Your Heart, Your Health
One of the most important and complex muscles in the human body, the heart pumps oxygen to the rest of the body — our lifeline.
Science behind the muscle
A muscle we often take for granted, let’s take a look into how the heart actually works:
The heart has two sides that work together to create one giant pump:
- The right side of your heart pulls blood from your extremities and pumps it to your lungs. Once the blood is inside your lungs, these organs work to remove waste and re-oxygenate the blood once it’s been cleaned.
- The left side of your heart gathers the oxygen-filled blood and then then pumps it to all parts of your body, including your heart muscle itself. The blood leaving the left side of the heart is filled with oxygen and nutrients for cells throughout your body.
Blood moves through your body through a very intricate system of blood vessels that are designed specifically for this purpose. The heart beats, or pumps, based on electrical pulses sent from the brain that cause the heart to expand and contract. When the heart expands, blood is pulled into the heart; when the heart contracts, blood is shot out to the rest of the body. 1
This pumping process goes on constantly. In fact, the average heart beats, or pumps blood, as many as 100,000 times a day! As you rest, the heart pumps about a gallon and a half of blood per minute. When your activity level increases by working out or incurring stress, the heart can pump as many as seven gallons a minute! Over the course of an average lifetime, your heart will have pumped as much as 1 MILLION gallons of blood.2 That’s enough blood to fill 30 large swimming pools!
Your heart and your health — directly connected
Heart disease is the single biggest health threat to both men and women — even greater than cancer.3 The American Heart Association recommends that everyone — men, women, and children — eat healthy, be physically active, reduce stress, quit smoking, and visit their doctor regularly in order to maintain a healthy heart.4 If you are worried about your heart health, eating healthier and implementing a workout routine are good places to start.
The heart is the engine that delivers life-supporting oxygen and nutrients to the rest of your body. Without a heart, a person simply cannot live; so today is the day to begin consciously caring for your heart. Exercise, eat healthy, and make decisions that promote heart health.
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Sources:
1 – http://www.heartfailurematters.org/en_GB/Understanding-heart-failure/How-does-the-normal-heart-work
2 – http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/health/2012/02/14/10-things-you-may-not-know-about-your-heart/
3 – http://health.clevelandclinic.org/2015/07/21-amazing-facts-about-your-heart-infographic/
4- http://www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/GettingHealthy_UCM_001078_SubHomePage.jsp
