How your body's pH is affecting your hair journey

The last few weeks has been non-stop for me.  Long days of traveling usually means little sleep, poor eating habits, and higher stress levels.  From my past experience I'm aware that this usually has an effect on my body that goes way beyond just feeling tired.

The more devastating outcome is that my body's pH level begins to shift in the wrong.  I know this from testing my pH using strips made for this purpose.  As suspected, my lack of vigilance around taking care of myself created a less than ideal environment for my body.  The body, in a healthy state, is alkaline.  When stress, low quality foods and other unhealthy habits come into play, our pH moves from being alkaline to acidic.  This throws the body out of balance which can be devastating if left unchecked for extended periods of time.

While researching for this post, I learned that the sebum produced by our scalp has an acidic pH.  This helps keep the scalp balanced which prevents scalp flare-ups, the growth of fungus and other non desirables.  When the body's pH starts to shift in the wrong direction, the scalp suffers.  I read somewhere that an acidic environment causes red blood cells to clump together which slows down their transportation and limits the amount of nutrients and oxygen they're able to bring to our cells.  I talk about massage and stimulation all the time to bring blood flow to the scalp, but what value is that if the blood isn't balanced and healthy enough to transport those nutrients?

Now that I aware of this, I'm obligated to take action to correct this issue.  This means that I must take deliberate steps to maintain proper pH levels even especially when life gets crazy. Some of the things I will be doing to promote a healthier internal pH balance includes:

• Enjoying a glass warm lemon water on a daily basis.
• Juicing!
• Eating a green salad at least one meal a day.  
• Drink plenty of water with pink salt (when our bodies are acidic, the body tries to buffer/protect itself by absorbing calcium in our bones as an acid buffer).  Pink salt adds valuable minerals to our water and helps bring pH levels back in balance.
• Pray and meditate to manage and eliminate stress!

I believe in a holistic approach to our hair care journey.  It's not just about buying up hair products. More importantly, we have to create the most ideal environment for our bodies and our hair.  Before I would let the hustle of daily life get in my way of putting the most important thing first.  Now I'm working on being purposeful with taking care of my body, my scalp and my hair.