Many people are not happy with their height and are looking for a way how to be taller. You may be surprised at the fact that height is not entirely related to genetics.
Boys grow up to 18 years old, and girls up to 16 years old, of course, there are exceptions depending on lifestyle, diet, and other factors.
In fact, there are several factors that affect your body, including height. One of the main factors is genetics, and the others are diet, exercise, enough sleep at night, and other factors.
Genetics factor for your height
It is known that children of taller parents achieve globally higher growth. Genetic factors are thought to make up 60 to 80 percent of your final height.
While parents with shorter height more often have children who reach lower height as adults. This rule is global, but there are many different examples.
This means that hereditary factors are not the only ones that determine growth. In addition, it is known that growth dynamics also have an inherited component.
For example, in some families, the growth in children is slow until puberty, and then the normal height is reached.
On the other hand, in other families, children enter puberty early, grow faster than their peers, but the growth stops abruptly, resulting in early growth and lower final height.
There are several genes that directly affect growth, but their disruption is rarely the cause of short stature.
Proper nutrition helps us to be taller
A balanced diet rich in nutrients (especially calcium) and vitamins (especially vitamin D) will help your body improve and grow.
Calcium is most important when it comes to height gain with proper nutrition. Calcium helps bones grow, while vitamin D stimulates bone and muscle growth.
A healthy diet should be rich in fruits, vegetables, protein, and carbohydrates. Eat lots of protein-rich foods.
A protein diet, such as beans, soy, and nuts, helps promote muscle growth and healthy bones. Your diet should include milk, meat, vegetables, and nuts.
Try to make a schedule for your daily meals and diet menu. Eat 3 times a day at the same time with small healthy snacks between main meals.
Take a walk outside in the sun
Walking outside is beneficial because we get a lot of vitamin D from sunlight. As we have already said, vitamin D is important for the growth and proper growth of bones in our body.
But we benefit the most from it only if the UVB rays are not too weak. You can get this data from daily weather forecasts.
Your skin cannot get UVB rays early in the morning, in the evening, and of course during most of the winter months.
Exercise more often to grow
Exercise and sports are known to increase height. Sports, where body stretching is practiced, are a great supplement for increasing height naturally. Such sports are primarily basketball, volleyball, handball, tennis, swimming, and water polo.
With the sports we have listed, in addition to natural growth, we experience additional growth of the body, which in the end will be a really great height as we wish.
Although you can not drastically change it, it can still help you add a centimeter and become much more flexible.
Stretching can also have a positive effect when it comes to growing.
Exercises that stretch your spine and lengthen your body are really effective if you want to increase your height. Try to start the day with simple exercises for stretching the body and muscles.
Exercising for about an hour a day is great for the body and an opportunity for better bone and muscle growth.
Growth hormone
HGH (human growth hormone) is a vital hormone in the human endocrine system.
The endocrine system is a system of glands in the body that secrete hormones directly into the bloodstream.
The human growth hormone HGH is secreted by the pituitary gland, a small gland located at the bottom of the brain. It secretes several different hormones and regulates the development and growth of the body.
Growth hormone HGH is essential in childhood and puberty to promote height growth. After the age of 18, HGH leads to healthier body composition and is responsible for:
- Stimulating muscle mass growth
- Regeneration of muscles, bones, ligaments, veins
- Keeping the body in muscle shape
- Reduction of fat deposits
- Strengthen bones
- Protecting the organs from aging
- Improving circulation
As its name implies – it stimulates cell growth. It is responsible for physical development and directly regulates the growth of muscle mass.
HGH stimulates the formation of new cells, cell growth, and helps in muscle recovery.
This builds new muscle mass. It affects the conversion of body fat into energy (their melting), creates stronger bones and also affects sleep.
As with testosterone, proper weight training increases its secretion, and diet and sleep have a crucial effect on whether and how active it is.
Higher levels of growth hormone mean faster and easier increase in muscle mass. It is key to building muscle.
About 75% of the growth hormone production in the body occurs during sleep. That is why sleep of at least 8 hours is necessary.
No supplement can replace the role that sleep plays in the secretion of this hormone.HGH production decreases over the years.
Its reduction is accompanied by a decrease in lean muscle mass and bone density, an increase in body fat – especially in the abdomen, and deteriorating heart health.
The higher percentage of body fat = lower secretion of growth hormone
Simply put, as HGH decreases so do you start to look and feel older.HGH reduction can be significantly affected by exercise, diet, and adequate sleep.
HGH levels can be determined and monitored by a blood test. Exercise, mental state, stress, diet, sleep, age – all of these affect the production of HGH in your body.
Age is the smallest problem. There are far more negative factors for growth hormone than aging.
The first step in increasing the levels of this hormone is to eliminate those factors. Here are some of them:
- A diet rich in carbohydrates
- Excessive exercise
- Excess fat
- Insufficient sleep
- Mental stress
- Artificial sweeteners
- Flavor enhancers
- Alcohol
- Drugs, tranquilizers
How to increase growth hormone HGH
High-intensity training and sprints. This activates the muscle fibers responsible for strength and explosive activity, which naturally raises growth hormone.
Get enough sleep. 8 hours of sleep a night allows optimal excretion of HGH. Eat good quality protein and fat.
Before going to bed, it is best to have a meal with a good content of protein and fat and a small or zero content of carbohydrates.
Avoid carbohydrates before and after exercise. They raise blood sugar, which suppresses the secretion of growth hormone.
Get enough sleep to grow
In the text above you read about how sleep is related to growth, ie growth hormone. Our bodies function always, even when we are asleep.
Sleep is one of the main factors that affect the growth of our body. So it is not surprising that children grow the most while sleeping.
You need to sleep 8 hours every day if you want to see results. Your sleeping position is also very important.
It is best to sleep on your back without a pillow. Regular sleep along with other factors together helps us to be taller, so get enough sleep because we only grow once.
In the following table you can see how much sleep is recommended according to age:
- babies up to 3 months from 14-17 hours of sleep per day
- babies aged 3-11 months from 12-17 hours
- children 1-2 years about 11-14 hours per day
- children 3-5 years from 10-13 hours of daily sleep
- children 6-13 years from 9-11 hours per day
- teenagers 14-17 years from 8 to 10 hours
- adults 18-64 years 7-9 hours per day
- the elderly 65 years of age 7-8 hours of sleep a day
Creating extra sleep can even increase the production of growth hormone, so get as much sleep as you need to be taller.
A few exercises for body growth
Bridge stretching exercise
This exercise is one of the best for the growth of your body. Lie on your back with your knees bent. Lift your hips and return to the starting position.
Stretching the legs
There are several exercises you can do to stretch your legs. But if you want to increase your height you need to focus on leaf exercises. Stand parallel to the wall and place your hands on it.
Lean on the weight of your palms. Slowly move one foot against the wall. Stay in this position for about 30 seconds when you feel the leaf stretch. Repeat this exercise several times.
Other ways to look taller
Improve posture
Most people do not walk properly, or rather walk hunched over, especially if they sit too much. This distorts your spine so you can visually look shorter over time.
If you learn to hold your body properly you will notice that you will return to your original height.
Self-confidence
Increase your self-confidence and you will surely look taller. Changing your mood will change the way you look at yourself.
Self-confidence will have a positive effect on your body and your mind.
Wear shoe lifts
You do not have to be a star to use these bootloaders. The advantage of these accessories is of course their price because everyone can afford them, and at the same time, you will be happy with the fact that you will look taller.
They will help you look a few inches taller. Although this is not a permanent solution, at least you will look taller when you wear shoes.
Proper clothing to look taller
Proper clothing will make you look taller. Loose clothing and some fashion accessories can make you look shorter.
Avoid things that affect your height
Smoking, drinking alcohol, and similar harmful habits affect the growth of the body.
By removing these habits you will allow the body to “breathe” and do what it needs to do, and that is to grow.
Whether you want to increase your height or not, these habits are sure to improve your health as well.
When it comes to height, there is no need to be ashamed of it. Nothing is more important than how you see yourself. Try to increase your self-confidence and think positively.
Conclusion
We all want to be tall, with the ideal height for men and women. But the reality is completely different from our desires and dreams.
The height of our body is something that can change to some extent but not too much. Specifically, there are several main factors that contribute to our height.
First of all, the genetic factor is in the first place, it participates with 60-80%, in terms of how tall we will be.
Other factors that positively affect height are diet, physical activity, or sports (basketball, handball, volleyball), enough daily sleep, and exercises to stretch bones and muscles.
However, we should not be disappointed if we are inferior to other people around us.
It is much more important to have self-confidence in ourselves and our values because that is the most important thing for a person, it is less important whether it will be higher or lower.
