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We need to exchange the carbon dioxide in our lungs for fresh oxygen. How does this happen? We breathe. Even as you have been reading this your chest has been rising and falling, and you may not have even thought about it. An adult breathes about 16 times a minute. In a day this amounts to about 2,000 gallons of air, that travels at 50 miles an hour as we breathe in and out. (When we cough or sneeze it can reach 750 miles an hour!) When we breathe we use our lungs which are like sponges with 300 million little pockets providing an immense surface area, and this is where the gases are exchanged.
Every cell in our bodies needs oxygen to function well. Many of us do not get the full amounts of oxygen that we need. This can be for a variety of reasons. |
- POSTURE If we sit up, or stand or walk with a straight back, our lungs can work more deeply and we can breathe better.
- OVEREATING. If the stomach is very full, there is less room for the lungs to expand to their full extent in their cavity.
- EXERCISE. If we do not exercise and get gently out of breath regularly then our lungs are not being exercised to be able to expand and contract fully. Without this exercise our lungs are weaker.
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- POLLUTION. Fumes, particles in the air, and gases from manufactured goods, second hand cigarette smoke in our rooms, all decrease the amount of oxygen we take can into our lungs. If you took an air sample of 1 cubic inch of air mid-way across the Pacific Ocean it would have only 15,000 particles in it. If you took a similar sample in a city it could have 5 million particles. Most people live in cities!
- OVERWEIGHT. If we have fat around our body there is constriction of the cavity around our lungs.
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- SMOKING. When you smoke small moving parts, called cilia, are paralysed and cannot do their special job of cleaning the air you breathe. With each puff of a cigarette the passage ways in the lungs narrow making it hard to get enough oxygen in the blood to go round your body. Black tar also accumulates in the tissues.
- INSULATION. Our homes and office blocks and other public buildings are often insulated to keep in the heat and save energy. Some have almost sealed systems. As a result we rarely breathe any new air. This leads to an increased risk of moulds, bacteria, house mites and other disease laden organisms thriving in these conditions.
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- TIGHT CLOTHES. Any garment that is tight around our chest or waist will restrict our lungs and affect how much oxygen we get.
- SHALLOW BREATHING. For many reasons, including stress or sitting too much, many people only breathe with the top half of their lungs. This shallow kind of breathing that does not open up the bottom of the lungs regularly leads to infections and other respiratory problems.
Are there any of these that you need to correct to make full breathing easier for you? The more oxygen you can have in your body the better you will function, and the better health you will have.
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The air was electric!
A common enough expression, but our air really is electric. How do we feel when a thunderstorm is in the offing? Headachy, irritable or oppressed? But what a sense of relief when the storm has passed. Everything feels clean and refreshed, and the heaviness has gone. |
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The charge of the air is very important in determining how much benefit we get from what we inhale. In a closed centrally heated environment, with man made carpets and curtains, and cigarette smoke the ions in the air are positively charged, electrically speaking. There are certain winds in the world too, which make people feel unwell - the Foehn winds of Switzerland, and Germany. In California it is the Santa Ana winds, in the Western US and along the Rocky Mountains it is the Chinook winds, in Italy the Sirocco winds, in France the Mistral and in Israel the Sharav. At the times when these winds are blowing there is more violence and crime, people seem more accident prone or unable to sleep properly, |
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