Heartbeat. The first thing EMTs or any ordinary lay person will check for sign of life on anyone unconscious or unresponsive. One beat. One definite, if not unequivocally so, sign of life. Skip one and it could mean trouble. Yet it is the most consistently cadenced of all involuntary movements in our body. On average, we get 100,000 of it every single day. All from about one pound of almost pure muscle. At the first moment when conception is confirmed at the womb, one tiny little thing begins a pulsating rhythm, for nine months or so, followed by birth and growth and it will keep doing it until the very last moment of life. The average or normal healthy heart pulses at between 60-100 times per minute, slower at rest, faster during exercise, but palpitates uncontrollably at the sight of someone for whom one is inexplicably smitten by or enamored with, and passionately unbound.
The Guiness Book of world record lists Martin Brady of England as having registered the lowest heart rate of 27 beats per minute, edging the previous 28 BPM record held by Miguel Indurain - a 5-time winner of the Tour de France. Cyclists, specifically endurance cyclists, are known for their low resting heart rates. Not confirmed by Guiness, however, is that of British pensioner Daniel Green, age 81, who on a clinical check up registered a 26 BPM in 1981. Usain Bolt, the fastest human on record at the Olympics, was clocked at a "speedy" resting heart rate of 33, relatively speaking that is.
What about the fastest heart rate ever? No one would want to have that record. 100 BPM is considered fast for humans under ordinary conditions. However, a condition that is also a real challenge to Spelling Bee contestants, called tachyarrhythmia, was recorded at 480 beats per minute. Fast heart rates are not to be aspired for, unless one is a mouse, which needs to pump blood normally at 700 times per minute to survive. An elephant that according to fabled tales is afraid of the mouse, only registers 30 BPM.
Back to the heart. The human heart. As essential as the heart is, no kidding, heart disease is the number one cause of death every year - more than influenza, pneumonia, cancer and accidents (all accidents that include traffic, drowning and falling off ladders) combined. To be expected, some will say, "because it is the most hard working body part". Smart Alecks will say, "but it is the most exercised" too.
Indeed, the heart is the hardest working of any part of our bodies. Legs, arms - though they may take you hiking, swimming, running or lifting weights - don't even come close. Arms and legs don't do it 24 hours a day. The heart, even while you are asleep, continues to work. The moment it doesn't, everything else ceases to function. Besides, arms and legs are literally out of business without the heart first delivering blood to them. One calculation, perhaps again done by some biologist or physiologist with so much time on his/her hands and an unlimited budget for equipment and over time, determined that in one average lifetime the heart had worked the equivalent of lifting 1 ton of weight 150 miles up into the air. That is way above the thermosphere; stratosphere you've heard before, so now you know there is this other layer of the earth's atmosphere. We learn something every day, don't we?
Of course, the heart is capable of other physiological wonders, too lengthy to list them all here. However, the heartbeat has one other attribute that may escape physiologists interests but clearly captured by every poet and romantic, oblivious to the physical and the physics of the circulatory system. The business of the heart is as much part of life as everything else. Sometimes to the exclusion of everything else. Ask the countless Romeos and Juliets out there. In every culture. The heart too is figuratively at the heart of the business of greeting cards and the multi-million floral businesses for much of the year, that bursts into the annual event, almost coercively in the western world - February 14. A card, a dinner, a box of chocolate and a dozen or two of the reddest roses are the economic driver of the day. It is the florist's equivalent of Black Friday in the U.S. - the day after Thanksgiving sale bonanza of the year.
(Full disclosure*: I don't do the obligatory Valentine's Day. Somehow, I did an awfully good job of convincing my wife from way back when that I do not find one good reason to celebrate the affairs of the heart for a day when I do find it every day for 365 and 1/4 days of every year. It had been 48 years now and counting).
So guys, you are welcome. But if and when you try it, summon every ounce of courage and sincerity you can muster! You will need it. But I hope not too many will do it - for the sake of Hallmark and the American Greetings Corp. and all the florists, restaurants and chocolatier out there.
Now, what has the heart got to do with romance? Why is it the symbol for love? How did that become so? Meanwhile, almost every conceivable way to express love is, among many other ways, are these:
First of all there is no agreement among those who researched the origin of all heart-related symbols, metaphorical or symbolic, as exactly when it all started. Some say, the 1250's, others earlier than that while some say it was much much later. One speculation is that it came from the shape of a silphium seed of a variety of flowering plant. Ironically, it was supposed to have been used as an ancient herbal contraceptive. Who knows, really.
Indeed, the heart is the hardest working of any part of our bodies. Legs, arms - though they may take you hiking, swimming, running or lifting weights - don't even come close. Arms and legs don't do it 24 hours a day. The heart, even while you are asleep, continues to work. The moment it doesn't, everything else ceases to function. Besides, arms and legs are literally out of business without the heart first delivering blood to them. One calculation, perhaps again done by some biologist or physiologist with so much time on his/her hands and an unlimited budget for equipment and over time, determined that in one average lifetime the heart had worked the equivalent of lifting 1 ton of weight 150 miles up into the air. That is way above the thermosphere; stratosphere you've heard before, so now you know there is this other layer of the earth's atmosphere. We learn something every day, don't we?
Of course, the heart is capable of other physiological wonders, too lengthy to list them all here. However, the heartbeat has one other attribute that may escape physiologists interests but clearly captured by every poet and romantic, oblivious to the physical and the physics of the circulatory system. The business of the heart is as much part of life as everything else. Sometimes to the exclusion of everything else. Ask the countless Romeos and Juliets out there. In every culture. The heart too is figuratively at the heart of the business of greeting cards and the multi-million floral businesses for much of the year, that bursts into the annual event, almost coercively in the western world - February 14. A card, a dinner, a box of chocolate and a dozen or two of the reddest roses are the economic driver of the day. It is the florist's equivalent of Black Friday in the U.S. - the day after Thanksgiving sale bonanza of the year.
(Full disclosure*: I don't do the obligatory Valentine's Day. Somehow, I did an awfully good job of convincing my wife from way back when that I do not find one good reason to celebrate the affairs of the heart for a day when I do find it every day for 365 and 1/4 days of every year. It had been 48 years now and counting).
So guys, you are welcome. But if and when you try it, summon every ounce of courage and sincerity you can muster! You will need it. But I hope not too many will do it - for the sake of Hallmark and the American Greetings Corp. and all the florists, restaurants and chocolatier out there.
Now, what has the heart got to do with romance? Why is it the symbol for love? How did that become so? Meanwhile, almost every conceivable way to express love is, among many other ways, are these:
First of all there is no agreement among those who researched the origin of all heart-related symbols, metaphorical or symbolic, as exactly when it all started. Some say, the 1250's, others earlier than that while some say it was much much later. One speculation is that it came from the shape of a silphium seed of a variety of flowering plant. Ironically, it was supposed to have been used as an ancient herbal contraceptive. Who knows, really.
And why this?
"A heart pierced by a Cupid's arrow means that when someone presents a heart, the person takes the risk of being rejected and feeling hurt. Piercing arrow therefore symbolizes death and vulnerability of love. Some people also believe that the heart and arrow symbolizes the uniting of male and a female".
And you all collectively say, many of you anyway, "Whatever?"
Some suggest, it should be the brain. That is where all the thinking originates; where emotions get generated. But what about the sage who said, "Love and thinking don't go together". And, what kind of an image can be conjured by two halves of whitish/grayish tissue; colorless almost and for all intents and purposes - one motionless 3-pound mass that looks like one white, balled up, crumpled paper mache? Or two halves of a cauliflower? Actually, somewhat eerily, do you notice half a cauliflower looks just like a dissected half of a brain?
Forget all of that.
Let's go back for a bit more to the physiology of the heart. The heart would like to remind us that it is this indefatigable organ that gives life to all our body parts. It will tirelessly beat about 60-70 times a minute and in that time it will have pumped 5-6 quarts of blood or 2,000 gallons each day, without missing a single body part that needs it. If it misses one, it can mean one little trouble or a huge one, depending on which part. The brain gets 15% of the heart's output but a lot more, 20%, goes through the kidney at any moment and, by the way, the heart itself gets its delivery of blood the same way other parts of the body get theirs. Yes, the heart is an equal opportunity provider but something blocks the blood flow to it and it is great trouble!
If it has not been made clear to you, read up on it, talk to your doctor: exercise, eat "wisely" (whatever that means but clearly not always what tastes good or just deliciously sweet) but take care of your heart. Listen to it. It talks to you at one beat per second.
So, take care of your heart. If you are lucky, your heart will have produced 3.5 billion beats in your lifetime. I'll save you the few keystrokes on your calculator. 3.5 billion heartbeats mean that you had just celebrated your 95th birthday. And the one and only reason you got there is because your heart kept beating. So, at any age treat it kindly.
"With a healthy heart the beat goes on".
* My wife's birthday is on Feb. 18, so unsold plants that include orchids in their fancy pots, still embellished with flamboyant bright ribbons are 50% off, boxes of chocolate are heavily discounted, and there might be left over fresh flowers kept fresh in see-through refrigerators at the florist's shop. Restaurants will by that time be begging to take reservations. Now, you know.
No comments:
Post a Comment