LexiYoga

Can Yoga Make you Taller?

The fastest and easiest way to look taller and feel better is to change your posture. Standing up tall, and dropping your shoulders can dramatically increase your self confidence, make you look slimmer and more assertive. If you correct your poor posture, you can instantly look 5 pounds slimmer.

downward dog

Yoga can definitely lengthen, tone and stretch your body to improve your posture and make you look taller. Your shoulders play a role in determining your posture. Yoga causes your shoulders to roll back instead of forward, which gives you an instant appearance of being taller.

Yoga postures can literally lengthen your neck and spine, so that you stand and sit taller. This allows you to carry yourself with more authority and grace.

To keep yourself in a 24/7 perfect posture profile, you need to strengthen and retrain your stand-tall muscles with specific exercises that will target your abdominals.

Yoga also makes you stronger and more flexible by stretching the muscles around your shoulders, which will greatly improve your range of motion. You'll be able to move more freely and engage in your daily activities with more ease.

Poor posture puts your abdominal muscles to sleep instead of challenging them to hold our bodies upright, which further gives you a constant belly bulging slump. (This is a particular problem for women after pregnancy, as it's harder to regain full upright posture after delivery.)

Here are 6 yoga postures to improve your posture and make you look taller.

Reverse Prayer Pose - Pashchima Namaskarasana

Reverse Prayer Pose loosens your shoulder joints by increasing the flexibility in your shoulders, chest, and upper back. You can modify this pose, by trying to bring your palms together behind your back, by clasping opposite elbows.

  1. Sit in a comfortable cross-legged position on the floor.
  2. Bring your hands to your lower back with your palms facing each other.
  3. Try to bring your hands together in a prayer position.
  4. Bring your fingertips up your back as far as you can. Your goal is to get your hands between your shoulder blades.
  5. Hold this pose for 30 seconds to a minute.

Downward Dog - Adho Mukha Svanasana

Downward dog is the most common in yoga, as you hear about it the most. It's great for tight shoulders. If you only have time for one pose, then this is it. To get more of a stretch in your shoulders and chest muscles, bend your knees and try to sink your chest toward your thighs.

  1. Come down to the floor on your hands and knees.
  2. Bring your hands about shoulder distance apart, with your palms flat on the floor.
  3. Bend your knees, engage your core muscles, and pull yourself back to what looks like an inverted V.
  4. Bring your feet about hip distance apart.
  5. Try to get your heels down, and your butt up to the ceiling.
  6. Relax your neck and shoulders.
  7. Hold for 45 seconds to a minute.

Upward Dog - Urdvha Mukha Svanasana

Upward dog improves your posture by opening up your chest muscles and shoulders. It also strengthens your arms, wrists, shoulders, and chest muscles. You can modify this pose by bending your elbows to take the pressure off your lower back.

For added benefits; keep your shoulders away from your ears, drop your shoulder blades down your back and really open up your shoulders.

  1. Lie down on your stomach.
  2. Bring your legs straight back behind you.
  3. Make sure the tops of your feet are on the floor.
  4. Bend your elbows and place your hands on the floor beneath your shoulders.
  5. Spread your fingertips wide apart.
  6. Press into your hands to straighten your arms.
  7. Lift your chest up and slightly back, and if you can, keep your thighs active.
  8. Press into your hands and the tops of your feet; see if you can lift your thighs off the floor.
  9. Look straight ahead.
  10. Hold for 30-45 seconds.

Side Angle Pose with a Twist - Parivrtta Parsvakonasana

Side angle pose with a twist opens the front of your body and works your lower body, but when you add the wrapping modification, it becomes a shoulder opener as well.

  1. Start standing; bring your left foot back about 3 to 4 feet, depending on your height and flexibility.
  2. Bend your right knee until your thigh is parallel to the floor.
  3. Your back heel should be flat on the ground at a 45-degree angle so that your heel is back and your toes are pointed slightly forward.
  4. Bring your right hand to the inside of your knees. Alternately, rest your palm flat on the floor on the inside of your foot if you can do so without collapsing through your chest.
  5. Bring your left arm straight up to the ceiling.
  6. Let your left arm drop behind your back and then grab your thigh and rotate your chest to the ceiling.
  7. You can look down the side or up, depending on your flexibility; just go to your level.
  8. Hold this for 45 seconds to 1 minute.
  9. Switch sides. Stand up and shake out your legs.
  10. Step your right foot back about 3 to 4 feet.
  11. Bend your left knee this time.
  12. Bring your left hand to the floor or to your knee depending on your flexibility.

Inclined Plane Pose - Poorvottanasana

Inclined plane pose builds strength in your shoulders, arms, chest area, wrists, and ankle joints. It also stretches your shoulders. You can modify this pose by only lifting your hips as high as you can. You might not be perfectly flat, but you are still opening your shoulders. For added benefits, try not to crunch your neck; slowly let your head fall back.

  1. Sit on the floor with your legs out in front of you.
  2. Put your hands behind your hips with your fingertips facing toward you.
  3. Press your hands to raise your hips and chest toward the ceiling.
  4. Keep your legs and arms straight.
  5. Drop your head back to stretch your neck.
  6. Hold for 30 seconds to a minute.
  7. Repeat two more times.

Seated Spinal Twist Pose - Ardha Matsyendrasana

This pose releases tension in your shoulders, neck, and lower back. It relieves mild backaches and hip pain by strengthening and stretching the muscles of the lower back. Seated twist helps with your lateral movement (that is, side-to-side or twisting movement), which is normally the first type of flexibility that is lost in your back.

Be sure to keep your straight leg firmly on the ground, and don't let your butt come off the floor. Remember to breath, as we have a tendency to hold our breath when we do twisting poses and don't over twist your neck, as the focus of this pose is your shoulders.

  1. Sit on the floor with your legs out in front of you.
  2. Bend your left knee and bring it forward.
  3. Keep your right leg on the floor.
  4. Lift your left leg over your right, and place your left foot on the floor next to your right knee.
  5. Keep your foot on the ground.
  6. Sitting with your spine straight, place your right elbow on the left side of your left knee.
  7. Bring your right hand behind you for support.
  8. Bend your left elbow and place your upper arm against the inside of your left thigh, while at the same time twisting to look over your left shoulder.
  9. Press your left arm and knee against each other.
  10. Lift your torso and twist to the left. This is where you need to be careful not to twist too far.
  11. Keep your shoulders parallel and squared to the floor.
  12. Look over your left shoulder.
  13. Hold for 30 seconds to a minute.
  14. Repeat on the right side.
6 Yoga Poses to Make you Look Taller Video
VIDEO - Here is an instructional video of these 6 amazing yoga postures to make you look taller.

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