fuzz under his nose. His pubic regions also experience hair growth for the first time. 

His voice may become deeper and deeper as it gets more into puberty. 

This also combined with hormonal changes as well as growth spurts. He soon finds himself getting bigger and stronger and more like a man than a boy.

These are all the positive signs of aging. However, when a man starts to experience male pattern baldness, it is the first negative sign of aging. 

If he begins this experience in his younger years, like in his early 20s or even late teens, this can have an added psychological effect.

Another reason why hair loss is so psychologically debilitating for a man’s confidence and his overall well being is because of society, plain and simple. 

Although the effects of mass consumption, advertising, brands, social media etc. have only been around for about 100 years, with the exception of social media, men have been experiencing the psychological effects of hair loss since ancient times. 

You could tell by the hairstyles even the potions and concoctions that the ancient Greeks and Romans tried to regrow their hair. Things from pigeon excrement and bull testicles to other strange and exotic recipes.

I guess a full head of hair is automatically associated with health. I mean we’re all born with a full head of hair and so any loss of what we are usually born with comes off as a label of bad health. 

If you think about it, hair loss is unlike a child losing his baby teeth for example. Because we know that the reason the child is losing their baby teeth is because new teeth are growing in behind them. 

Therefore, losing your teeth early in childhood is a positive sign of aging, growing into a man and becoming stronger. 

However, most children do not experience a loss. A child’s hair may grow differently as a child gets older, but they don’t experience a hair loss like they do with teeth for example.

Hair loss is usually a sign of aging and becoming weaker as a result.

Paradoxically, even though baldness is a sign of growing old, bald men have also become more associated with higher levels of testosterone and even virility. 

Since women normally don’t experience male pattern baldness, baldness in a man can be a sign of excess testosterone, although this has proven to be a myth as well. 

Nonetheless it is seen that way. And if you know anything about advertising, perception is reality in most minds.

In addition, since baldness has come to signify, at least psychologically, with testosterone. 

Thus, more manly and masculine, the perceived effects of more testosterone and masculinity in the positive sense. Stronger, more virile or aggressive, even warrior-like. 

With the exception of the Spartans, most warriors in military cultures had their heads shaved.

Shaving has come to signify discipline and strength. It also signifies a rejection of the more superficial aspects of human and societal life.

The 20th century brought with it the adoption of modern advertising in order to sell products. 

As a result, all these psychological factors have been amplified even more in order to get people to simply spend money and buy products, most of which they don’t really need. 

Hollywood and the media of course, play an important role since they are usually supported by corporations selling products promising beauty and everlasting youth. 

The baby boomer generations did not help any in the 1960s with the hippie culture of long hair and peace. 

Then you had the 80s when flash wasn’t necessarily trash but worshiped. You had “greed is good”, “more is better”, including hair. 

Nothing exemplified this 80s culture more than spiky hair and voluminous hairstyles which encouraged everyone to shoot for the moon and reach as high as possible including their hair.

When we hit the 90s, things started to change however. Some of you may not remember, but the early 1990s was represented by the first gulf war and a recession that cost George HW Bush his re-election campaign. 

Then you had bands like Nirvana hitting the scene with grunge and a rejection of everything that was glamorous and 80s. 

People dressed in flannels and ripped old clothes. However, something else evolved from the 1990s, the “shaved head”. 

I personally think the rejection of the 80s and a lot of its fake and phoniness that went along with it, can make many men, especially entertainers and professional athletes, realize the silliness of trying to hold on to their hair if they were losing it. 

Whether more and more celebrities were rejecting hair transplants or hair systems made famous by Sy Sperling and the Hair Club For Men commercials or the 1980s. 

But slowly Bald role models began to emerge. 

First there was Bruce Willis. People seem to forget that Bruce Willis made the receding hairline a fashionable hairstyle in the mid to late 80s. 

He then followed it by getting a buzz cut for Pulp Fiction in 1994. 

Andre Agassi finally accepted his own male pattern baldness, with a little bit of encouragement by his then girlfriend, Brooke Shields giving him that nudge and pushed him over the edge to shave his head. 

His shaved head coincided with a rebirth of his ailing tennis career. 

Others followed, Edward Norton shaved his head for the role in American History X, becoming quite jacked in the process. 

Although the tattoos, the white supremacy and nationalism was a negative in the remaking of his image for that role, he did look pretty damn good. 

More and more actors soon followed and got on board by shaving their heads. It became so cool and stylish that actors who were experiencing male pattern baldness and still in the denial stage. 

Wearing wigs and hair systems and still getting hair plugs, these celebrities were soon made the objects of ridicule and laughter. Not the guys who were bald.

Today we have a plethora of all icons from Vin Diesel to Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson as well as Jason Statham and the list goes on. Business Titans like Jeff Bezos are a great example of somebody who remade his image. 

Although he’s the world’s richest man he did not succumb to the fallacy of regrowing his hair and just shaved it off. He chose to focus those efforts towards remaking his physique and restyle his clothing. 

Elon Musk on the other hand, we still don’t know what’s going on up there on his scalp, since he has not come clean about what he has done up there. 

You know there’s definitely something going on up there. But this remains about as mysterious as his over hyped ventures.

So if this section tells you anything, it’s that the tide has turned for those of us with male pattern baldness. And it has turned differently than many would have thought 20-30 years ago. 

Back then we thought that a cure for male pattern baldness or advances in treatments were just around the corner. 

Because let’s face it, there hasn’t been a real advance in hair loss treatment since the advent of Propecia and Minoxidil in the mid 1990s. 

Now the tide has turned in the way that society sees men who are losing their hair that it’s okay to be bald. 

In fact, shaving your head and coming to terms with your own baldness is a lot more respected than trying to save what is a depleting asset, your hair.

Why does hair loss cause so many men to lose confidence in themselves?

Well if the factors that I have just gone through above don’t tell you how hair loss causes so many men to lose confidence in themselves then here are a few more.

First and this is related to mass consumption, modern advertising and the media, is the image a bald man has in society nowadays. If you look at all the latest Hollywood stars, fashion icons, sex symbols etc. you soon realize that most of them have one thing in common. 

They all have hair and thick heads of hair at that. Although you do see more and more of these guys who have decided to shave their heads, for the most part they are still the exception and not the rule.

It’s easy to see why this is still the case. First, it’s a legacy. What is considered attractive dies hard, pun intended. 

Also since image and perception do build on one another you’re not going to eliminate a whole class of society who exemplify thousands of years of what has been seen as attractive overnight. 

You’re used to seeing guys like Brad Pitt with full thick heads of hair donning the screen. Turn on any news program or commentary and more than likely the men anchoring it has a full head of hair.

You can even look at former Presidents or the last 100 years. Most of them had hair. Even our current president has hair, although that too, like Elon Musk’s hair, has remained a mystery to most of us.

Second, there was a more commercial value to all this as well. It’s pretty hard to sell shampoos, conditioners, hair care products etc. to men who shave their heads or don’t need those products.

What can a man do to take back control of his hair loss situation and his self esteem?

There are two roads a man can take in order to take back control of his hair. One is to try to hold on to his hair as long as possible and maybe regrow some of that lost hair back. I have many posts on this website about fighting baldness. 

However, this leads to a downward spiral. These stop gap solutions and half measures will never restore your hair to its former glory. 

There are hundreds of millions of dollars or billions to be more realistic that are invested in you believing that these stop gaps and half measures can actually give you what you’ve been desperately longing for. That is of course, to restore your hair to its former glory. Do not fall for them. 

These are very powerful forces that use all kinds of media tools, video and images, not to mention credentialed “so-called specialists” in hair loss and hair respiration to try to convince you otherwise. 

If there were such a treatment, cure, remedy etc. for hair loss that was effective and restored a man’s hair back to its former glory, there wouldn’t be any issues for a man experiencing male pattern baldness, would there?

My opinion and the opinion of millions of us men who’ve had to deal with this very issue is simple. To accept your male pattern baldness. It’s time you come to terms with it straight on. 

There’s no more effective way to face an enemy than confrontation, especially as a last resort. Confronting your hair loss and accepting it is the very first step you need to take. 

Although the most difficult, it is also the most important. Once you’ve learned to accept your hair loss and reject the denial that you’ve been holding to for so long, you will learn to embrace your hair loss. 

Once you embrace your hair loss, then you can truly own it. By owning your hair loss you will rise like a phoenix from the ashes of despair, frustration, anxiety and agony. You too can become just like those bald handsome men icons that you’ve been looking to for inspiration and hope. 

But you will have some responsibility once you do own your baldness as well. That is to become an example for others who are experiencing the very same thing you’re experiencing now. I’m not going to lie, it’s not an easy road. 

Merely shaving your head is, although the most important, it’s just the beginning. You’ll need to take on other measures in order to truly evolve and become stronger and better than before, even when you had a full thick head of hair. 

I know this is hard to believe, but trust me and follow me on this one as I go through the steps you will need to take to become that bald handsome man yourself.

What can a man do to regain confidence due to make pattern baldness?

Well, if you’ve gotten this far in the process, then you’ve probably already taken the first step. That is accepting your male pattern baldness for what it is. A perfectly natural part of a man’s DNA and nothing more. Now that you have accepted your hair loss it’s time to embrace it. How do you embrace it?

First get used to seeing yourself without hair. But others get used to it as well. If you’re comfortable with your early shade head. However don’t get too comfortable because the real work is yet to come.

This new work involves improving other aspects of your appearance.

I have already mentioned some of these above. But let’s go through them one by one. 

First, you need to get in shape. That’s a given. Shaving your head, or even if you had a full thick head of hair is of little use physically, If you’re out of shape and carrying a few extra pounds.

You’ll definitely need to lose those extra pounds and get in shape. However, being in shape is much more important for a guy who shaves his head to be in shape. Why? 

Just look at all those shaved head old icons that you have been getting inspiration from. Most of them have one and or two things in common, usually two. 

First, they’re usually in pretty good shape. Most of them aren’t going to win any body building contests, but then again, who wants to nowadays. It’s more than enough to have some muscle on you and a great physique. 

Looking athletic and strong like someone who can take care of himself is plenty. All it takes is a half an inch of muscle here, a quarter inch there as well as 10 or 20 lbs of fat loss and you’ll be surprised at how much those little changes can mean in your appearance. 

This of course will have many other positive side effects too. Starting with your health and your well-being. You’ll just feel better. 

Next, will be your confidence. When you look good and feel good, you’ll have higher levels of confidence. So do what you got to do. Go on whatever diet you feel most comfortable with that’s healthy. Get on it. 

Whatever muscle building or resistance training routine that excites you the most, that will also be something you can stick with. Get on that. 

As I just mentioned, the key to pulling off a healthier, fitter you is not only just diet and a rigorous exercise program, but consistency. Treat your health and fitness regimen like you would brushing your teeth. 

How would you feel if you missed a day of brushing your teeth? Approach your diets and workouts the same way. And you’ll see the gains in muscle and fat loss is worth it.

If you have a look at those all icons? Check out how they dress. You don’t have to copy their clothing piece by piece. But get some inspiration. Try to dress first age appropriate, but will style. 

Make sure your clothes fit properly. Make sure that your clothes are also made of the highest quality materials like Cotton,100% Merino Wool or Cashmere. Even high quality denim. Learn about these things. 

You probably don’t need to go all out at once and refit your whole wardrobe. Go piece by piece. Start with the basics, a great pair of jeans and a great fitting shirt. Move on to some sweaters. 

If you want to dress it up, get a great looking sport coat that you can wear with different outfits. And find a great tailor to put it all together for you.

 I’ve saved the most important for last as far as clothing is concerned. This part of your wardrobe should be your biggest investment. It is a part of your attire that women will notice first and most. 

And no, it’s not a leather jacket, although leather is an important component. It is a great pair of shoes. and if you could afford it, they should be well made, goodyear welted and stitched soles. Made from leather or suede. 

I personally have a pair of Allen Edmonds Daltons which are a pair of Brogues. I’ve had them for eight years already and they still look fantastic.

They cost a pretty penny but when I average the yearly cost and how great they still look along with the compliments I still get on them.

In fact, great shoes sometimes look better as they age than when they were brand new, which is also a sign of quality.

They actually come out to be much cheaper than those hundred dollar pairs of shoes you buy once or twice a year. 

The most important thing about choosing to take care of them is you use shoe trees, keep them polished, cleaned and protected against the elements as best you can. There are protectors that you can spray on, but I don’t really trust them on my leather, give them a good waxing a few times a year. 

When winter comes, before I go out, I make sure I put a couple of extra coats of wax and polish them. This is the best way to keep salt from ruining them. 

Anyway, enough about shoes. I can go all day speaking about them.

Now that you will hopefully no longer have that anxiety and depression about your baldness. Your hair loss will feel like a big cloud that’s been lifted off of you. Now is the time to focus on your professional and personal goals. 

Maybe you’re out trying to get that promotion at work. Or you want to travel to different continents and learn different languages. Perhaps taste more than the local cuisine when you go broad. 

Well guys, now is your time to use that extra energy that was devoted to negative things like depression and anxiety, frustration as well as insecurity and focus it towards positive improvements in your life.

Well that’s gentlemen. When I had hit rock bottom and I had lost my hair and confidence That’s what I did. It’s not hard, it just takes discipline and consistent effort over time. but like most things positive in your life, although they may be uncomfortable and difficult at first, the more you do them the better you become. 

The better you become, the more motivated you will get. The more motivated you get, the easier they will be to do them on a regular basis because you will have seen the results. Nothing is more of a motivator than positive results from your concerted efforts.

Go forth guys. Shave your head and get back that lost confidence. Become that bald handsome man you are always meant to be.