Here's some food for thought about how amazing the human body is. As you read think about all of theses things and how much we take them for granted every day of our life! Most often we only think about them when they cease to function at their best. We literally live our lives through the nervous system and your Chiropractic adjustments help to maintain an optimum flow of information from brain cell to tissue cell. Any interference and we simply cannot function at our best!

* One cubic inch of the brain's cortex contains 10,000 miles of connecting tissue.

* Your brain gets signals from 137 million light receptors in your eyes, 100,000 hearing receptors in your ears, 3,000 taste buds in your mouth, 30,000 hot spots, 250,000 cold spots, and 500,000 touch spots on your skin.

* Electrical impulses flash along your nerves at 393 feet per second, or about 270  miles per hour.

* In nine months, 6,000 billion cells form an average baby.

* Your heart pumps about 21/2 gallons of blood per minute. If you could loan your heart to to pump donor blood into pint bottles, it would fill so may bottles in one year that they could stretch from New York City to Cleveland, Ohio.

* If your blood cells were put in a single row, it would extend around the world four times at the equator. Every second between 2-3 million red blood cells are launched into the blood stream.

* There are more than 600 muscles in your body. Many muscles work in a team.

* The retina of the eye contains 137 million nerve endings that carry the picture to the brain.

* Your lungs contain a half billion tiny air sacs with a surface area of 40 to 60 square miles.

* In 70 years, your stomach will produce about 60,000 quarts of digestive juice, it will digest about 40 tons of 80,000 pounds of food.

* Each kidney contains one million functional units that filter your blood.

* Your brain regulates, stimulates, creates and controls all these body functions and millions of others. When the body is functioning normal, we tend to forget about the very complex activities that are constantly going on. Nonetheless, the cells keep functioning and reproducing themselves.

* The organs and the glands keep regulating such diverse activities as digestion and growth, and the nerve system keeps receiving, reterpreting and sending messages. Without this continuing harmony and coordinating activities, this could be no psychological life as we know it.

* The body has two major systems for coordinating ----integrating----behavior.

1- The endocrine system which consists of a number of glands that secrete chemical messages into the bloodstream. These chemicals perform a variety of functions, including preparation of nerves and muscle to act, control of metabolism,  development of secondary sexual traits.

2- This nerve system relays messages in this form of impulses throughout the body. ie: Burn a finger. It involves a highly complex set of activities,

a- Special sensory neurons pick up the message the finger is burned. They pass this information along to the spinal cord, which triggers a quick withdrawal of the hand, At the same time, the message is being sent to other parts of your nerve system. Your body goes on emergency alert. You breathe faster, your heart pounds, your entire body mobilizes itself against the wound. At the same time, the indocrine system gets involved. Hormones such as epinephrine are released into the bloodstream and carried throughout the body supplement and reinforces the efforts of the nerve system activity.

b- Meantime your brain continues to interpret the messages being sent to it. You experience pain. Your turn your hand over to examine the burn. You might walk over to the sink to run cold water over it. nerve system has all numerous parts that will work together. There are still functions of the body that are mysteries to date.

Neuron: There are more than 100 billion nerve cells or neurons in the brain of an average human being. That is more more than twenty times the amount of people living on earth, and their are billions more in other parts of the nerve system. Like all other cells, each one has a cell body which contains a nucleolus where metabolism and respiration take place; this cell body is called a membrane. Unlike other cells, neurons have tiny fibers extending from the cell body that enables the neuron to receive messages from the surrounding cells, and pass them on to other cells. No other cells are equipped to do this.

The short fibers, like feelers, singers that branch out from the cell body are called dendrites. These pack up messages coming in from surrounding areas and carry them to the cell body. Also extending from the cell body of the neuron is a single long fiber called the axion. It is very thin and longer than the dendrites. From brain to the base of the spinal cord, or spinal cord to tip of thumb nay be as long as three feet, but more axons bundled together are one to two inches long.

The axon carries outgoing messages from cells and either relays them to neighboring neurons, or directs a muscle or a gland to take action. A group of axons bundled together like parallel wires in an electrical cable is called a nerve.


Pretty incredible information wouldn't you say?! Be sure you take of yourself proactively by eating well, moving well, thinking well, and most importantly staying well adjusted chiropractically!

Dr. Gary