Take a breath.
A deep breath. As deep as you can, until your lungs can't possibly take anymore. Now imagine someone standing over you. They tell you that they want you to expire the entire amount of air in your lungs, but make the exhalation powerful and last as long as you can.
So you are sitting there, full of air, desperate to release it. You don't even want to take a breath in, thats not your priority, you just want to be rid of this overwhelming tension. You just want to exhale.
Then they say go.
It is this interesting phenomenon of the human lung that healthy people, no matter how hard they try to draw out their breath, will release the majority of their entire vital capacity of their lungs within the first second.
In pulmonology, the first second of a deep exhalation is even given its own name, FEV1, and this value is so important that it can determine whether you have a host of any thousands of diseases based on the number alone.
Its hard sometimes for me to understand the human body. Well, most of the time. The next few years of my life will be spent in an attempt to make sense of it, but it is a complex thing. How human beings are made to last, yet are fragile enough that all of that gaseous life force that brings with it the capability to drive all of the processes in our body, is gone within the blink of an eye.
I wonder about the first second. I wonder about this constant overwhelming tension I have right now, that fills my thoughts until I can't take anymore. I wonder about the people who stand over me, letting me know that I have to make this last, that my actions now and in the future will have such an important impact. I wonder what will happen when I finally am able to exhale. What will happen in that first second?
If you haven't already you can breathe out now ^^
Addendum to the first blog: I guess this whole blog of mine will be interpretations on the daily life of a young person toiling in the mines of lard
A deep breath. As deep as you can, until your lungs can't possibly take anymore. Now imagine someone standing over you. They tell you that they want you to expire the entire amount of air in your lungs, but make the exhalation powerful and last as long as you can.
So you are sitting there, full of air, desperate to release it. You don't even want to take a breath in, thats not your priority, you just want to be rid of this overwhelming tension. You just want to exhale.
Then they say go.
It is this interesting phenomenon of the human lung that healthy people, no matter how hard they try to draw out their breath, will release the majority of their entire vital capacity of their lungs within the first second.
In pulmonology, the first second of a deep exhalation is even given its own name, FEV1, and this value is so important that it can determine whether you have a host of any thousands of diseases based on the number alone.
Its hard sometimes for me to understand the human body. Well, most of the time. The next few years of my life will be spent in an attempt to make sense of it, but it is a complex thing. How human beings are made to last, yet are fragile enough that all of that gaseous life force that brings with it the capability to drive all of the processes in our body, is gone within the blink of an eye.
I wonder about the first second. I wonder about this constant overwhelming tension I have right now, that fills my thoughts until I can't take anymore. I wonder about the people who stand over me, letting me know that I have to make this last, that my actions now and in the future will have such an important impact. I wonder what will happen when I finally am able to exhale. What will happen in that first second?
If you haven't already you can breathe out now ^^
Addendum to the first blog: I guess this whole blog of mine will be interpretations on the daily life of a young person toiling in the mines of lard
