Can Yoga Make You Look Taller?
Enquiring shorties want to know. (Photo: Shutterstock)
Question: I’m a shortie. Can yoga make me look taller?
It totally can! Yoga teaches you an awareness of your body, which can improve your posture outside of class. For example, to get into a deeper twist, you should first extend your spine as you inhale, which prevents compression in your back so you can rotate your body to its max (but still safe) place.
Related: 11 Surprising Perks of Practicing Yoga
With regular practice, this consciousness of your body in space overflows into everyday life, so you can control how you carry yourself. You’re more likely to sit with a tall spine, lifting out of your lower back and keeping your shoulder blades rolled back—all of which can give the appearance of a vertically blessed person.
—Kathryn Budig, yoga teacher and author of The Women’s Health Big Book of Yoga. Follow her at YogaGlo.com.
Have fitness questions? Send them to askanything@rodale.com or tweet them to @womenshealthmag with the hashtag #AskWH. And for answers to reader questions on various other topics, check out the “Ask Anything” section in the July/August 2015 issue of Women’s Health, on newsstands now.
More from Women’s Health:
13 Things Girls Who Practice Yoga Do But Will Never Admit To
Why Everyone Needs to Stop Saying Yoga Doesn’t Count as a Workout
