Has anyone ever noticed a change to the texture, shape, relative oiliness, or any other attribute of their hair under stress?

I have a houseguest at the moment who arrived last Friday and is staying until Sunday. Two days after she leaves, my grandmother and aunt are both coming to the city to visit my dad, and since my apartment has a guest room and his doesn't, they are going to be houseguests for several days. Probably a month later or so my mom is coming to visit. More houseguests.

I love having visitors but having someone crash in your apartment for a week is somewhat stressful. Three or four in a row? Nuts.

I noticed within a couple of days of my current guest arriving, my hair suddenly seeming more difficult to manage than it has been recently. I haven't changed my routine...I wash it the same, condition it the same, comb it the same...the weather here hasn't changed despite the onset of spring...but my hair is suddenly acting up for no particular reason.

Despite no change in my hair care routine it suddenly seems oilier (a problem I thought I was past for the moment, ah well), and waves have appeared in it again. Not nice "Ooh look, I have volume!" waves, but "I have locks of hair popping out in really ridiculous places" waves. Finally, some kind of frizz monster seems to have attacked my hair...all over the top there are rebellious flyaways that haven't made an appearance in at least a month.

Can stress do this to your hair? I can't think of any other explanation and I truly hope it's just stress because this is frustrating as hell.

I know supposedly stress makes your hair fall out but the only thing that seems to make my hair fall out is bad treatment...tight updos, excessive brushing, etc. Stress, illness, even malnourishment (I learned this on a baaaaaaaaaad diet in high school) don't cause me to lose hair.

But at the slightest provocation it seems to suddenly become oily, flyaway, and impossible to manage.

This is one of those times I wish I had three feet of hair I could just plop in a bun or twist up in a claw clip...with short hair, the slightest upset makes the whole thing look unkempt and icky. Like I look right now, despite washing and conditioning last night and constantly detangling it today.

Bah. Is this just stress or could something else be making my hair do this?

(And no, I'm not on or near my female time, either. )

Ella

Oh, how frustrating!  Certainly stress can do weird things to us.  In addition your hair is probably in one of the awkward stages that I hate, where you seem to have "bad hair weeks" instead of a "bad hair day".  Of course, you also want your hair to look good while you have houseguests, and it just seems to be....ugh
Take care of yourself and your hair.  Soon you'll be able to get it to do something really neat that you haven't been able to do before and than it will seem so worth it to have waited this time out.

Yeah. Thanks for the comments, everyone. I'm glad to know I'm not totally crazy thinking this is probably stress.

I was due for a trim anyway, so I went into the salon and had her snip the layers (which had grown into this really weird "stair-step" thing with really obvious differences between each layer, must be a straight-hair thing) back into a smoother shape. Also, cut off the bottom layer to even it with the next layer up.

It LOOKS like I have a lot less hair although she didn't cut much, but only because the layers have mostly gotten long enough (almost all to chin-length) that after she snipped at them a bit to even them out they started lying very flat against my head. Adios to the "full" layered look. lol. But almost half of my hair is one length now.

The trim helped. I think stress was just making the fact that I was getting way overdue for a trim even worse!

And funny, my guest left today and I got home, showered for a LONG time, spent two hours on the phone while straightening the apartment, and then watched my hair settle into a very nice shape. 

Yay for de-stressing.

Now in two days my grandmother arrives.   

Ella