Basic Truths of the Human Body

While all of us are different and unique in so many ways, When it comes to our physical make up, there are a strong amount of similarities, or routines we go through to ensure as an animal we survive.

Some of these things can be obvious. We all breath, and breath faster and harder when we run because our muscles need more oxygen. We all know to do this without being taught, it is engrained in our genetic make up to respond to this. This is the basic idea of Homeostasis.

Homeostasis is the fancy word for our body monitoring itself and responding to changes to keep us operating at the optimal level. The best blood pressure for us, the best amount of oxygen to our brain, best body temperature. You get the idea. =)

So because our bodies are always trying to keep us operating at the best performance possible, It will start to compensate for things. This can happen through a variety of ways in the body. You left the house without a jacket and now you are cold, so you start shivering. Your body is warming you up because it is cold, and it will burn extra energy than it normally does to keep your temperature warmer by getting your muscles jumping around. but this will cost you more energy that you will have to replace by food, so your stomach gurgles to tell you it is hungry.

Now when we look at this idea of homeostasis from a muscle and posture point of view, we always want to talk about work place habits and home habits. Do you spend your time standing or sitting? Do you move around a lot? or do you stay in the same place for hours? Do you carry heavy loads all day? or do you not get much exercise at all? all of these things will shape how your body work decides what its best function is. I think we all get the idea of working out makes us stronger, and sitting on a couch lets the calories build up.

Another piece of basic truth is we always like to keep our eyes level with the horizon. This comes from the inner ear balance or "equilibrium", because our ability to balance is judged by a gel like substance in our inner ear, and if our head was tilted, it would slide one way, and we would walk in circles! So with that in mind, we can start to see when someone has one shoulder higher than the other, but their head is looking straight on. Now we can see that there is something going on, but we know that their head being straight doesn't tell us the head is fine. Now we know the head or neck is working harder than normal, and probably some of the muscles in that area are tired and sore from doing that extra work.

This is the beginning of another series of mine that I think I will continue with to help everyone be able to check these things in their everyday life to make the way forward smooth and healthy! <3