Yah eva big up smady?
Make a fist and look at it.
Seriously....right now.
That my friend, is more of less the size of your heart.
So technically, when you big up a friend you re-reinforce that heart to heart connection.
The heart, along with the blood and blood vessels (arteries, veins, and capillaries) form the cardiovascular system. They all work together to ensure that the cells of the body are provided with oxygen and other important nutrients. Your heart beats around 100,000 times in a day, circulating 5 litres of blood through your body EACH minute...
Think about it, this organ is just around the size of your fist.
This is why it is important to have a basic understanding of how your heart works for you. To those of you with a base in Biology or Integrated Science, think of this as a refresher summary. For those of you who have no idea about how our heart functions, you're about to.
For the majority of people in our world,the heart is located beneath the left breast area, underneath of the ribs. It is made up of four chambers. The upper chambers are known as atria (atrium=singular), and the lower chambers are called ventricles.
The inter-ventricular or ventricular septum is the muscular wall that divides the ventricles from one another.
The inter-ventricular or ventricular septum is the muscular wall that divides the ventricles from one another.
The heart can be studied analyzing it in halves.
The Right half and the Left half.
As you can see in the image above the atria and ventricles are labelled by location. Right and Left, this is important because the right half our heart is in charge of pumping blood to and from our lungs in a process known as pulmonary circulation, whereas the left half of the heart pumps blood to everywhere else in our body, including itself in what is called the systemic circulation. The heart pumps by contracting then relaxing. The moment it contracts is known as systole and the moment of relaxation is called diastole.
Blood filled with oxygen and other nutrients leave the heart through the body's most impressive artery, the aorta. This large blood vessel is in charge of sending this oxygen filled, nutrient rich blood supply onto the rest of the blood vessels connected to our organs and other body systems.
Notice above in the drawing that the aorta is coloured red along with the left side of the heart. Keep this in mind....I'll get back to that shortly.
After supplying all our cells, however,soon the nutrients and oxygen in our blood will be used up by the cells in our body, and eventually...
The types of blood vessels known as veins are in charge of making sure that the blood gets its refill of much needed oxygen.
The veins of the body join up at the vena cava, our largest vein, this directs our oxygen deprived blood into the right atrium, then into the right ventricle and on to our lungs for oxygen replacement.
Notice that in the drawing the right side of the heart and the vena cava is coloured in blue. Blue represents the oxygen poor blood, while red represents the oxygen rich blood.
Once the blood has renewed its oxygen stores in the lungs, they flow into the left side of the heart, first entering the left atrium, then the left ventricle, and soon enter the aorta beginning the cycle again...
Let me bring that explanation closer to home.
Think of the heart circulation as the West Bus Station in St. Johns. Imagine a big bus filled with commuters in the morning, fresh, sharply dressed coming from their respective homes, on their way to the capital city to go to work. These commuters represent the blood coming from the lungs to the huge aorta, full of oxygen and ready to share with the cells of our body.
Excuse my doodling... : )
LEFT SIDE OF THE HEART
Start from home to work.
After an honest days work however, fatigue sets in, and we are ready for some down time... the same can be applied to the blood, the body's cells have had their fill, and have left the blood with less oxygen than it started out with, and full of waste products, it is ready to be rejuvenated once more. The same with us, after morning gives way to afternoon, we slowly long for the comfort of our homes.
So...
THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE HEART
Start from the tired commuter to home.
There you have it. A general look at the Cardiovascular System.
In the next post we'll be moving into an illness that is one of the most prevalent in Antiguan and Barbudan society, and is a major risk factor for a host of other diseases.
Test yourself, how much have you learnt?:
1. What structures form the Cardiovascular system.
2. How many Types of blood vessels can you remember?
3. Where does the blood go for oxygen?
4. What blood vessels take the blood away from the heart?
5. What blood vessels take the blood to the heart?
Bonus question: What are the name of the moments when the heart contracts and relaxes?
quite a while...
"Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn."
Benjamin Franklin
Stay #wadadlianstrong
Blessings to you and yours,
©January 2014
