Total Hair Loss at 26–All From Stress

From hair loss and skin problems to digestive turmoil, stress can take a toll on good health.

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When she was 24, Lin Li stepped into her first full-time job, believing she was doing everything right—working hard, staying mentally strong, and never complaining. However, by the time she was 26, cracks in her health began to show. She was losing clumps of hair every time she showered. Within months, her once-thick hair had thinned dramatically, and soon her entire scalp was bare.

She was diagnosed with severe stress-induced alopecia.

Unable to bear the anxiety of waking up to more hair on her pillow, she did something uncharacteristic. She quit her city job, moved to a quiet island for a working holiday, and gave her body the one thing it had been begging for—a chance to breathe.

Nutritionist Lucy He, founder of the Taiwan Integrative Functional Medicine Education Center, spoke about Lin’s case on NTD’s “Health 1+1.” NTD is a sister outlet of The Epoch Times. Extreme stress reactions such as Lin’s are no longer rare, she said.

“Today’s young people live under constant emotional and digital pressure from their teens onward,” He said. “This comparison-driven anxiety pushes stress-related illnesses earlier and earlier.”

How Stress Creates Imbalance in the Body

She said stress itself is not just psychological—it also manifests around the body through complex physiological mechanisms. When the brain is chronically anxious, it activates the body’s stress response system, flooding it with cortisol and adrenaline. These hormones trigger chronic inflammation, which then wreaks havoc on the skin, digestive system, metabolism, and hormonal balance.

Skin Problems

Skin issues are often the body’s first SOS signal. Many people break out in acne, rashes, or itching when stressed. Research has found a “brain-skin connection,” a two-way pathway that transmits psychological stress from the brain to the skin, causing inflammation, and then sends signals back to the brain.