Monthly Archives: August 2012

Adam Rainer Revisited, How Height Increase Is Possible

One of the earliest posts I had made was on the well known height increase case of Adam Rainer, which Guinness Book Records and other height resource sites have called the only person in history to be both a dwarf and giant in his life. His story and legend has grown so big that he is almost like Robert Wadlow in his infamy. I wanted to revisit his case because I found out some additional information about him.

From The Tallest Man website located HERE it would appear that Adam started growing rapidly at the age of 21. It was his feet and hands that started to get really big at first. What is interesting from the site is that they state that Adam suffered from Acromegaly, but Acromegaly is the condition people with excess HGH release have after puberty and the regular growing process is supposed to have suffered. Adam did suffer the standard condition for people who become giants, a tumor developed close to or at the pituitary gland that presses it to release excess HGH causing the body to grow excessively

What is probably less well known is that before one reach puberty and during puberty, the tumor at the pituitary gland is diagnosed as gigantism by doctors. After puberty has stopped and the growth plates are supposed to be closed, the condition is no longer called gigantism but acromegaly. It is Acromegaly that most doctors are truly worried about since at that time the conveitonal medical opinion is that the body will try to grow in other ways besides vertically because the long bones don’t have the cartilage to grow in that direction anymore. I agree with half of that idea. I think that one can still grow vertically with acromegaly.

The primary case is Rainer’s. The resource clearly stated that Rainer was suffering from acromegaly, not gigantism so that means that his growth plates should have  sealed. He was 21 when the growth spurt occurred. Sure, we could argue that he was a late bloomer and that his plates did not close, but in the resource, it is noted that adam had a standing height of 6′ 9″ but he had scoliosis (curvature of the spine) which seemed to get worse as time went on.

Adam didn’t die until he was 51 and it is true that his standing height of 6′ 9″ might have never changed but his body was fighting to grow. His back was becoming more curved so it was clear that his vertebrate or the intervertebral disks was getting thicken and bigger. Most giants like the tallest women in history 8′ 1″ Zhen Jinlian and modern giant 8′ 1″ Brahim Takioullah both suffer from spinal curvature which prevents them from showcasing their true height if corrected for back curvature. At this point, I am not sure why the back curvature even happens because I would assume that there is a height limiting constraint like a bone that does not increase forcing the body to lean forward and cause back curvature. However, if Adam was able to overcome that back curvature, which I theorize he could have, then he would have proved that even after the growth plates are closed from puberty, an excess release of HGH can still cause height increase because the growth hormones get released into the disks which lengthen and widen, as well as the joints like the hips and knee cartilage which continue to expand. My guess is that the back curvature happened because the body could not handle the amount of loading that was added upon which came too quickly so the body was not able to adapt fast enough.

The Best Height Increase Resources On The Web

I have been posting and listing as many of the credible height seeking websites and resources as I can find that I have never been able to get around to really even looking at the links on the resource page. It turned out from me analyzing my site traffic that a lot of people prefer to go to the “techniques” page and the the “products” page, and then lastly move down to the part where I talk about how to “increase by 10 cm” in the “height guide” page. I still have not gotten around to editing that “increase by 10 cm” page, and the main reason is that I have not found one credible source and method out there that can have even the remote possibility to achieve it. If I never find such a method, that part will never be edited or added upon.

Anyway, I found out that when visitors click on certain links, they don’t ever reach the intended site because I had done a link incorrectly. So I have fixed most of those issues now with linking problems, at least the ones that I know about.

I had stated before that ever since I managed to comb through most of the google results for height increase and posted the most credible sites, I was going to focus mainly on the forums and sites available to get new ideas, strategies, and methods on how height increase is possible. I have been doing that and I have gotten some really amazing ideas. However, I wanted to focus on some resources which were rally stand alone websites with few true editors and writers.

In my opinion, there is only 4 resources worth really focusing on presently, and only because they have been continuously edited and added upon over an extended amount of time. The first is the board Giant Scientific which is very good but I feel that has reached a place where real progress and innovation has stagnated. However, if one looks through the old posts from years past, there is a lot of interesting ideas and methods listed. The other is the Short Support Group website which is very good with its information but has not really changed or been edited upon in a long time. They have a section for resources where they list websites that are trying to figure out height increase but many of the listing are now gone or inactive. The third is Make Me Taller which is another board which mainly focuses on the surgical method to grow taller and basically shuns all other ideas as non-credible. They are also extremely useful and informative but they tend to only focus on surgical methods for height growth, which is okay. The last resource is the Quest for Height blog/website that has been edited since 2009. The writer Tyler Christopher Davis takes a very scientific and honest approach to looking for height growth. His own main method of Lateral Synovial Joint Loading is something I still have to research and look into because I have not gotten around to looking at the blog in detail. His dedication to this endeavor is something that I have seen few people can do with consistently. I have seen many other blogs where the writer tries to create either a height journal to explain their progress or search for a way to grow taller and they mostly give up after say 10 posts or so. Besides the LSJL method, I have found only 2 other main method which can really work besides the traditional limb lengthening method.

Since I can’t really read or understand any other languages, I can not search through the entire internet space for the other credible sites out there which might be in another language like Chinese or Arabic. I am sure that the issue for the desire to increase one;s height is something desired by at least 50% of the entire world, the shorter half of the human population. In my own life, I have had two female cousins, my own younger sister, myself, two ex-girlfriends, my own father, and 2 male friends who have all expressed the desire at some point that they wished to be taller, but chose not to do the work and the research to find s solution.

Since the internet is becoming bigger and more influential all around the world, I am sure that there are at least hundreds of other websites out there where members and blog posters are looking at where each person is looking for their own individual path to height increase success. I have not found many resources in other languages so I can only talk about the stuff that I have found, all of them in english.

And if Tyler is you Minigolfer, I had sent you an email to that email provided on the height quest website yesterday asking that you give a guest post on here explaining and reviewing your own ideas, thoughts, and conclusions on this unique niche of human endeavor.

A Change In Direction

I recently realized that the nature and intent of this website is changing to something beyond what I had intended for when I first began the blog.

In the beginning, I had intended for the blog to be just a place where all of the ideas and methods for natural height growth can be in one place. However as time progressed, I forgot about the original intent and started to talk about unnatural ways to gain height including stem cells, surgery, and dna manipulation. In addition, I quickly moved into studies of pseudo-science and mysticism for other possibilities, which would be “supernatural”.

When I started to write posts that talked about height, but did not talk about how to increase height, I received complaints that I was not focused on the original intent of the website. I agree.

Finally I found myself putting a post about how one can be smarter from taking “smart pills” which I had referred to as the magic bullet for gaining increased intelligence.

From all of these posts, I realized that even in just less than 4 weeks after the website began, the website has already formed into something different. I feel that the name of the website Natural Height Growth is becoming unfitting for its purposes. What I finally realized is that I am looking for ways to hack the height growth process. I have always been interested in how we can hack the body to do amazing things. Ever since Tim Ferriss came out with the 4 hour body, I realized that most people have already beat me to the punch and found most of the best tricks. When I found Dave Asprey’s site, I realized that my focus should never be on finding hacks for the entire human, body but only focus on dealing with trying to hack human height.

Most of us can acknowledge that the traditional medical opinion is that height increase is not possible after the growth plates are sealed so trying to increase height the traditional way.

So I am now stating that the name of the site is no longer appropriate, but I intend to still use that as the website. The original reason for me to choose the name Natural Height Growth was really for SEO and internet traffic reasons. I wanted to allow google to easily find me and rank me when people were looking for a way to grow taller.

My other idea at this moment is to transfer all of this information into a new site Height Hacks at www.heighthacks.com. Currently, I have chosen not to do it or even buy the domain name yet. I plan to stay with the Natural Height Growth site and only focus on growing this website, even if the name is no longer appropriate.

Grow Taller Using Neuro-Linguistic Programming NLP

I once stated that for me to even consider the possibility of height increase after one’s growth plates are closed, I must look into every single possible way and method. I would check at every single idea, method, or strategy out there no matter how crazy, illogical, and stupid. I am willing to look at all the options available. That is why that I wanted to explore the topic where we can grow taller using neuro-linguistic programming nlp. Neuro-linguistic programming is a very unique subject that is a combination of communication theory, psychotherapy, pseudo-neuroscience, and personal development.

It was developed in the 70s by two guys Richard Bandler and John Grinder who modeled some of the most successful psychotherapist of the day, specifically Milton Erickson, Virginia Satir, Fritz Perls, and Noam Chomsky. While originally the subject of NLP was developed as only a subset of both communication theory and psychotherapy, individuals who managed to learn about the theory learned how to apply it towards mental and psychiatric disorders, seeming to be used to cure phobias, bad habits, depression, and a few other non major psychiatric disorders. Eventually it became a very big subject and during the 70s and 80s the study of NLP became very influential and well known.

Over the years the influence of NLP has decreased and most scientists have shown that NLP is a form of pseudoscience which is full of errors from biases and inconsistent results. NLP is used as an example of pseudoscience for facilitating the teaching of scientific literacy at the professional and university level. Quite possibly the one person who has managed to spread the knowledge of NLP the most is personal life coach Anthony Robbins who became very famous and well known in the 80s for his firewalls, late night infomercials, and application of NLP. The entire subject of NLP would had been discredited if not for the fact that for certain live TV events, when NLP teachers and practitioners were put to the test to fix and help people suffering through phobias and bad habits, their methods were effective at least temporarily to cure the people on tv.

Some people view and treat NLP almost like a religion, like the infamous Scientology. My personal view of the subject after studying it extensively for a few months is that the subject can be a self contained, stand alone subject that can be used as a type of operating system and personal philosophy on how to view life. So NLP can indeed be assimilated into a person’s frame in life. From NLP, a few terms were taken and their usage have gotten into the public consciousness like frames, framing, intension, anchoring, fractionation, human modeling, rapport building, eye accessing cues, etc.

Here is my own opinion on the subject. The effectiveness of NLP is probably mostly just the effect of the placebo effect and confirmation bias. However, that should not stop a person from at least testing it. Most NLP practitioners would ask that one judge them and their practiced art through results, not just from logical scientific experiments.

It is absolutely true that the human mind is still too hard to fully understand so any science or art that tries to map and explain how the mind works will not be fully effective, but only somewhat. Like psychotherapy and psychology, the help a person can get through meeting a professional may not lead to complete resolution of one’s mental issues. It is not a pure science like Physics and Chemistry where things can be easily quantified and described through precise equations. So the main point is the while the foundation of NLP may not be based to true science, I ask the reader to “suspend the critical factor”. Yes, that is also a NLP concept, it means to hold off on being a cynic and sceptic just for long enough until i get my message through to you and you are fully willing to accept and process the meaning and intention of my message.

From the Wikipedia article on the subject, I would cite a few critical points from HERE


Scientific criticism

The term “Neuro-linguistic programming” has been characterized as pseudo-scientific. Witkowski (2010) writes that “NLP represents pseudoscientific rubbish, which should be mothballed forever.” Roderique-Davies (2009) states that “neuro” in NLP is “effectively fraudulent since NLP offers no explanation at a neuronal level and it could be argued that its use fallaciously feeds into the notion of scientific credibility”. Witkowski (2010) also states that at the neuronal level NLP provides no explanation at all and has nothing in common with academic linguistics or programming. Similarly, experimental psychologist Corballis (1999) in his critique of lateralization of brain function (the left/right brain myth), states that “NLP is a thoroughly fake title, designed to give the impression of scientific respectability”.

Witkowski (2010) states that NLP uses impressive sounding yet questionable expressions such as; pragmagraphics, surface structure, deep structure, accessing cues, non-accessing movement etc. Canadian skeptic and psychologist Barry Beyerstein (1995) also says that NLP contains terms such as eye accessing cues, metamodeling, metaprogramming, neurological levels, representational systems, and submodalities, intended to obfuscate and to give the false impression of a scientific discipline. He says “though it claims neuroscience in its pedigree, NLP’s outmoded view of the relationship between cognitive style and brain function ultimately boils down to crude analogies.” Furthermore Beyerstein (1995) believed that NLP has helped popularize myths about the brain and neurology. He believes that the aphorism “you create your own reality” promotes a relativistic perspective and only seeks to gain immunity from scientific testing.

Grant Devilly (2005), a clinical psychologist, identified NLP as an early example of a power therapy. Devilly claims that these so called power therapies share characteristics of pseudo-science including: the promotion of unobtainable goals, rationalization traps, manufactured credibility, a set of specific beliefs, self generated persuasion, vivid appeals, the use of common misconceptions, and attacks on critics through the use of innuendo.

NLP has been criticized alongside theories and practices characterized as questionable, pseudoscience and/or discredited practices in therapy. Sources within therapy and psychology include books such as Crazy Therapies (1997), Science and Pseudo-science in Clinical Psychology (2002), and Tall Tales about the Mind and Brain (2007). Articles critical of NLP also appear in the Encyclopedia of Pseudoscience(2000), and The Skeptic’s Dictionary (2003). NLP has more recently been used as a key example of pseudo-science to facilitate the understanding of the importance of rational and critical thinking in a number of academic subjects.

According to Witkowski (2010), NLP also appears on “the list of discredited therapies” published in the journal of Professional Psychology: Research and Practice. With reference to work by Carroll (2003), Della Sala (1999), Lilienfeld et al. (2003) and Singer and Lalich (1996) on “pseudoscientific, unvalidated, or “quack” psychotherapies” within clinical psychology, Norcross et al. included NLP for treatment of mental/behaviour disorders in a survey of the opinions of psychologists who rated NLP between possibly discredited and probably discredited, a rating similar to dolphin assisted therapy, equine therapy, psychosynthesis, scared straight programs, and emotional freedom technique (EFT). Norcross et al. listed “neurolinguistic programming for drug and alcohol dependence” seventh out of their list of the ten most discredited drugs and alcohol interventions, and it is listed as “certainly discredited” in Evidence-based practices in addiction treatment: review and recommendations for public policy[


As I always wanted to explain to the readers, even though I am willing to look at strange ideas and unsound methods which claims that they can increase height, I still try to bring the element of rationality and science to everything if possible. If it is not possible to exercise science to explain the method, we may have to for a short time let faith and hope alone allows us to try something completely new and foreign to us out, jus tot see if it works and can give us the results that we want.

So just try it out, believe in the process and the subject, and see for yourself and just only through results. If it doesn’t work, that is okay. Even in traditional hypnosis, a well known fact is that not everyone can be hypnotized. I personally have tried to be hypnotized but it didn’t work. The great physicists Richard Feynman thought he could not be hypnotize but he was too. So realize that the ability for say hypnosis or NLP to work on an individual is not dependent on how smart or stupid a person is. Just be willing to try it out and see for yourself.

If you are a long time reader of the blog, you might remember from one of my earliest posts about the legendary story told by the great psychotherapist Milton Erickson where he supposedly helps a person who was in their 20s (I think 21 or 22) grow 12 inches in height over a year’s time. You can find that post HERE.

On a related subject, we can state from one of the oldest ideas is that the mind or brain is connected to the body as one. So in theory, the body can be controlled and willed to influence the mind and brain, and the brain can be controlled to influence the body. There has been studies and tests done by scientists which showed that monks who have been meditating for years can decrease their own heart rate, as well as increase their body temperature. Thus, there might really be a way to control the pituitary gland that resides in the middle of our brain to release an excess of growth hormones if we desired, and maybe change our dna as well as hypothesized by some biohackers.

This entire first article for the idea of using neuro-linguistic programming to increase ones height is jeu tot lay down the foundation, history, and controversy behind this subject. It will be in the 2nd article where the actual method and action steps will be provided located HERE.

 

Height Increase Sock Insoles

Yes, that’s right. There are now insoles available for socks that can artificially increase your height. So now you can have insoles for both shoes and socks. These new products seem to be used by placing them inside the socks to make your height increase inconspicuous.

As a guy you might try to add height to your shoes to make yourself look taller but there might be situations where you have to take off your shoes. Ex.

You go to your asian girlfriend’s house to meet her parents for the first time and you find out that in their culture, they always take off their shoes when they arrive at the front. Do you want to suddenly drop 1-2 inches immediately in height and weird out who could possibly your future in-laws? They might think that you are wearing some type of magic shoes. Imagine the type of conversation they would have after you left.

With these insoles, you can take off your shoes, keep your socks on, and still give the illusion of being 1-2 inches taller. Of course it is hard to think of any situations where a person would also be asked to take off their socks so you should be relatively safe from using these hidden insoles.

Apparently there are a few online stores that are already selling these heigh increase sock insoles. They are very similar to the regular height increase insoles, but only that they fit to the arch of your feet and can then be worn over by the socks. They are now available through Amazon, Ebay, and a few online specialty stores.

 

1. Amazon  

Product #1 – comes in only blue and yellow

Product #2 – comes only in white color

Product #3 – comes in white and black color

2. Ebay 

Product #1 – long and pale

Product #2 – same as Amazon product 1

Product #3 – comes in white, gives about 1 cm in extra height.

Product #4 – same as Amazon product 2 but cheaper

 

Note: I am not affiliated in any way with Amazon or Ebay and I do not get any money for promoting or endorsing these product by them.

Overall, I would state that these hidden sock insoles would be something to consider for people who might regularly wear lifts and realize that they want to keep that extra height in any situations where they have to take off their shoes. Just something to consider and for people to realize that there are options out there available to them.

3.

Certified Psychiatrists and Therapists

As of right now, I have found only 1 therapist or psychiatrist who has experience in working with people primarily over their issues and insecurities over height.

I actually found it from the Short People Support Website located HERE.

Diane Sardanopoli, LPC 
Licensed Professional Counselor
Certified Grief Recovery Specialist
Location: Ridgewood, New Jersey, USA

I personally would suspect that most general psychiatrists and psychologist can probably help with certain aspects of the issue, similar to many other forms of insecurities and phobias. However, if you feel that you need need for your specific issues and experiences, it would be wise to contact the professionals above.