[Lee Moon Won Korean Medicine Clinic] When the Market Crashes, Your Hair Goes With It

Yonhap News press release | Posted 2007-08-20 16:10

Three months ago, Mr. Kim finally started treating the hair loss that had bothered him for years. He had wanted treatment before but could not afford it. Then the stocks he had bought with his savings began to climb, the financial worry eased, and he came in. Once treatment began, his hair loss improved quickly and his seborrheic dermatitis calmed down as well. As the market kept rising, he seemed more at ease, and the treatment seemed to work all the better for it.

Then the market crashed over the past two weeks. Mr. Kim, who tends to worry, started losing sleep and showed his anxiety at every appointment. Soon he was shedding hair again and complaining of a persistently itchy scalp. Five months into his investment, he sold everything at a 30 percent loss and put his treatment on hold.

Dr. Lee Moon-won of Lee Moon Won Korean Medicine Clinic says a market crash is a major source of stress for a great many people. Under that kind of stress the sympathetic nervous system goes into overdrive. The immune system is the first to falter, breakouts appear on the skin and scalp, ulcers can form on the lips, tongue or stomach lining, and in some cases alopecia areata sets in.

"In the circulatory system, blood supply to the scalp and skin drops. With less blood flowing, hair, nails and skin lose their ability to regenerate. In women, hormonal changes can stop periods, shift their timing, or bring on cramps where there were none. All of these changes end up cutting off the nutrients, oxygen, hormones and blood that reach the hair follicle. The hair loses its capacity to renew itself and falls out before it has finished its normal life cycle."

In Korean medicine, stress is said to injure the liver and heart first, which in turn weakens the spleen, while the intensified fire energy that stress creates dries out the essence and fluids of the lungs and kidneys. As those water-associated reserves run low, the vital essence that drives hair growth diminishes, leaving hair weak and thin.

The liver and heart are both organs involved in circulation. When their function declines, blood does not circulate properly and stagnation follows.

The best thing anyone could do would be to shake it all off, laugh, and let it go. But right now the market has people caught in between, wearing down body and mind alike, and along with the money, hair is disappearing one strand at a time.
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