Can protective styling actually hinder your hair growth journey?

During my hair analysis consultation, I received a piece of advice that I thought was worthy of an entire post.  We were talking about my stress point breakage when I mentioned that I was wearing buns to work pretty much on a daily basis  for quite a while (over 2 years).  As soon as I said that, she immediately gave me two pieces of advice.

1.  Try to move the location of my ponytail to avoid stress on the same area day after day.
2.  Try to wear my hair down for at least part of the day.

After she made her second point, I asked if she could repeat her statement because I thought I heard her wrong.  When she spoke again, the consultant shared that she recommended that I wear my hair down as often as possible. Her reasoning behind this is:

"when the hair is pulled up all the time, it slows the growth of the hair by placing too much tension and restraint on the follicles, which can stun growth."

She used her daughters as an illustration of her point. One of the girls, has type 3B, 3C and type 4A hair.  The other only has one texture, 3B.  The one with the 3B hair, wears a ponytail all the time and is currently shoulder length.  The other, wears a loose braid and have very long hair.  We've all heard the advice not to wear our hair pulled back too tightly for the sake of our edges and hair lines but could wearing ponytails, tight buns, etc impact our growth?  After a quick search online, I found a couple of sites that supported this argument.

My consultant and a few online sources confirmed that hair has a "natural growth direction."  Meaning, when left in it's natural state our hair grows in a set direction as determined by the placement of the follicle.  When we put our hair in certain styles like tight ponytails and high buns, we pull our follicles in a direction that goes against the natural flow.  This added weight and pressure can restrict blow flow to the scalp and slow growth if repeated daily for long periods of time. Those of us with thicker stands need to be extra aware of this risk.  In my situation, I can say that I've been guilty to throwing my hair in tight buns and calling it a day.  By the time I let my hair down, my scalp feels tight and welcomes the newfound freedom.  Immediately, I have to engage in a scalp massage to bring some much needed relief.

Is wearing your hair down the secret to longer lengths?  It would be if not for the fact that doing so also invites other factors that work against your progress.  Manipulation related breakage is one of the first things that come to mind.  Wearing your hair down also allows for constant friction to your ends. Both of these destroy our ability to retain length so even if grow is improved, retention goes out the door.  For this reason, we must operate in a way that makes both sides work for us.  On the one hand, we want to avoid wearing a daily style that could restrict blood flow to our follicle, on the other, we want to keep our ends fully protected from friction & manipulation.  It's a delicate balance.

I'm trying out new ways of wearing my hair that doesn't put excess strain on my follicles.  This does not mean that I won't wear my blessed high bun again. But the high bun won't be my go to style day after day.  Or, I will just take the bun down when I get home, moisturize my hair and do a scalp massage to allow the blood to flow freely to my hair strands.  Ultimately, I don't want to sacrifice growth for retention and vise versa. So I plan on being very intentional whenever I wear my hair up or down.

What do you think of this theory, does it make sense to you?