The human body is amazing. We take for granted the underlying, almost autonomous functions that keep us healthy and functional. Most times, with a casual nonchalance, we don’t even realize what goes on second by second inside our bodies as we direct our conscious attention to interaction with the outside surrounding environment. Our bodies are more complex than most computers.
Organ system examples are fascinating.
- The heart pumps 2,000 gallons a day with a pump that beats 100,000 times a day.
- The lungs take 17,000 breaths a day, hold 6 liters of air, and can be voluntarily stopped for a short time.
- The immune system constantly monitors for infections, cancer, break-downs of DNA, and other abnormalities; this system fixes these faults before widespread damage occurs.
- The brain has 35 to 48 thoughts per minute or 50,000 to 60,000 per day. Even during sleep, the brain dreams.
- The stomach produces hydrochloric acid to digest food and simultaneously produces a protective coating as a lining to prevent auto-digestion of the stomach.
- The eyes blink 28,800 times per day with each taking a tenth of a second. People get 90% of their information visually and make assessments in one-hundredth of a second.
- The body produces the same amount of heat per day as twenty-five light bulbs. Keeping body temperature constant is key for functioning. The human thermostat is very hardy.
- The red blood cells shoot around the body every sixty seconds making 1440 trips per day. Red cells live about forty days, having made 60,000 total trips before being replaced.
- Skin is the largest organ in the body extending over eighteen square feet. Skin is constantly being replaced at a rate of one million cells per day.
- Hair grows about a half millimeter per day, and a full head of hair has 100,000 hairs. The total growth per day of all hairs combined is 50 meters.
- The mouth and brain work together to speak about 5,000 words per day for a woman and 2,000 words per day for a man. Clearly, while a difference exists between genders, there is no right or wrong. Actually, only about 500 to 700 words per day are of real value.
- The liver is very busy processing, storing, and then releasing energy, as well as producing vitamins, plasma, bile, and other essential nutrients. Every minute the liver filters 1.53 quarts of blood.
- The mouth produces about 1.5 quarts of saliva per day protecting from infection while beginning the digestive process prompted by anticipating eating.
- The average man produces ten million new sperm per day, most of which are not used but broken down into useful nutrients and reused.
- The two kidneys are each the size of a fist, filter almost five pints of blood per minute, and produce two and a half pints of urine per day.
- The human body gets taller by eight millimeters every night during sleep only to shrink during the day as gravity takes over.
- Smell stimulates our digestive system. We eat fifty tons of food in a lifetime. Food passes through the stomach in about eight hours and the entire digestive tract in two days.
- Cells regenerate daily with new taste buds every ten days, new nails every six to ten months, new bone cells every decade, and new heart cells every twenty years.
Even though we are all aging, please appreciate how much is continuing to keep us healthy and young. Take care of your body—it is the only one you have. The Blue Zones Project can help you care for your body and your community.