Garfield ain't got nothing on this hairball

As a kid, did you ever play that game, "What's grosser than gross" where you tried to outdo one another on disgustingly vile situations and scenarios? If only I'd had this to show all my neighborhood buddies from back then:

No, it's not a decaying animal or a torture chamber; it's the amount of hair our Shark picked up in ONE room of our house! Granted, it was the room I typically "do" my hair, but still! We have resorted to using this as our main vacuum ever since I accidentally ran over the electrical cord with the vacuum itself on my new expensive Christmas present from last year(whoopsie). This little guy does a great job of picking up dirt (and obviously hair as well) but I have to stop every 3-4 minutes to empty to dust tray and literally yank the hundreds of hairs that are wrapped around the rotating brushes. Oh, and to throw up a bit because EWWW, what is wrong with me?!
I bring this up because I had a near mental breakdown last week over my hair loss. I am not balding, but am sure at this rate I will be at some point. I already have the thinnest, stick straight hair in America and am fairly certain I lose about 3X's as much hair as the average person (I researched this folks).

So of course in order to correct this issue, I look at symptoms.

1. Too much stress- I'm a teacher...so yes
2. Being on birth control for too long- is 8 years a long time? Fine, yes
3. Hormone imbalance- well i did have half of my thyroid gland removed, so yes
4. Blowdrying or overstyling- heck no, Matt is lucky if I do my hair for our date nights
5. Brushing hair while wet- guilty as charged

Of course I am freaking out when I realize almost all the signs relate to me. I have already resorted to washing my hair every other day, although it pains me to not wash it immediately after each trip to the gym. It sounds like nothing really happens when people go to dermatologists and endocrinologists, and other docs will just put you on anti-depression meds. Am I that much of a lost cause that rather than save my hair, they just try to keep you from getting depressed over your fleeing folicles?

In the mean time I will be brushing less, vacumming more, and trying to find ways to remove stress from areas of my life. Too bad the number one source pays our bills...