The vehicles of life, both seen and unseen, are essential to the functionality of our dynamic world. Macroscopically, cars, trains, and airplanes have the ability to transport us out of the mundane into the extraordinary. Microscopically, molecules and cells meandering their way through highways of veins and arteries form the lifeblood of humanity. A drop of blood carrying countless blood cells travels throughout our bodies delivering oxygen to tissue, helping our bodies to produce the energy it needs. But just like the beat up ‘95 Jeep in my back yard, our bodies don’t always work like a well-oiled machine. I know firsthand how the tiny vehicles within our bodies can breakdown and wreak just as much havoc as a ten-car pile up on the expressway.
Two years ago I found it difficult to merely get up in the mornings. My limbs felt as heavy as bricks and my mind was a foggy as a London morning. At first I thought it was psychological. Perhaps I was just like any other 19 year old having trouble adjusting to the demands of college or maybe it was something as banal as homesickness. So...
I also learned an array of digestive issues as well as hormone related issues that affect my mood and keep me fatigued. Needless to say, finding out about this just as I started my freshman college away from home was hard to cope with. But all these experiences, as well as my experiences of being away from home for the first ti...
Additionally, the older a person gets the more urgent it is to acquire if one has or is prone to depression, because according to The National Institute of Mental Health, depression, especially in midlife or older adults, can co-occur with other serious medical illnesses, such as diabetes, cancer, heart disease, and Parkinson’s disease, so in turn these conditions are often worse when depression is present. Depression can also cause physical symptoms, because certain brain chemicals or neurotransmitters influence both mood and pain; these symptoms may include joint pain, back pain, gastrointestinal problems, sleep disturbances, and appetite changes and the symptoms may also be accompanied by slowed speech and movements. (“What is Depression?” Page 4.) It is often known that many people will consult with multiple doctors to figure out why their habits and moods have so drastically changed when in fact they can potentially have clinical
...ear and half ago I fractured my ankle and had to use crutches to get around I was very depressed and often did not want to move off my bed.
One important body system is the circulatory system. The systems job is to pump blood to all parts of the body. The blood circulates inside of many tubes and blood vessels which are found in your body. Blood vessels carry the blood to all parts of the body. Oxygen goes into the blood every time we take a breath. Carbon dioxide is a kind of gas. The blood carries carbon dioxide from the cells to the lungs. When a person breathes out, the body is getting rid of carbon dioxide. Your circulatory system works twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It even works when you are sleeping. The circulatory system delivers food, fluids and chemicals to cells throughout your body. It helps to clear your body of waste and carries cells that fight diseases. If your circulatory system would stop working, your cells would starve. Sometimes a doctor would give a patient a vaccine directly into the circulatory system so the medicine should travel to the parts of the body that need it. The circulatory system is made up of three main parts: the heart, the blood vessels, and the blood. The two main kinds of blood vessels are arteries and veins. There are also smaller vessels called capillaries. Arteries and veins are connected by capillaries. A heart of a human is a muscle. The heart has a left side and right side. On the right side, blood enters the heart from the body and then goes from the right side of the heart and to the lungs. In the lungs, it picks up oxygen and returns to the left side of the heart. The oxygen and the blood are then pumped to the body. The heart contains valves. The valves function is to keep the blood flowing in one direction. Each side of the heart is divided into two parts. The upper chamber is called an...
During the winter, many of us suffer from "the winter blues", a less severe form of seasonal depression than SAD. Still others are sufferers have an already existent condition, such as pre-menstrual syndrome or depression, which is exacerbated by the coming of the winter. (2). In general, many people suffer from some form of sporadic depression during the wintertime. We may feel more tired and sad at times. We may even gain some weight or have trouble getting out of bed. Over 10 million people in America, however, may feel a more extreme form of these symptoms. They may constantly feel lethargic and depressed to an extent that social and work related activities are negatively affected. This more extreme form of the "winter blues" is SAD. Typical SAD symptoms include sugar cravings, lethargy, depression, an increase in body weight, and a greater need for sleep (1). Onset of these symptoms usually occurs in October or November, and the symptoms disappear in early spring. Frequently, people who suffer from SAD react strongly to variations in the amount of light in their surrounding environment. Most often, patients who suffer from SAD and live at more northern latitudes note that the more north they live, the more distinct and severe their SAD symptoms become. In addition, SAD patients note that their depressive symptoms increase in severity when the amount of light indoors decreases and the weather is cloudy.
Phelan, J. (2011). What Is Life? A Guide To Biology with Physiology. New York: Peter Marshall.
decrease the next day morning impairment) for a short duration of time in treatment of
The cardiovascular system is composed of three organs in the human body: the heart, blood vessels, and blood. It is centered on the heart a powerful organ that steadily pumps blood to a complex system of blood vessels that extends to the entire body. The blood that is pumped to the body is rich with oxygen and nutrients needed to fuel the activities of the body’s tissues and organ. An average-sized adult carries about 5 liters (9 pints) of blood through the vessels, or better known as arteries (Seidel et al., 2014). In addition, the blood vessels can be described as the highway in which the blood travels on in order to get to all the organs in the human body. Furthermore, the vessels are connected to the heart and these two organs work in concert (i.e. together) in order to supply the human body with blood (Goff et al., 2013).
Thomas, A. (2010, July 20). Depression and Physical Illness. Netdoctor. Retrieved March 24, 2014, from http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/diseases/depression/depressionandphysicalillness_000601.htm
When we are asked to stop and take a moment – if and when of course we can find a moment – and we think about what we do with our time on a daily basis, many of us might be quick to answer that we have our every day routines, habits, and schedules that provide us with the foundation for our lives. Like the gears of a well-oiled machine, we as individuals and members of society continue to keep moving forward day in and day out, but just like machines, we too can eventually start to slow down, feel worn out, and even feel a little bit rusty. Not only do we need to take care of ourselves physically, but our mental health is crucial to our wellbeing.
I soon found myself mired in work. For a person whose friends teased her about being a neat freak, I grew increasingly messy. My room and desk looked like my backpack had exploded. There was no time to talk to friends on the phone, not even on the weekends. Going to bed at midnight was a luxury, 1 a.m. was normal, 3 a.m. meant time to panic and 4 a.m. meant it was time to go to sleep defeated. Most days, I would shuffle clumsily from class to class with sleep-clouded eyes and nod off during classroom lectures. There was even a month in winter when I was so self-conscious of my raccoon eyes that I wore sunglasses to school.
The highway system of the Circulatory System consists off a lot of one-way streets. The main routes used by the circulatory system are the veins and arteries. Veins are used to carry blood to the heart. Arteries then carry blood away from the heart. Most of the time, blood in the veins is blood where most of the oxygen and nutrients have already been delivered to the cells. This blood is called deoxygenated and is very dark red. Most of the time blood in the arteries is loaded with oxygen and nutrients and the color is very bright red. There is one artery that carries deoxygenated blood and there are some veins that carry oxygenated blood. In order to get more research on this I had to look up some information on the heart and lungs.
Humans have a system that circulates through the body through millions of blood vessels, delivering oxygen to cells that require the substance. The system is consisted of a heart, lungs, different
"You are getting sleepy ..." Men's Health July-Aug. 2005: 84. Student Edition. Web. 26 Feb.
The human body is very complex. It is like a job. You have to do a million things in one day to make it through the day. The body uses nine systems to do all of those jobs. They all have separate functions, but some work together. Each system is also made up of organs. There are many ways to care and protect the systems from the many different problems they can have. There are also many interesting facts about each system.