Did you know that your heart is made up almost entirely of muscle and it’s strong enough to lift approximately 3,000 pounds? Whoa! Talk about having heart; that’s one strong little organ!
Every year your heart beats about 35 million times, and throughout the course of an average lifetime this small muscle will beat about 2.5 billion times. Each beat counts as it pumps blood to other vital organs. Without these beats your body cannot function, which is why keeping your heart healthy is absolutely crucial.
Now you might be asking, “So how does my heart work exactly? What makes it beat?” It’s really quite simple. Well, it’s not actually all that simple, so allow the heart specialists at Brigham City Community Hospital to shed some light on what keeps this complex muscle going strong.
While your heart is a muscle, pretty much like the ones you have in your arms or your legs, you don’t have conscious control over your heart muscle—your brain sends electrical impulses to your heart so that it pumps blood through your body.
When your heart pumps, it moves blood through your body to take care of your cells. It keeps all of the cells of your body healthy by carrying oxygen to them and taking waste away. It takes about a minute for each of the cells in your body to receive blood from your heart.
Simple enough, right? Well, it gets a bit more complicated when it comes to how the blood flows. There are four chambers of the heart and each play their own part. The right side and left side also have their own roles in how the heart functions.
The right side of your heart receives blood from the body that is low in oxygen and needs to be cleaned. This blood enters the right atrium and is pushed through a valve into the right ventricle. The valve only allows the blood to flow one direction; it cannot move backward. The muscle surrounding the right ventricle then pushes the blood from the heart into blood vessels that lead to your lungs.
Your lungs also play a big part in helping your heart. Your lungs clean the blood and you exhale carbon dioxide. In turn, you inhale oxygen and your lungs enrich the blood so it can go back to the heart. The blood comes to the left atrium of the heart from the lungs and is pushed to the left ventricle where the thick muscle of your heart pushes it to the cells of your body for nourishment.
If you need a more visual explanation of how your heart works, check out this video or this informative diagram of the path blood takes through your heart.
It’s also important to note that when your body needs more oxygen, like when you are scared or exercising, your heart beats faster. If you are at rest, your heart slows down, so if you’re sitting or sleeping, your cells aren’t using as much oxygen.
As with any other muscle in the body, it’s your job to keep your heart in shape! Exercise and maintain a healthy diet to keep it strong and working properly.