Follicles maintain stem cells that regulate hair growth through a complex interaction between hormones, neuropeptides, and immune cells.
The hair follicle organ consists of the papilla, the hair matrix, a root sheath, the bulge that houses stem cells, and the Infundibulum or cup where the follicles grow. This area also contains the arrector pili muscles, the sebaceous glands, the apocrine sweat glands, and receptors. Stem cells supply the hair follicle with new cells to help heal the epidermis after a wound.
Hair growth occurs in distinct sequential stages.
Anagen: Active growth stage
Catagen: Regression of the hair follicle phase
Telogen: Resting stage
Exogen: Active shedding phase
Kenogen: The phase between the empty hair follicle and the growth of new hair
VARIATION
Ethnic differences create variation in hair appearance and texture.
Head hair provides insulation from hot and cold temperatures and protection from the sun’s excessive UV rays.
Plus, HAIR is an extension of the nervous system: A type of highly evolved feelers or antennae that transmit vast amounts of important information to the brain stem, the limbic system, and the neocortex. Hair also emits electromagnetic energy from the brain into the outer environment. This is seen in Kirlian photography when a person is photographed with long hair and then rephotographed after their hair is cut off or shorter.
Recall the Biblical story of Sampson and Delilah, where Delilah caused him to lose his supernatural strength and get defeated by his enemies by cutting his hair.
WHY DO INDIANS KEEP THEIR
LONG HAIR
According to another article on the Hair Shaman’s site, during the Vietnam War, the war department sent undercover experts to comb American Indian Reservations looking for tough young men who could stealthily move through rough terrain. They were looking for men with outstanding, almost supernatural, tracking abilities. (In Australia, the British used the local Aboriginals, who were reputed to be the best trackers in the world.) Before being approached, these carefully selected men had been documented extensively as experts in tracking and survival. However, once enlisted, whatever talents and skills they had possessed on the reservation mysteriously disappeared. Recruit after recruit failed to perform as expected in the field.
Serious casualties and performance failures led the government to contract expensive testing of these recruits. When questioned about their failure to perform, this is what they found: the older recruits replied that when they received their required military haircuts, they could no longer ‘sense’ the enemy; they could no longer access a ‘sixth sense’; their ‘intuition’ no longer was reliable, and they couldn’t ‘read’ subtle signs as well or access extrasensory information.
So the testing institute recruited more Indian trackers, let them keep their long hair, and tested them in multiple areas. Then, they would pair the two who had received identical scores on all the tests.