Combing Hair in the Opposite Direction

Hello, I am a 21 year old male, and I don’t have any dramatic balding, but I am noticing my hair is thinner than it used to be when I was younger, but perhaps I am just being paranoid. I am a Sikh, and part of the religion is to keep uncut hair tied neatly in a topknot. I do not tie this topknot very tightly, and I leave a lot of slack between the knot and the root to make sure I am not putting any unnecessary tension on my roots. I wash my hair every 2-3 days depending on how greasy it gets.

My question is: does combing your hair in the opposite direction (as I must to bring my hair in the upward direction to tie the topknot) lead to any sort of increased hair loss? I comb, not vigorously, all the hair at the back and sides of my head “up” in order to tie the knot, meaning I run my comb from the top of my neck to the top of the crown, and I am scared that this is the cause of thinning hair.

Combing your hair “against the grain”, so to speak, wouldn’t cause hair loss.

Tightness can cause tension hair loss which sounds like something you are now experiencing. This hair loss in the front and sides is very common amongst Sikhs from what we call traction alopecia. It is caused by a tight turban which pulls against the healthy hair.

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