Did you know that doing yoga makes you taller? While yoga won’t alter your true height by miraculously bestowing you with an extra vertebra, everyone who practices this pliable art grows taller, sometimes gaining up to a full inch.
This is because a regular yoga practice improves bad posture habits that make us appear shorter than we really are. Yoga can also help increase the space between our spinal vertebra, which become compressed from high-impact sports and from the natural aging process.
Stand Tall
Do you stand with one knee bent while sinking into the same hip? Do you round your upper back and slouch your shoulders forward, or drop your hips forward letting your lower back arch? We all have poor posture habits like these that compromise our stature, as well as our spinal health.
How You Stand is How You Feel
Sometimes, poor posture relates directly to emotional states. Take, for example, the common shoulder slouch. This can feel really comfortable if you are shy or nervous because you are closing off and protecting your chest (heart chakra) by rolling your shoulders forward.
When you open your heart center and draw your shoulder blades together and then down your back, your heart opens up. You might feel a bit vulnerable, but you gain emotional and physical strength in return.
Proper posture provides the challenge of meeting life face, heart and head-on. You also gain the advantage of standing taller, which some say increases one’s sense of confidence and energy.
The Perfect Posture Pose
Mountain is the ultimate good posture pose because its goal is just that: to teach you how to stand properly. Once you practice for long enough, you will find your body coming into mountain pose naturally on its own, whether you are on your yoga mat or standing in line at the grocery store.
Mountain Pose
Here’s how you do it. Stand with your feet hip distance apart, inner edges of your feet parallel. Soften your knees, so they are not locked straight, and push the soles of your feet into the ground to engage your quadriceps.
Feeling strong and grounded in your legs, tilt your hips forward (arching), then back (tucked). When your hips are right in the middle of these two extremes, you have found your neutral spine. Engage your lower abdominals, and take a deep inhale, feeling your spine grow long and tall.
Then drop your shoulders down towards your hips and let your heart-center shine open. Imagine a magnet at your heart and your crown being pulled up towards the ceiling.
Spinal Space
Once proper posture has been engrained in your body, you can add extra oomph to your elevation by working on your forward folds. Standing forward fold, or Utanasana, is the most effective for creating space between your vertebra. In Utanasana, you let your torso hang heavily towards the ground with soft knees and strong legs. Gravity will stretch out your spine — all you have to do is relax.
Practice standing forward folds and mountain pose and you are guaranteed to stand out in a crowd!