The human body has twelve systems that are a marvel of engineering. What makes them miraculous is that they’re totally voluntary. You never have to think about telling your heart to beat, lungs to breathe or when to blink your eyes. Your body innately knows how to do all these things to serve you best. In this blog and the next, I’m going to provide some fun facts about different body systems, what each system has in it and what it does to keep you well. It’s important to connect with your own body and give gratitude to every system and organ. At the end I’ll provide some simple tips to do that.
Cardiovascular system
The heart is about the size of a fist and has four chambers. Every day, the heart pumps 2,000 gallons of blood or about 8,000 quarts. That amounts to around 5 quarts every minute. Your heart beats 100,000 times a day. In a 70-year lifespan, that’s 2.5 billion beats. The cardiovascular system has many types of blood vessels including arteries, arterials, capillaries, venules and veins totaling 60,000 miles. Sixty thousand miles is eight times the diameter of the earth. In an average lifetime, the heart will move 1 million barrels of blood.
Nervous system
The nervous system contains the brain, the spinal cord, and nerves. It runs on electricity and various chemicals to help all parts of the body communicate with each other. There are 45 to 46 miles of nerves throughout your body which contain about 100 billion neurons. Alpha neurons are the fastest. Your thoughts in alpha mode travel at 268 mph. That’s the fastest communication system we have. There’s also a second brain in the digestive system with its own 100 million neurons. The nervous system consumes a huge amount of energy, about 20% of your body’s total energy reserve.
Digestive system
The digestive system is about 30 ft long from mouth to anus. It contains a small intestine (about 22-24 ft long), a large intestine (about 5-6 ft long), the stomach and the liver. Everything starts in your mouth with saliva. Every day your body produces about two pints of saliva, which is like drinking two cans of soda. Food travels down the esophagus to the stomach where hydrochloric acid is produced. It’s so corrosive, it can dissolve some metals. The stomach also contains trillions of live bacteria to help absorb nutrients into the blood system. The stomach can stretch and hold up to 4 pounds of food at one time. This probably happens most around the holidays when there might be a tiny tendency to overindulge. The liver is a key component. It produces a bile with detergents to help digest and absorb nutrients. It takes about 6 to 8 hours for food to pass from one end to the other end of the digestive system.
Skeletal system
The skeletal system has 206 bones. Bones are filled with a spongy tissue called marrow which houses stem cells. Stem cells are responsible for producing more than 200 billion new cells including blood, brain, heart and bone cells. More than one half of your bones are in your hands and feet. The wrist alone has 54 bones, and one foot has 26 bones. Another interesting bone is the hyoid bone in your throat; it isn’t connected to any other bones. The strongest bones in the body are the thigh bones (femur), lower jawbones (mandible) and shin bones (tibia). The stapes in the middle ear is the smallest bone.
Muscular system
There are over 600 muscles in your body, which account for 30 to 40% of your body weight. Muscles usually come in pairs and generate heat which regulates your body temperature. They are specialized cells because unlike other cells they can contract and expand. You might be surprised to learn that the masseter muscle in the jaw holds the title as the strongest muscle and can exert 200 lbs. of force on the molars. Eye muscles are the busiest muscles and move constantly. The largest muscle is a gluteus maximus or buttocks and the smallest is the tensor tympani in the inner ear. The heart definitely gets the award for the hardest working muscle.
Integumentary system
The largest single organ is the skin, also known as the integument. In general, people have about 22 square feet of skin on their body which weighs 6 to 9 lbs. and accounts for 12 to 16% of body weight. One of the skin’s jobs of course, is to keep all the organs that belong “IN” your body inside and keep those things that don’t belong in your body outside. To accomplish that, there are three layers of skin which are very sensitive to touch, pain, and temperature. And skin is dynamic, shedding 30,000 to 40,000 cells per minute. What that means is that in a 28-day cycle your skin completely regenerates itself. It maintains a dense 11,000-mile network of blood vessels. It’s the body’s first line of defense and is home to 1,000 species of bacteria to keep pathogens away. Take a stroll outside on a sunny day and the skin happily makes vitamin D. As a special note, the skin on your mouth is 200 times more responsive than your fingertips.
Urinary system
The urinary system contains the kidneys, the bladder and the ureters. Urine takes 9-10 hours to produce, and the body can hold about 2 cups of urine at one time. It’s normal to “go” between 4 – 8 times a day. To keep the urinary system healthy, it’s important to drink around 2 liters of water daily because these organs are filters, removing toxins and waste from the body and the blood.
Join me next week for the remaining systems and tips. I have many protocols and sound healing instruments to help heal all the body’s systems. If you’re interested in learning more or would like to schedule a session, contact Cheri Petro at Wholeharmonichealing@gmail.com.
