Tips For Increasing Height

 

The soul is beyond the body and hence from this perspective, it is immaterial how tall or short a person is. The true height of a person is his or her character and deeds.

Yet, tall height is a natural ambition of humans. I agree that in current context it is partly because of the glamour associated with tall height. If that were the driver for any urge for height increase, the efforts would defeat the purpose. Because the true purpose for height increase should stem from an earnest desire to achieve as much of our potential as we can. A tall height represents complete growth of the body and hence we should endeavor to achieve that complete growth mayurasana for beginners.

Height does vary from person to person as per his or her genetics, climate and other conditions. Thus blanket comparison of height with others is not a right approach. Instead the correct approach should be to keep as healthy as possible to gain complete growth of body.

I was born as a medium height child. Till age of 17, my height did not grow much. At age of 17, at just above 5 feet, I was among the short students of my class and often ridiculed for being short and thin. Very honestly, at times I did feel humiliated at tended to avoid public company to the extent possible. The matter got worse because I could see many other boys who were shorter than me few years ago now surpassing me.

But for once, I decided to no more rationalize and act as an ostrich. I decided to take my concern heads-on. I changed my complete life-pattern. For next two years, I committed to new patterns and by the time I was nineteen, I was 5'11" and had an extremely flexible and agile body. Today I have a height of above 6 feet.

In this article, I would share those tips that I followed in my height transformation process. I am sure these will benefit one and all in achieving their maximum potential:

Tip 1: Mind Power

Our body responds to our thoughts. As per our thought patterns, appropriate hormones are secreted and physiological changes happen accordingly. Positive thoughts reverse aging process and improve health. Negative thoughts accelerate aging process and stunt growth. Thus first critical step for height gain is to reprogram your thought patterns. Not only it will help you increase height, but also bring benefits in all areas of your life. To me, it made me a diligent person that helped me get admission in IIT. Here are specific suggestions on mind programming for height-gain:

Refuse to accept that you are born unhealthy and short. Visualize yourself as having the most perfect health and live every moment in that vision.

Stop compromising on matters of quality. Keep demanding as much as you can think of, from yourself.

Imagine that your height is increasing every moment with every movement of yours.

Stop traits of anger, helplessness and dejection.

Remember that will power is the key. Once you get a good grasp on it, rest would work automatically. If you try out these tips without strong will-power, it would never work. This secret gets you everything you want in life.

Tip 2: Food

Simply stop junk, fried, spicy and oily food. I cannot stress further the importance of simple, nutritious, healthy food. Our body is made out of food we eat. We grow from a baby of few inches to a full-grown adult only through food we eat. Food is the raw material used to build our building that we call body. How can you expect a strong building to be built if you use inferior raw material from junkyard?

Following are certain recommendations that have helped me:

Eating at least two hours before sleep

Having a light dinner

Regular consumption of sprouts

Having regular eating schedule and avoiding habit of munching every now and then

Avoiding consumption of tea, coffee, cold-drinks, ice-cream, chocolates etc

Regular use of trifala powder in night or early morning

Eating lots of fresh fruits

Drinking lots of water

Walking for 10-15 minutes after meals

Eating soaked almonds in morning. The gulbandi variety is best.

Eating in sukhasan. This posture is a wonderful gift of our ancient seers.

Tip 3: Exercise

Human body is built to work hard and live actively. More we avoid physical labor, more we become prone to underdevelopment, faster aging and ailments. Make a habit of doing rigorous workouts at least thrice a week and normal exercises in rest of the days.

My routine in those days was as follows:

Waking up by 5 am and having a variety of workouts till 8 am. These included mix and match of following:

Running and jogging

Flexibility and stretching

Martial Arts practice

Asans and Pranayams

Meditation

In evening I used to go for Taekwondo exercises thrice a week. The practice of high kicks is extremely beneficial

On Sundays, we used to go to play cricket.

This active routine worked wonders on my body and activity.

Would request all health-seekers to join taekwondo lessons close-by. Taekwondo differs from other martial arts. In taekwondo, emphasis is on high kicks and free stretching which helps body grow. In many other martial arts, focus is on restricting body movements within a small region. Thus it seems to restrict height of a person.

Similarly weight-training should be avoided for first 20 years of life. That should be replaced with free hand exercises like pushups.

Many claim that Yogasan can help increase height. I even saw a video on it by a celebrated hathayogi. He gave a passionate speech in the video that seemed to showcase short height as source of all miseries and inferiority complex. Ironically the hathayoga guru himself appeared not more than five and a half feet!

The fact is that hathayoga is being overemphasized bit too much these days and its benefits are being over-inflated as a marketing gimmick. Certain asans do benefit but in essence it's the overall package of healthy lifestyle which is effective. Replace these hathasans with any kind of aerobic physical activity and results would be exactly the same. Perhaps even more!

Having said this, certain postures are quite useful for height growth. These should be added in one's fitness routine - chakrasana, halasana, sarvangasana, pashchimatanasana, pavanmuktasana, hastapadasana, mayurasana. Among Pranayams, the only pranayams I have found to be truly effective are Bahya Pranayam, Abhyantara and Chaturtha Pranayama. These provide all the benefits that are claimed from variety of breathing practices like Anulom Vilom, Bhastrika etc. These pranayams with rigorous cardio in open air gives all the benefit you desire from a fitness regime.