Actually, braiding can help your hair...as long as you don't do anything severe...like corn braiding... or anything that can pull hair. Braiding...like washing and conditioning hair before bedtime and braiding can be helpful. Moisture locks in to your hair. Braiding keeps hair together from tossing and turning at night.
But, their is more going on... thus biology... I like hair... so when I was listening to my college biology classes for my degree, I actually woke up and listened...
If your hair is breaking... protein problem... Keratin. Keratin is the binding protein that keeps hair strong. Without Keratin... problems happen. So finding something protein based like certain vitamins that help with hair...is good.
Thinning hair is a problem with the natural growth cycle. Your hair goes through cycles. There is a growth cycle. This is where a hair strand grow. It will grow as long as it can. Then, it goes dormant as another hair strand starts growing. The new hair strand pushes out the old one and it all starts over again.
If your hair is dry, a moisturizing conditioner is needed. If your hair falls out before it can grow, that all depends.
Everyone has a growing period. Sometimes it's not very long. Sometimes it's very long. Some women and men can only grow their hair to a certain length. That's because it falls out at a certain time. I dated a girl whose hair only could go to the tips of her shoulders. It was her specific growth cycle.
One of the things that helps is exercise. Yeah, what does exercise have to do with hair length? Hair is formed by a hair cell forming. It's alive. But, not for long. Another hair cell will form and the living hair cell will die. It's constant replacing of living and dying haircells. The protein keeps it together. But, hair formation is dependent on what it can receive. Each hair cell must have blood to give it what it needs. Air and food, basically. The more of those, the more haircells will form. The faster hair growth is.
A healthy diet and exercise makes sure that your hair cells are getting protien, glucose and oxygen. Cells can't live without it. The more of these, the more hair cells. The more hair cells, the longer your hair. The more of these the stronger your hair. Protein, glucose and oxygen means healthy hair. So, exercising excreases blood flow. Blood delivers protein, glucose and oxygen. Messaging your scalp encreases blood flow too.
Healthy diet and exercise means healthy hair. Hair care products with the right protein, oils that imitate the natural oils formed in your scalp and moisture that escapes from hair during washing and styling are needed.
That's where the stylists come in. The stylists job is not only to give you a style that's "in," but it's their job to make sure your hair stays healthy. They have a wealth of knowledge about products that do this for you.
Hope this helps...