Located within your chest cavity, the lungs are paired organs in the chest that perform a blood oxygenation process called respiration and produce components (platelets) crucial for blood health.
All of us have two lungs and each adult lung is between 25cm/10 and 30cm/12 long.
The lungs are made of a spongy, elastic tissue that stretches and constricts as you breathe.
Your lungs primary purpose is to take in oxygen from the air you breathe in and every day you take in about 23,000 breaths which bring in around 9500 litres of air.
With each breath, your lungs add fresh oxygen to your blood, which then carries it to your cells.
The lungs also help regulate the concentration of hydrogen ion (your pH levels) and help remove carbon dioxide (a waste gas for the human body but food for the trees) from your body.
This process of receiving oxygen and removing carbon dioxide is called gas exchange.
- The airways that bring air into the lungs (the trachea and bronchi) are made of smooth muscle and cartilage, allowing the airways to constrict and expand.
- The lungs and airways bring in fresh, oxygen-enriched air and expel waste called carbon dioxide that is made by your cells.
- The average sized lungs hold approximately 2000c.c of air.
- During normal respiration, the lungs breathe-in and breathe-out about 500c.c of air.
Lung function normally peaks in the late teens and early twenties.
Due to dehydration, exposure to toxins and pollutants and inadequate nutrition, it is estimated the after the early twenties, lung function declines about 1 percent a year over the rest of a person’s lifetime or 10% every decade over the age of 30.
It is for this reason alone that one is well advised to familiarise themselves with the TriBreath techniques.
Learning how to access both upper and lower lung performance whilst utilising the most powerful of the respiratory muscles, the diaphragm, is definitely in your best interests if living potently is your goal.
Unfortunately, in professions where breathing in pollutants or smoking is the norm, you can expect this decrease in lung capacity to increase by many more percent each year.
