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About the size of its owner's clenched fist, the organ sits in the middle of the chest, behind the breastbone and between the lungs, in a moistened chamber that is protected all round by the rib cage. It's made up of a special kind of muscle (cardiac muscle) that works involuntarily, so we don't have to think about it. The heart speeds up or slow downs automatically in response to nerve signals from the brain that tell it how much the body is being exerted. Normally the heart contracts and relaxes between 70 and 80 times per minute, each heartbeat filling the four chambers inside with a fresh round of blood.
These cavities form two separate pumps on each side of the heart, which are divided by a wall of muscle called the septum. The upper chamber on each side is called the atrium. This is connected via a sealing valve to the larger, more powerful lower chamber, or ventricle. The left ventricle pumps most forcefully, which is why a person's heartbeat is felt more on the left side of the chest.
When the heart contracts, the chambers become smaller, forcing blood first out of the atria into the ventricles, then from each ventricle into a large blood vessel connected to the top of the heart. These vessels are the two main arteries. One of them, the pulmonary artery, takes blood to the lungs to receive oxygen. The other, the aorta, transports freshly oxygenated blood to the rest of the body. The vessels that bring blood to the heart are the veins. The two main veins that connect to the heart are called the vena cava.
Blood both supplies oxygen from the lungs to the other organs and tissues and removes carbon dioxide to the lungs, where the gas is breathed out. Blood also distributes nourishment from the digestive system and hormones from glands. Likewise our immune system cells travel in the bloodstream, seeking out infection, and blood takes the body's waste products to the kidneys and liver to be sorted out and trashed.
Your heart can be viewed as having two halves. The left half of your heart is much stronger and better developed than the right half. This happens because the left half has to pump blood through your entire body, while the right half only has to pump blood through the lungs.
When the heart contracts, the chambers become smaller, forcing blood first out of the atria into the ventricles, then from each ventricle into a large blood vessel connected to the top of the heart. These vessels are the two main arteries. One of them, the pulmonary artery, takes blood to the lungs to receive oxygen. The other, the aorta, transports freshly oxygenated blood to the rest of the body. The vessels that bring blood to the heart are the veins. The two main veins that connect to the heart are called the vena cava.
Blood both supplies oxygen from the lungs to the other organs and tissues and removes carbon dioxide to the lungs, where the gas is breathed out. Blood also distributes nourishment from the digestive system and hormones from glands. Likewise our immune system cells travel in the bloodstream, seeking out infection, and blood takes the body's waste products to the kidneys and liver to be sorted out and trashed.
Your heart can be viewed as having two halves. The left half of your heart is much stronger and better developed than the right half. This happens because the left half has to pump blood through your entire body, while the right half only has to pump blood through the lungs.
Heart Facts
100000Heart Beats per day
The best spot for taking your pulse following heavy exercise is your wrist. Pressure on your carotid artery (in your neck) can slow your heart rate, thereby giving you a false reading on the intensity level of your workout.
A heartbeat can't be heard. When you listen to someone's heart, the sound you hear is the closing of the heart's valves. A heartbeat itself is a silent contraction of the muscles.
An average adult body contains about five quarts of blood.
All the blood vessels in the body joined end to end would stretch 62,000 miles or two and a half times around the earth.
If your heart beats approximately 72 times every minute, by the time you turn 65, your heart will have beaten about 2.5 billion times.
The heart circulates the body's blood supply about 1,000 times each day
The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood 30 feet!!
Your resting heart rate decreases approximately one beat per minute for every one to two weeks of aerobic conditioning for the first 10 to 20 weeks of training.
If you are 25 pounds overweight, you have nearly 5,000 extra miles of blood vessels though which your heart must pump blood.
The heart pumps the equivalent of 5,000 to 6,000 quarts of blood each day.
A heartbeat can't be heard. When you listen to someone's heart, the sound you hear is the closing of the heart's valves. A heartbeat itself is a silent contraction of the muscles.
An average adult body contains about five quarts of blood.
All the blood vessels in the body joined end to end would stretch 62,000 miles or two and a half times around the earth.
If your heart beats approximately 72 times every minute, by the time you turn 65, your heart will have beaten about 2.5 billion times.
The heart circulates the body's blood supply about 1,000 times each day
The human heart creates enough pressure while pumping to squirt blood 30 feet!!
Your resting heart rate decreases approximately one beat per minute for every one to two weeks of aerobic conditioning for the first 10 to 20 weeks of training.
If you are 25 pounds overweight, you have nearly 5,000 extra miles of blood vessels though which your heart must pump blood.
The heart pumps the equivalent of 5,000 to 6,000 quarts of blood each day.
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