Stress causes brittle nails

Fragile nails cause many problems. They can break, split, and crack. Not only they look ugly, but they are non functional.

Try to pry open a can, peel of the sales sticker from those new shoes or even have a cat fight. You will not emerge victorious from either. Nails, like any other part of your body must be strong and healthy. Fragile nails do not belong to a healthy body.

Two main reasons for fragile nails

There are many reasons why one may have flimsy nails. Among them are

stress that damages collagen and
poor nutrition that makes inferior nails.

Interestingly most highly stressed individuals do not think they are stressed. They think so because nobody told them otherwise and without being tested they cannot compare themselves to others or to any norm.

You surely have a friend that gets upset easily and when told “relax!“, she would say “I AM relaxed!“. One cannot reason with unreasonable, so instead of arguing we leave it to biofeedback machines to make the judgment. Generally we find that people highly overestimate their ability to relax.

How stress weakens nails

Stress weakens nails in a specific way. Stress produces cortisol. Cortisol damages collagen, a building block for nails. But that’s not all.

Since collagen is also present in skin, joints, hair over time excess collagen will break down tissue causing

brittle or thinning hair,
wrinkled skin,
and weak joints
besides causing brittle nails.

Excess cortisol can also contribute to

prolapsed organ such as prolapsed bladder or uterus and contribute to
poor immunity causing
frequent colds and general susceptibility to germs

Stress depletes nutrients

Excessive or prolonged stress causes depletion of many nutrients. A nutrient that is depleted the most by stress is Vitamin C. Vitamin C is necessary for building strong collagen. Thus lack of vitamin C contributes to fragile nails, brittle hair, wrinkled skin, weak joints and prolapsed organs.

Get vitamin C with extra-strong collagen support

Vitamin C is an anti-stress nutrient as well. It supports adrenals, which get activated during stress. Without vitamin C adrenals do not function properly which make you feel even more stressed. It is a vicious cycle.