You know that sneezing is the body’s way of getting rid of
something that’s irritating the nose.
With coordinated precision the irritant is sneezed out.
The two openings of the airway that is the nasal cavity and
the mouth meet at the pharynx or throat at the back of the nose and mouth. The pharynx which is a part of the digestive
system as well as the respiratory system carries both food and air. At the bottom of the pharynx, there is a pathway
for both food and air and this divides in two and go a separate way. One passageway is for food, through the
esophagus which leads to the stomach and the other for air, through the
epiglottis, a small flap of tissue that covers the air only passage when we
swallow, keeping all the foods and liquid from going into our lungs. That’s why since ancient times, knowledge is
passed on that while eating complete what you are chewing or eating and then
talk, now you know there is a reason for that, it’s because when you are eating
and talking food can accidently go into the lungs and cause choking and then an
emergency situation.
The voice box or larynx is the uppermost part of the air only
passage and this short tube also contains a pair of vocal cords which vibrate
to make sounds. The trachea or windpipe
extends downward from the base of the larynx and it lies partly in the neck and
partly in the chest cavity. The walls of
the trachea are strengthened by stiff rings of cartilage to keep it open so that
air that you inhale can flow through on its way to the lungs. This trachea is also continuously lined with
cilia, and it does the job of sweeping fluids and foreign particles out of the
airway so that they stay out of the lungs and not cause harm to the body. At the bottom end, the trachea divides into
left and right air tubes called bronchi, which connect to the lungs. Within the lungs, you will find that the
bronchi branches out into smaller bronchi and even smaller tubes called
bronchioles, which are as thin as a strand of hair, end in tiny air sacs called
alveoli. Every one of us has hundreds of
millions of alveoli in our lungs — enough that will cover a tennis court if
they were spread out on the ground. The
alveoli is the place where the exchange of oxygen and carbon dioxide takes
place. With each
inhalation, air fills a large portion of the millions of alveoli and in a process
called diffusion, oxygen moves from the alveoli to the blood through the
capillaries, which are tiny blood vessels that line the alveolar walls. Once in the bloodstream, a molecule called
hemoglobin picks up the oxygen in the red blood cells. This oxygen-rich blood then flows back to the
heart, which pumps it through the arteries to all the oxygen-hungry tissues
throughout the body. So if your
hemoglobin is less, you will feel fatigued, and even lose consciousness if it
goes beyond a below limit, but most of the time, your body will convey to you
through some way so that you can remedy the situation of low hemoglobin and
will need to consult with your doctor.
cont’d..
