If you’re finding more hair in the shower, on your pillow, or wrapped around the hairbrush, the first question that usually comes up is a simple one: is this normal, or is something wrong?
Most people don’t wake up one day thinking about hair loss. It creeps in. You notice your ponytail feels thinner. You hesitate before washing your hair. You start doing mental maths — is this more than yesterday? more than last week? — and at the same time you’re telling yourself not to overreact.
This is exactly the point where understanding the difference between hair shedding and hair loss matters. Not because one is “better” than the other, but because they mean very different things biologically — and they require different responses.
Hair shedding: common, but not meaningless
Hair shedding is extremely common. I see it in clinic every week, and I’ve experienced it myself. It usually reflects a shift in the hair growth cycle, rather than damage to the follicles themselves.
Most of the time, shedding shows up after something has already happened in the body. That might be a period of prolonged stress, poor sleep, under-eating, illness, inflammation, a hormonal change, or an autoimmune flare. Importantly, the trigger is often two to three months earlier, which is why shedding can feel so confusing — you’re reacting to something that no longer feels obvious or relevant.
When shedding is the issue, hair tends to fall from all over the scalp rather than one specific area. The scalp usually looks normal. You may not see bald patches, but the overall volume feels reduced. The key thing to understand is that, in shedding, the follicles are still alive. They’ve been told to pause, not shut down.
That distinction matters, because shedding is often reversible — but only if the underlying drivers are addressed, rather than dismissed or masked.
When shedding starts to raise bigger questions
One thing I want to be very clear about — because it’s often misunderstood — is that shedding itself is not inherently a problem.
In my own case, I didn’t notice excessive shedding at all. I didn’t see clumps in the shower or hair collecting on my clothes. I simply discovered a patch of hair loss, and that was the first sign that something deeper was happening. Looking back, that distinction matters. Hair loss can occur without dramatic shedding, particularly in immune-mediated conditions, and assuming the two always go hand in hand can be misleading.
Equally, I have many friends — and clients — with very thick, high-density hair who shed large amounts routinely. Their hair fall looks alarming if you’re not familiar with their baseline, but it isn’t pathological. It’s simply a reflection of how much hair they have, how often they wash it, and how their individual growth cycles synchronise. In those cases, shedding is not a warning sign at all.
This is why context matters more than the hair fall itself. The pattern, the duration, the presence of regrowth, and what else is happening in the body are far more informative than the amount of hair in the plughole on any given day.
When hair changes do warrant deeper attention
Where I become more interested clinically is not isolated shedding, but change over time — especially when hair changes are accompanied by immune symptoms, hormonal disruption, fatigue, gut issues, or neurological stress.
Hair loss that presents as patches, clear thinning in specific areas, or lack of regrowth tells a different story from temporary shedding. These patterns often reflect immune signalling, inflammatory pathways, or altered follicular environments rather than simple stress responses.
That was true for me. The absence of dramatic shedding didn’t mean nothing was wrong — it meant the issue was happening at the level of immune regulation, not hair cycling. Understanding that difference changed how I approached recovery, and how I now guide clients.
Why this distinction protects people from unnecessary fear
One of the reasons I’m careful with language around shedding is because I see how quickly people panic when they notice hair fall — especially online, where shedding is often framed as an early sign of irreversible loss.
For many people, it isn’t. For others, hair loss appears without much warning at all.
The goal isn’t to monitor every strand, but to understand your own baseline and recognise when something has genuinely changed. Hair becomes meaningful not when it sheds, but when its behaviour no longer matches your normal pattern.
That’s when I stop focusing on the hair itself and start looking at what might be driving it — immune activation, inflammatory burden, hormonal shifts, and whether the nervous system is stuck in a prolonged stress response.
The nervous system piece most people miss
One of the most underestimated contributors to ongoing shedding and hair loss is chronic sympathetic dominance — being stuck in a state of stress, even when life looks “manageable” on the surface.
Hair follicles are highly responsive to stress hormones and inflammatory signals. If the nervous system doesn’t feel safe enough to invest in growth, hair becomes expendable. This is why people can eat well, take supplements, and still see no improvement.
In my own recovery, supporting my nervous system became an important part of the picture — not as a magic solution, but as a way of helping my body move out of constant threat perception. At the time, this meant focusing on the basics: breathwork, sleep consistency, and light exposure. Now, in practice, I also use tools such as Nurosym with clients and personally, where appropriate, to support vagal tone and help shift the body out of fight-or-flight and back towards rest and digest. You can learn more about the Nurosym here (use code VJ10 for a 10% discount).
Similarly, targeted red-light therapy supported local circulation and mitochondrial function in the scalp — again, not as a standalone fix, but as part of a wider strategy to support repair. You can learn about the Red Light Cap from Bon Charge for promoting hair regrowth here.
Why getting this right matters
If shedding is treated as hair loss, people often panic, over-supplement, or jump between protocols. If hair loss is treated as “just shedding,” people are reassured for too long and miss the opportunity to intervene early.
In practice, it’s rarely one or the other. Many people have an underlying vulnerability — immune, hormonal, or inflammatory — and then notice increased shedding during periods of stress, illness, or disruption. That doesn’t mean every shed hair is a problem, but it does mean patterns over time matter. Hair needs to be understood in context, not dismissed — and not treated as a diagnosis in its own right.
If hair changes have made you pause and wonder whether your body is under more strain than it should be, you don’t need to have all the answers right now.
If you’re worried, it’s important to speak with your GP or dermatologist for proper assessment and diagnosis. Beyond that, progress often comes from looking beyond the symptom itself and understanding the wider picture — immune activity, inflammation, hormones, stress load, and recovery capacity.
I’ve created a free guide, The Autoimmunity Recovery Plan, to help you do exactly that. It walks you through the core areas I assess in clinic, explains where to focus first, and helps you make sense of what your body may be asking for — without overwhelm or guesswork.
If you’re ready to take that first step, you can download the guide below.
Download: The Autoimmunity Recovery Plan
VJ Hamilton, BSc, RNT
VJ Hamilton is a Registered Nutritionist (BANT) and an expert in autoimmune disease. VJ combines her knowledge from her medical science degree in Biochemistry & Immunology with Nutritional Therapy to offer a thorough and personalised approach to support her clients based on the most current scientific research. VJ runs a virtual and in-person nutritional therapy and functional medicine practice, The Autoimmunity Nutritionist, specialising in gut skin and immune health.