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Healthwise, Healthwise for every health decision, and the Healthwise logo are trademarks of Healthwise, Incorporated. Updated visitor guidelines. You are here Home » How the Heart Works. Top of the page. Topic Overview The heart is at the center of your circulatory system, which is a network of blood vessels that delivers blood to every part of your body. Your heart is a muscle, and its job is to pump blood throughout your circulatory system.
How does my heart pump blood? Your heart is divided into two separate pumping systems, the right side and the left side. The right side of your heart receives oxygen-poor blood from your veins and pumps it to your lungs, where it picks up oxygen and gets rid of carbon dioxide. The left side of your heart receives oxygen-rich blood from your lungs and pumps it through your arteries to the rest of your body.
How does blood flow through the heart? Blood flows through your heart and lungs in four steps: The right atrium receives oxygen-poor blood from the body and pumps it to the right ventricle through the tricuspid valve. If you want to find out what your heart rate is, use a watch with a second hand and count how many beats you feel in 1 minute. When you are resting, you will probably feel between 70 and beats per minute.
When you run around a lot, your body needs a lot more oxygen-filled blood. Your heart pumps faster to supply the oxygen-filled blood that your body needs. You may even feel your heart pounding in your chest. Try running in place or jumping rope for a few minutes and taking your pulse again — now how many beats do you count in 1 minute? Most kids are born with a healthy heart and it's important to keep yours in good shape. Here are some things that you can do to help keep your heart happy:.
Your heart deserves to be loved for all the work it does. It started pumping blood before you were born and will continue pumping throughout your whole life. Reviewed by: Steven Dowshen, MD. Larger text size Large text size Regular text size. The Heart Is a Muscle. How the Heart Beats How does the heart beat? Page 1 Parts of the Heart The heart is made up of four different blood-filled areas, and each of these areas is called a chamber.
Page 2 How Blood Circulates You probably guessed that the blood just doesn't slosh around your body once it leaves the heart. Page 3 Listen to the Lub-Dub When you go for a checkup, your doctor uses a stethoscope to listen carefully to your heart. Pretty Cool — It's My Pulse!
Keep Your Heart Happy Most kids are born with a healthy heart and it's important to keep yours in good shape. Here are some things that you can do to help keep your heart happy: Remember that your heart is a muscle. If you want it to be strong, you need to exercise it.
How do you do it? By being active in a way that gets you huffing and puffing, like jumping rope, dancing, or playing basketball. Try to be active every day for at least 30 minutes! An hour would be even better for your heart! Eat a variety of healthy foods and avoid foods high in unhealthy fats, such as saturated fats and trans fats reading food labels can help you figure out if your favorite snacks contain these unhealthy ingredients.
Try to eat at least five servings of fruits and vegetables each day. The left atrium receives oxygen-rich blood from the lungs and pumps it to the left ventricle through the mitral valve. The left ventricle pumps the oxygen-rich blood through the aortic valve out to the rest of the body.
How does my heart maintain its normal function? To do this, your heart needs to: Regulate the timing of your heartbeat. Your heart's electrical system controls the timing of the pump. The electrical system keeps your heart beating in a regular rhythm and adjusts the rate at which it beats. When the electrical system is working properly, it maintains a normal heart rate and rhythm.
Problems with this electrical system can cause an arrhythmia, which means that your heart chambers are beating in an uncoordinated or random way or that your heart is beating too fast tachycardia or too slow bradycardia. Keep your heart muscle healthy. The four chambers of your heart are made of a special type of muscle called myocardium. The myocardium does the main pumping work: It relaxes to fill with blood and then squeezes contracts to pump the blood.
After pumping, your heart relaxes and fills with blood. The muscle must be able to relax enough so that it can fill with blood properly before it pumps again. The health of your heart muscle affects both its contractility and its ability to relax, both of which determine whether your heart is able to pump enough blood each time it beats.
Problems with the contractility of your heart can be caused by problems with the muscle itself such as a viral infection of the heart muscle or an inherited heart muscle disorder or by problems with the blood supply to the heart muscle such as reduced blood flow to the heart muscle, called ischemia. Your heart muscle needs its own supply of blood because, like the rest of your body, it needs oxygen and other nutrients to stay healthy.
Blahd Jr. Author: Healthwise Staff. Medical Review: William H. This information does not replace the advice of a doctor. Healthwise, Incorporated, disclaims any warranty or liability for your use of this information.
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