Picture this, while you are considering enlisting in the army. Having gone through all the rigorous routines in the screening exercise, you then get dismissed…for being too short! Now at this point, the problem here isn’t so much your height, but finding out you missed it by 1cm. Unfair you think, but who’s going to listen to you, certainly not the stern looking officer staring at you like your face reminds him of the chicken meal he could have been eating had he not have to leave his home to attend to your sorry selves.
Now for this amazing fact, you are actually about 1cm taller in the morning than the evening. You can actually hear the collective gasp of a certain population demographic at this point. No way that’s possible! Sounds made up yeah? Try measuring your height early in the morning, during the day and again in the evening. Spot the difference? This basically adds a new dimension to the phrase, “top of the morning to you”.
How it happens
This occurrence is due to our body science working differently at mornings and in the evening and gravity’s love affair with us combining to pull off such sorcery. The skeletal system, which is responsible for our mobility and our bipedalism, is made up of a lot of joints. The human spine, an important part of our skeletal system, consists of 33 vertebrae, overlapping each other, this creates a single structure thanks to which we are able to sit, stand and walk uprightly.
The 33 vertebrae is divided in 5 different regions:
They are separated by intervertebral discs, that have the important task to allow the movement, the flexion, the extension and the rotation of the vertebral column. These discs act as a bearing between the pairs of vertebrae, and are made of cartilage tissue that gives them high elastic properties.
During the day, while we go about performing our routine activities, the constant exertion of gravity flattens the materials between vertebrae and pushes out the water between our spinal discs while we are standing. The gentle materials in between the vertebrae, the cartilage in our knees and other parts begin to compress gradually. This can make us lose a centimeter of our respective heights.
On the flipside, when we go to sleep, our body is at total rest and without any major movements. Being in a horizontal position, the body is not affected by gravity, our cartilage again goes back to its original form and the vertebrae stretches and thereby increase our height in the morning. Thus, one reason we are taller in the morning. However, only by around 1 cm. When we wake up, the body again starts working followed by continuous movements and due to our own body weight, the same materials get compressed; rinse and repeat. On the average, the height variation ranges from 0.5 to 2 cm difference depending on the individual.
One Quora user had this to say after trying to confirm this phenomenon.
Ok after coming across this question, I decided to take measurements of my daily barefoot height over three days.
Day 1 - after 9 hours of sleep
6am: 182.0cm my peak height
7:30am: 180.2cm
10:27am: 179.7cm
3:15pm: 179.0cm
11:50pm it actually rose: 180.0cm
Day 2 - after 5 hours of sleep
9:15am: 180.1cm.
Midday: 178.7cm
4:40pm: 180.0cm
Day 3 - after 4 hours of sleep
Morning: 180.2cm
Evening: 177.5cm Shortest
Gravity and our body’s own mechanism conniving to pull a fast one on us, just proves that its hard out here for the vertically challenged. For those on the higher end of the scale, this doesn’t mean much, but for the vertically ungifted, the universe really does have it in for you. May the force be with you…or not.
References
Quora.com: What is the difference in your height between morning and evening?
manifatturafalomo: Why Are We Taller In the Morning?
mindlowing-facts: You are About 1 Centimeter Taller in the Morning than in the Evening