Why Do Women Cut Their Hair After Trauma? A Psychologist on Sherine, Self-Care, and the Real Science Behind It
- Sarah El Nabulsi, M.Sc., M.A., M.A.
- Jul 8
- 5 min read
MBC1 — FI OSBOU3A · December 18, 2021
Ms. Sarah El Nabulsi, M.Sc., M.A., M.A., DHA Licensed Clinical Psychologist, joined the hosts of MBC1's Fi Osbou3a to unpack a question the episode opened with: why do women so often cut or shave their hair after a divorce, a breakup, or another major personal upheaval — and is there really a psychological mechanism behind it, or is it just a coincidence we notice in the public eye?
Sherine, Britney Spears, and a Very Old Pattern
The hosts opened the segment by pointing to a recent, very visible example: the singer Sherine cutting her hair following her divorce, and the online speculation that it was a response to the trauma of the separation. They noted this isn't an isolated case — Britney Spears and other public figures have made similarly widely-discussed changes to their hair after their own separations — and asked me directly: is there really a link between women cutting their hair and traumatic life events?
My answer was unambiguous: yes, absolutely. This is an old and well-established connection — old enough, I said, half-joking, that any hairdresser will confirm it from experience alone. Women very often change something about their appearance when they go through a significant life experience, and there is real physiology behind why.
Self-care activities — including a haircut, a new hairstyle, or a visit to the salon — have been shown to raise oxytocin, the hormone most associated with bonding, touch, and soothing. Research on self-soothing and touch-based behaviour, including physiologist Kerstin Uvnäs-Moberg's work on oxytocin's role in stress regulation, has consistently found that non-noxious touch and grooming-type stimulation increase oxytocin release, and that oxytocin in turn helps regulate cortisol — the body's primary stress hormone. In practical terms: when a woman engages in a self-care ritual like changing her hair, she isn't simply "doing something to feel better" in an abstract sense. She is triggering a measurable hormonal shift that reduces her physiological stress load.
Is Cutting Your Hair a Strength — or a Retreat?
One of the hosts pushed back on this, and I want to be fair to her position because it's a common one: she said she saw hair-cutting after a breakup as a kind of weakness — why should a woman change her look or her style because of something that happened to her? Doesn't that look like a concession, even a defeat?
I told her directly that her view is valid — people are entitled to different perspectives on this, and hers is a reasonable one. But as a therapist, what I see clinically is usually something different. For many women, particularly in Arab culture, cutting the hair after a shock is not retreat — it's processing.
In Arabic culture specifically, a woman's long hair has historically been treated as her "crown." That crown is bound up with a broader cultural narrative: a woman who preserves her femininity, who eventually meets the partner who matches her, and who builds the stable, beautiful family life she has been raised to imagine. When that dream is disrupted — through divorce, loss, or heartbreak — cutting the hair can become a subconscious signal to herself that the chapter tied to that dream has ended. It isn't a performance for others. It's an internal marker.
It Isn't Always About Trauma
I was also careful to note that this pattern doesn't apply to every case. One of the hosts asked directly: is it always trauma driving this, or does a woman sometimes just want to change her hair? Of course, I said, it's often simply the latter. I gave my own example: I change my look every few months, not because anything difficult has happened, but as an expression of my own creativity and personal style. Self-expression through appearance is a completely normal, healthy behaviour on its own, independent of any hardship.
The Same Mechanism Works in Men
The hosts then asked whether any of this applies to men, and the answer is yes — through a related but distinct hormonal pathway. One of the clearest examples is what happens biologically when a man becomes a father. Research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (Gettler et al., 2011) found that testosterone levels in men decline significantly after they become fathers — a shift the researchers link to a broader trade-off in male physiology between mating effort and parental investment. As oxytocin rises during this period, it supports increased paternal bonding, while falling testosterone reduces some of the drive behind more exploratory or sexually competitive behaviour. Nature, in effect, recalibrates a new father toward staying close to home and caring for his family.
This is also why we're seeing a real rise in men's grooming culture here in the UAE — more men's salons, more male self-care. It isn't vanity. It's a healthy behavioural outlet for the same oxytocin-driven stress regulation that benefits women, and I'd encourage more men to see it that way rather than dismissing it.
Hair-Cutting Isn't the Only Tool — and Not Every "Healthy" Habit Is Actually Healthy
I was asked whether cutting your hair is the only way to bring stress levels down, and of course it isn't. Spending quality time with people you love lowers stress for both men and women. Exercise can too — but with an important caveat: if a workout is too intense or pushes the body too hard, it can raise cortisol rather than lower it. The takeaway I wanted to leave the audience with is broader than hair specifically: we have behavioural tools, not just substances like medication, food, or other consumables, that can shift our body chemistry. What we do changes our physiology just as much as what we take.
When It's About Attention, Not Coping
Finally, one of the hosts raised a sharper question: could some women be cutting their hair simply to generate attention or buzz — a kind of engineered moment rather than a genuine coping response?
I told her that needing attention is not, in itself, pathological. Every human being, including children, needs a healthy degree of attention and recognition — it's part of what nourishes a sense of belonging and self-worth. But there is a difference between healthy attention-seeking and a pathological dependence on it. Some individuals cannot construct or sustain a sense of self, or a stable sense of self-worth, without a continuous, high volume of outside attention. This is something we see clinically, for example, in individuals with Borderline Personality Disorder — a condition the DSM-5 characterises in part by a markedly unstable self-image and an intense fear of abandonment, both of which can drive a compulsive need for external validation. In those cases, the attention isn't a side effect of a coping behaviour — it becomes the entire point.
About Ms. Sarah El Nabulsi
Ms. Sarah El Nabulsi, M.Sc., M.A., M.A. is a DHA Licensed Clinical Psychologist (License No. DHA-75083705) based in Dubai, and UAE Director of the Transcendental Meditation Organization. She has been featured on MBC, MBC1, Sky News Arabia, Dubai TV, and BBC Arabic, and is the founder of the online courses Anxiety 101 (Level 1) and Master Yourself (Level 2).
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