The heart is truly an amazing organ. It’s no wonder we tend to associate it with love and other wonderful things. I found an amazing list of amazing facts about the heart and what it does and thought I’d share many of them with my own comments.

• It wasn’t until 1706 that scientists started to get an idea of how the heart works. The structure of it was first (mostly) correctly described by the French scientist Raymond de Viessens.
• There were no heart specialists in the world until the early 20th Century.
• The heart muscle is incredibly strong. To get an idea of how strong, squeeze a tennis ball in your hand until it collapses. It takes a good amount of effort, even if it is relatively easy a few times. Now do that 101,000 times in a day. Just imagine how sore your arm would be!
• The heart pumps blood with such force that it only takes about 20 seconds for your blood to circulate through your entire vascular system–which consists of about 60,000 miles worth of blood vessels!
• In a year, the average heart will pump about 35 million times. That equates to more than 2.5 billion beats throughout the course of an average lifetime.
• Roughly 800 million pints of blood will be pumped through your heart in your lifetime.
• The largest artery in you body is the aorta–which takes oxygenated blood directly out of the heart and distributes it throughout the body–has about the same internal circumference as a garden hose. On the other side of the spectrum, your smallest capillaries about one-tenth the width of a human hair and can only fit blood cells in single file.
• Ever heard of heart cancer? Probably not! It does exist but it is extremely rare because heart cells stop dividing in early childhood.

As you can see, there is a lot to the human heart (and that’s just a drop in the bucket). And you’ve got to take care of it. Of course we’ve all heard about diet and exercise, but there are some ways to protect your heart health you might not have heard of. For example:

• Take your oral health seriously – Researchers have repeatedly found a correlation between gum disease and heart disease, though no one is quite sure why or what this connection is exactly. Nevertheless, taking good care of your mouth seems to be an indirect way of taking good care of your heart.
• Sleep – One factor contributing to heart disease is the calcification of the blood vessels. As we get older, calcium builds up in arteries, making them more stiff. The more sleep you get, the less calcium will deposit and stick to your arteries. Also, take Vitamin K2 supplements. This nutrient helps to send calcium to your bones rather than your blood vessels.
• Stretch every day – Stretching actually helps your blood vessels remain elastic, just like it does for muscles and joints.
• Laughing is very healthy for your heart. It reduces stress (one of the worst things for your heart) and increases immunity (one of the best things for your heart).
• Flaxseed and Garlic – These two foods are some of the best things you can eat for your heart. Flaxseeds are extremely high in Omega-3 fatty acids (much like fish), one of the best nutrients for your heart. Garlic helps keep blood cells from clumping together and slowing down/blocking blood flow.

That heart of yours is working very hard–as you can see. The least you can do is take steps to let your heart do its job. And it’s really not that hard to do! And most things you can do for your heart can be fun and helpful as well!