For many, a thick head of hair is a crowning achievement. That’s why it can be so difficult to find symptoms of sudden and unexpected hair loss. Whether you’re just beginning to notice a few more strands on your brush than normal or you’ve been diagnosed with a medical condition such as androgenic alopecia, there are small and simple steps you can take to keep your hair as healthy as possible and slow the progression of loss. Here are five ways to take control of the issue today:

For many, a thick head of hair is a crowning achievement. That’s why it can be so difficult to find symptoms of sudden and unexpected hair loss. Whether you’re just beginning to notice a few more strands on your brush than normal or you’ve been diagnosed with a medical condition such as androgenic alopecia, there are small and simple steps you can take to keep your hair as healthy as possible and slow the progression of loss. Here are five ways to take control of the issue today:

1. Take a look at your diet.

While some medical conditions cannot be reversed by diet alone, there are tweaks you can make to yours to promote growth and keep healthy strands intact. Consider your current diet. If you’re not getting enough protein, now is the time to make the change. If you’re consuming more empty calories from fast-food or convenience items than you should be, you might not be getting the nutrients your body, including your scalp, needs to stay in top shape.

Start by making small incorporations of fish, eggs and meat into your meals, along with a glass or two of milk, to up your protein consumption. While you’re at it, look for foods that are also rich in omega-3 fatty acids to amplify the results. Specific types of seafood, including salmon and mackerel, are excellent choices in this regard. You might find it easier to slowly incorporate these foods into your current diet rather than totally overhauling your existing routine. Why? You’ll be more likely to stick with it in the long run rather than burning out over a too-strong start.

2. Schedule a doctor’s visit.

If you have unexplained hair loss, it’s important not to sweep it under the rug. Even if you don’t feel physically unwell, it could be a sign of a hormonal imbalance and in this case, you’ll require medical attention. Your doctor will be able to conduct an exam to check for other signs of an imbalance and notify you about the proper next steps to take for treatment.

If your hormones appear to be in balanced, working condition, your doctor may uncover another underlying cause of the hair loss. From thyroid disease to anemia, there are myriad health concerns that list hair loss as a primary side effect, so it’s worth getting checked out by a physician you trust. Your doctor can also use this time to recommend therapy and treatment procedures, such as low-level laser therapy, which you can read more here about.

During your checkup, be sure to talk openly with your doctor about any concerns or questions you might have. Opening up this line of conversation is critical to proactively managing your health and ensuring your healthcare provider understands your history, background and any current issues and concerns.

3. Adjust your habits.

Do you make it a habit to drink plenty of water every day? If you find it impossible or uncomfortable to reach your recommended 64 daily ounces, you might be able to adjust that amount after speaking with your doctor. Still, studies reveal that most people don’t drink nearly that amount. If instead you’re filling up on alcohol, that habit could be negatively affecting your hair loss as well.

Both alcohol and caffeine, if consumed in large quantities, inhibit your immune system and you need that to be functioning at top capacity to promote healthy hair growth. So, cut back to only one or two drinks per day and see if that makes a difference for your hair loss. Along the same lines, now is the time to kick that smoking habit to the curb. Why? Nicotine reduces your circulation, and that also includes the blood going to your scalp, designed to encourage follicles to grow.

4. Start a vitamin regimen.

If you eat a balanced diet full of the recommended amounts of fruits and vegetables, you might be getting all of the vitamins and minerals you need. On the other hand, if you find it difficult to meet these daily quotas, you can supplement with vitamins to help boost your immune system and keep your levels in check.

Not sure where to start? Vitamins essential to hair health include B12 and Vitamin A. The former helps your body create red blood cells while the latter promotes a strong circulatory system.

If you’re going the diet route, look for leafy greens and eggs to provide you plenty of Vitamin A. Those who need more B12 can find it in fish, meat, poultry and milk. Also look for minerals including calcium, copper and zinc among others.

5. Find ways to destress.

Have you ever heard a tired mother claim that her children are going to make her hair fall out? Turns out, there’s some truth to that statement. Though it isn’t always the culprit, high levels of stress can exacerbate existing symptoms of hair loss. That said, find ways to ease your stress levels as much as possible. From taking a yoga class to taking a walk, just getting outside in nature is often enough of a scenic change to jumpstart your relaxation.

As you calm your mind, remember to also workout your body. When you exercise regularly, you’ll sweat and allow your hair pores to unclog along the way!

Taking Proactive Control of Your Hair Loss

Ultimately, responding to your hair loss can look many different ways. You might be fine with a few diet and lifestyle adjustments or you might require a doctor-recommended medical therapy treatment. Regardless, it’s worth a call into your doctor today to determine what’s causing the hair loss and ways you can move forward in confidence.

We all know the golden rules of skincare. Apply SPF religiously, even when it’s cold and rainy outside. Don’t spend too much time in the sun and wear a hat and protective clothing when you do. Cleanse, tone and moisturize at least once a day. We could repeat them in our sleep, and for the most part, we try to adhere to them as closely as possible. Yet, for all our good intentions, are we still causing unintentional damage to our skin? The answer might surprise you. Read on for five ways we’re doing harm to our most valuable organ, even without fully realizing it.

1. Drinking too much alcohol.

Have you ever woken up after a night of drinking and wondered why your skin looks so parched and dehydrated? Turns out, excessive alcohol doesn’t only harm our liver, but also wreaks havoc on our skin as well.

How? By negatively targeting our liver, it lessens its ability to remove toxins from our body. As a result, those impurities show up in myriad places, most notably our faces in the mirror the next morning. Your best bet is to stick to a two-drink-per-day maximum, preferably less, to see optimal changes in your complexion.

While you’re at it, take serious strides to kick that smoking habit if you have one. The carbon monoxide present in cigarettes displaces your skin’s inherent oxygen. Combined with blood-flow-restricting nicotine, it makes for an ill-fated concoction that leaves your skin thirsty and discolored.

2. Taking a long, hot shower.

Yes, nothing feels better at the end of a long day than a nice, lengthy soak under a hot shower head. However, think twice before you lose yourself in the downpour. As it pours over your skin, the hot water strips your skin of the oils it naturally produces. This is one of the reasons you might exit the shower feeling glossy and smooth only to be aghast at your ashy legs a few minutes later.

To keep skin soft and supple, keep your showers as short as possible and cool the temperature down a few notches. You can also use exfoliating and moisturizing bath products designed to help prepare and nourish your skin. Think you have your current shaving routine down? You may want to learn more about ways to keep your skin smooth and hair-free without damaging it in the process.

Just these simple changes alone can help your skin retain its oils and prevent flakiness and dryness. For maximum moisture, apply lotion as soon as you get out.

3. Eating too much fast food.

Though scientists and dietitians sometimes disagree on the exact correlation between diet and complexion, most will agree that a diet high in grease and fat (i.e. a take-out centric one) isn’t your best bet for glowing, healthy skin. Not only is ingesting it bad for your internal organs, but there is also an amplified chance of you getting the grease from that food on your face, most notably your chin or cheeks. Especially if your complexion is already oily, this will only make it worse and could eventually lead to clogged pores and cumbersome breakouts.

Instead of running through the fast food line the next time hunger strikes, try reaching for healthy fruits and vegetables instead. In particular, look for antioxidant-rich choices such as blueberries, leafy greens, tomatoes and cranberries.

4. Constantly touching your face.

Maybe you’ve been a pimple popper since high school. Maybe you have a desk job in an office and rest your chin in your hands while you stare at a screen all day. Regardless, the fact is that our hands and faces aren’t meant to be in constant contact. For one, consider how many surfaces your hands touch on a per-second basis. Do you want those transferred to your face? Moreover, germs and bacteria aside, your hands can also transfer oil to other parts of your body as well, making them a breakout carrier for some.

The takeaway? Resist the urge to pop those pesky bumps. Your mother was right on this one. Doing so will cause more harm than good, unfortunately, and could even lead to scarring. While you’re waiting for nature to take its course, try applying a solution to your trouble spots that contains acne-fighting salicylic acid or benzoyl peroxide. Then, call your dermatologist if your breakouts still won’t go away.

5. Not cleaning your phone or sunglasses.

Sometimes, it’s not your hands that carry bacteria to your face, but rather the accessories you’re propping against it. Think about it: When’s the last time you thoroughly cleaned your sunglasses or your smartphone? If you can’t think of the answer, it’s time to do so now. These two surfaces can carry myriad icky organisms that don’t need to be resting against your face, especially considering the length of time we wear our shades or chat on our phones.

There’s a reason skincare experts refer to the space between your temple and chin as the phone zone. This is where your device usually rests and as such, where most of your oil build-ups initiate. Invest in a pack of disinfecting wipes and regularly swipe them over these tools to make sure they’re as clean as possible. You may also swap out your handheld phone for earbuds to put even more distance between your phone and your face.

Clearer Skin Starts WIth One Step

We all want a dewy, crystal clear complexion and most of us are willing to put in the time, money and work to get one. Yet, it would be unwise and unfair to derail your progress by falling into one of these five traps. Take a look at your daily routine and consider where you can make a few small changes today. From your diet to your habits, you’d be surprised at how much of your lifestyle shows up on your skin. By living better and making wiser choices, you could begin to see the benefits immediately.

In a world where we’d like to think that first impressions don’t matter as much anymore, the reality is that they still do -- at least in the digital realm. With so many online options at our fingertips, today’s customer has become more discerning than ever before, opting to simply keep browsing or click on a competitor’s link instead. As such, the face that you present to your virtual readership serves both the introduction to your brand as well as the anchor that keeps your loyal audience coming back for more, and telling their friends about you along the way.

This is where a dynamic landing page comes in. Developed correctly, this page will draw your readers in, pique their interest and deliver the results and answers they crave. Different from your website’s homepage, but equally as important, your landing page can make or break your online engagement and conversion rates. As such, it’s important to understand what they are, how they work and precisely why they matter. Let’s dig in.

What are Landing Pages?

Have you ever clicked on a Google AdWord or another content marketing button? If so, you were likely taken to a landing page. In short, this is a static web page that stands alone from the rest of your web presence. It is laser focused on the marketing or advertising campaign you’re currently running and it has a clear Call to Action (CTA) for your visitors to take if they want to learn more.

Most commonly designed to work in correlation with paid internet traffic, landing pages aren’t cluttered with myriad points about your company, team, product suite, service offerings, experience, and past performance. Those elements are essential to reveal, but they’re delegated to the homepage of your website, which is usually full of links to click and buttons to press. Conversely, a landing page usually only has one button -- the CTA. This button might read “Click Here to Learn More,” “Register Now” or various interpretations depending on the action you want your target visitor to take.

What Do Landing Pages Do?

It’s easy to become overwhelmed with options as soon as we log onto the internet. After all, we use the same device to schedule a conference call, send our important emails, buy a new pair of shoes, order our family’s groceries for the week, engage in social media, and oh yes, actually call someone. As such, it doesn’t take long before we’re soon bombarded with the possibilities and our attention spans become shorter and shorter.

Landing pages are mean to help simplify the chaos. Here are three important purposes they serve:

1. They make decisions quick and simple.

A website can be a complicated traffic web. You want to make sure that your audience has everything it needs when it visits your page, so you cram it full with data. Have you ever visited a website and spent more than a few seconds wondering which drop-down menu to press or subpage to visit because the whole thing was just so convoluted with information that it was difficult to discern where to begin?

That’s not the case with a landing page. If you want to get your audience’s attention and cut right to the fact of the matter, you’ll do it in this space. You’ll design a landing page when you want your visitors to perform a certain action. This might be taking a survey, signing up for an online class you’re offering, donating to your cause or downloading your most recent white paper. Either way, the aim and intent are made clear on the page as soon as the visitor lands there and there is no digging around for the purpose or point.

2. They help you gauge customer interest.

If you’re a marketer, chances are you’ve put out some advertising campaigns that have been more effective than others. Yet, how did you know whether or not one was successful? You can ask for customer feedback, calculate ROI and analyze traffic patterns all day and while those insights may be valuable in their own right, none are as quick or to-the-point as a landing page.

You can use your landing page as a simple way to find out whether or not your customers are actually interested in the product or service you’re advertising. How? You can simply use this space to request basic customer information in exchange for a provided benefit. For instance, you may offer a visitor a sneak-peek trial of a new product if they’ll provide their address and phone number. Other motivators might include discounts and promotion codes, free articles, or other swag. If you get a lot of positive responses, it either means your incentives were incredible or your campaign is truly thought-provoking. Now, you’ve also got a list of qualified and interested leads who want to learn more about what you’re offering.

3. They bring your ad campaign full-circle.

You wouldn’t shell out major bucks on a new digital marketing campaign only to leave it half-fulfilled, would you? Unless you have a designated landing page for yours, that could be exactly what you’re doing. The intent of your efforts is to turn visitors into leads, and then leads into paying customers. As such, the quicker you can complete this circle and close that loop, the more profit that means for your business. To that end, it’s worth the investment to work with a landing page builder to make sure yours is up to speed.

You don’t want to send your interested customers on a wild goose chase. Rather, you want to direct them exactly where you’d like them to go, using your landing page as the key navigator. To this end, a landing page can reduce your bounce rate, increase conversions and earn you a better return on your paid advertising endeavor.

From the Landing Page to the Front Page: Keeping Them Interested

After you’ve captured your customer’s interest with a streamlined, straightforward and user-friendly landing page, you might think the work is over. Yet, while a major hurdle has been crossed, there is still work to do. Next, it’s important to deliver on the promises you made. Use the contact information you’ve gathered to learn more about your interested audience members to create products and services that cater directly to them.

Maintain the engagement momentum by keeping a consistent social media posting strategy and reaching out to on-the-fence prospects. Above all, remember to that if someone only has one interaction with your brand, the landing page is where you want it to happen. From there, the possibilities are endless.