When you decided to grow a beard, you thought you’d rock a thick, bushy mane. You imagined you’d look in the mirror and see Jake Gyllenhaal or Jason Momoa staring back at you, not the reflection of the guy with patchy beard growth you see now. Is it normal that you can’t grow a full beard?
What Causes Patchy Beard Growth?
As you may know, testosterone is a major player in facial hair, but so are your genetics. You can’t change the number of hair follicles on your face. Some guys are born with more than others. The number of hair follicles isn’t the only thing that contributes to beard growth and texture.
When you pump out the testosterone, some of it travels to the hair follicles on your face and gets converted to dihydrotestosterone (DHT). The more sensitive your follicles are to DHT, the bushier your beard is.
Genetics aside, your patchy beard growth may have other causes, such as:
- Stress: Stress raises the cortisol coursing through your body. Elevated cortisol messes with your hormone balance and vitamin absorption, leading to patchy hair loss.
- Age: How old you are is a factor in how thick your beard grows. Some men don’t grow into their beard prime until they’re in their 20s. After age 30, testosterone levels start to decline gradually, which can result in changes to beard growth.
- Diet: If your diet is lacking in certain nutrients, it can impact testosterone levels and lead to patchy hair growth.
- Lifestyle: Obesity is another factor that contributes to lower testosterone levels. A sedentary lifestyle and poor sleep habits are other potential reasons your beard may not meet your expectations.
While you can’t do anything about your genetics, there are some things you can do to fix patchy beard growth.
How Do You Solve the Patchy Beard Growth Problem?
If the reality of your beard is not matching up with the image you have of what you want your beard to be when it grows up, all is not lost. These tips may help you grow a luscious and enviable mane.
Give It Some Time
Time is your friend when growing a beard. If you are younger than 25, you likely haven’t hit your beard prime. Once you hit your full glory in growth, your mane may look completely different than it does now.
If you’re over 25 and still have patchy beard growth, you may not have given your facial hair enough time to grow in. A common mistake men make when they start growing a beard is that they give up after a month because they aren’t seeing the results they hoped for.
If your facial hair is sparse, or you have patches of skin where there should be hair, allow your beard to grow out for at least 90 days. Often, it fills in enough during this time to cover up the patchy areas. If it doesn’t, you may need to give your beard a boost.
Get the Right Nutrition
Certain nutrients benefit patchy beard growth. When you incorporate these into your diet, you may see a notable difference in how thick and full your mane looks. Go for a diet with lots of whole vegetables, fruit and lean, healthy proteins. The food you eat can help your body operate at its optimum level, producing enough testosterone to fuel your follicles.
While your diet won’t change your genetics, it can give your genes the support they need to give you your best beard. Make sure you get enough of the following nutrients that foster full mane production:
- Zinc
- Protein
- Iron
- Unsaturated fats
- Vitamins A, all of the Bs, C, D and E
Including foods that contain these nutrients can help improve your patchy beard growth and make your facial hair strong and healthy.
Natural is the way to go for the best results for your beard and the rest of your body. No sense sporting a badass beard by feeding your body a bunch of harmful ingredients. At Wild Willies, we help you give your facial hair a natural nutritional boost with our Bad Ass Beard Growth supplement, containing Biositol AsX and made from natural and organic ingredients.
Get Some Exercise
Exercise does the body and the beard good. If you’re only involvement in exercise is watching sports on the TV, getting in shape can increase your testosterone. Shedding some extra pounds and building up strength may help sculpt your muscles and mane. Exercise, in general, is good for growth hormones, but weight training is best, followed by high-intensity interval training.
Weight training adds muscle mass, and more muscles equal higher testosterone levels and, maybe, lower patchy beard growth. If you alternate days of weight training with high-intensity interval training, you might just rock a solid body and healthy heart to go with that new, bushy beard. A word of caution about long-distance endurance sports: they’re great for your health, but they do lower testosterone. If you like riding or running, great — but you might want to keep it at a moderate level if you’re trying to boost your testosterone.
Work With What You’ve Got
If you’ve done everything you can to get those patches to fill in, and they stubbornly refuse, work with what you’ve got. Keep up with the healthy routines because — hey — they’re good for all kinds of reasons, but all is not lost if you find you still have some patchy beard growth.
Choose a style that works with patchy growth. Fortunately, both short and long styles look good even when you don’t have the thickest mane in town. If you take care of your beard, keeping it well-trimmed and brushed, there’s no reason you can’t look cool with a patchy beard.
Get the Tools You Need To Fix Patchy Beard Growth
At Wild Willies, we make it our job to make sure you have the best tools and products for growing and maintaining your mane. If you have patchy beard growth, we’ve got your back, or in this case, your beard. Check out our products. If you need help finding the right goods for your beard, give us a shout, and we’ll help you out.
