Chiropractic adjustments are great for back pain and sports injuries, and they confer a range of other health and wellness benefits. Patients often report improved posture, improved balance, stress reduction, enhanced joint health, enhanced athletic performance, and, surprisingly, the feeling of being taller!
Yes, many chiropractic care patients have reported feeling taller after undergoing spinal adjustments.
In this article, we answer the question “Can a chiropractic adjustment make you taller?” We explore the impact of chiropractic care on height, and we explore how adjustments in posture and spinal function can make a patient feel taller.
An individual’s height may decrease slightly with age due to various factors related to ageing and lifestyle. Understanding these factors provides insight into how chiropractic treatment might help mitigate these effects.
The factors that contribute to a decrease in height over time include:
One of the most significant contributors to appearing shorter is poor posture.
Habitual slouching and other forms of poor posture can compress the intervertebral discs. Over time, these poor postural habits can cause permanent changes to the spine’s curvature, leading to “tech neck” and even Dowager’s hump (kyphosis).
Furthermore, spinal conditions like scoliosis are often exacerbated by poor posture habits developed over many years.
In addition to problems with vertebrae, poor posture can also be caused by a misaligned pelvis and stooped shoulders.
Together, these changes can prevent you from achieving your full natural height, ultimately making you look shorter. Chiropractic care can correct issues stemming from poor posture, potentially restoring your lost height.
Some patients may demonstrate perfect posture, but everyday activities, repetitive joint use, and injuries can misalign the spine. These misalignments of the spine, or subluxations, can cause shortening and compression of the spine.
The outcome is a disordered posture, a slouched appearance, and an obvious change in height.
In addition to their effects on the spine, misalignments can affect the hips, knees, ankles, muscles, and ligaments, causing pain and a noticeable reduction in height.
Chiropractic care can realign your spine, which helps to elongate it and improve overall stature.
The intervertebral discs act as shock absorbers for the spine and contribute to a person’s height. Because of disc compression and deterioration, an adult individual may lose as much as half an inch of height per decade after they reach the age of 30 years (Can Adults Grow Taller?).
A loss of height due to the compression of the intervertebral discs is natural. A decrease in the intervertebral disc height occurs when spinal compression causes the fluid inside a disc to leak, potentially forcing its centre (the nucleus pulposus) outwards.
The intervertebral discs also degenerate and lose density, leading to a further decrease in height. This natural wear and tear, combined with a sedentary lifestyle and muscle atrophy, can cause the spine to shrink, further compressing the discs and vertebrae.
Conditions such as osteoporosis and degenerative disc disease also contribute to this reduction, making the spinal column even more shorter and more compact.
Chiropractic care can help slow this process by maintaining your spinal health and function.
Correcting poor posture is crucial not only for aesthetic reasons but also for overall health. By maintaining good posture, you ensure that your body functions optimally and that stress on the musculoskeletal system is minimised.
Poor posture causes long-term health issues that can affect quality of life. The health issues that commonly develop include back pain, neck pain, and decreased lung capacity.
Chiropractic adjustments can help improve your posture and alleviate these risks. These improvements can help delay the erosion of joints to keep you standing taller and longer.
So, chiropractic care does not make you grow taller in the traditional sense. An adult individual’s height is determined by their skeleton, which cannot be lengthened because growth plate cartilage is replaced by bone in early adulthood.
While chiropractic adjustments cannot re-open growth plates, they can restore spine function, relieving pressure on compressed discs. As a consequence, small height increases may be obtained. Moreover, adjustments can reduce the curvature of the spine caused by poor posture, promoting a taller stance.
Chiropractors can also correct posture issues related to the neck, shoulders, arms, legs, knees, and feet. By correcting these postural issues, chiropractors help stabilise joints, strengthen muscles, and boost circulation.
Chiropractors use a variety of techniques to improve posture and spinal function.
These include:
Spinal adjustments help stretch the vertebrae, increasing the intervertebral space. This in itself can restore some lost height.
High-velocity, low-amplitude adjustments are particularly effective in temporarily increasing spinal height.
Following adjustment of the spine, exercises can be recommended that help strengthen your erect posture.
A gentle, non-thrusting technique often used for individuals with disc issues; it can increase intervertebral space, offering relief from spinal compression.
As discussed above, poor posture makes you look shorter. Eventually, slumping and slouching may also affect your actual height.
Chiropractors can help educate patients on proper posture and provide exercises that strengthen the core and postural muscles (How To Increase Your Height).
Chiropractors can help patients adjust their work and living environments to support better posture.
Alongside adjustments, chiropractors often prescribe specific exercises that strengthen the core and improve posture, supporting spinal health and height.
Strengthening core muscles supports the spine and helps maintain proper posture.
Regular chiropractic adjustments, posture training, and customised exercises can help mitigate spinal issues.
By improving posture, decompressing the spine, and correcting spinal misalignments, chiropractic care can improve spine health and add a noticeable amount of height. This type of “height increase” is about reclaiming the height you may have lost due to poor posture or spinal issues.
Please discuss your needs and expectations with a professional chiropractor.
In conclusion, regular chiropractic care can indeed make you feel and appear taller, along with improving your overall health and well-being.
Our practice is located in Stroud. Our neighbouring service areas include Nailsworth, Stonehouse & Gloucester.
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