This article was updated on February 25thh, 2021
18 things about the heart you might not know
As American Heart Month comes to a close, we thought it might be fun to post some “Heart Trivia.” See how many of these heart facts you know.
- Your heart beats about 60 million times before you are born.
- The human heart beats around 35 million times in a year—115,000 times per day and on the average adult heart beats 72 times a minute.
- Mondays can be dangerous to your health. It’s the day of the week when a heart attack is most likely to occur, either as a result of the increased stress of returning to work or a tendency to drink more than usual over the course of the weekend. The number of heart attacks peak on Christmas Day, followed by December 26th and New Year’s Eve.
- Within a minute’s time, a human heart can pump blood to every cell in your body—over the course of a day, about 100,000 heart beats shuttle 2,000 gallons of oxygen-rich blood many times.
- A broken heart can pose a serious heart attack risk—when you experience an emotionally difficult event, it can also activate the release of stress hormones into the bloodstream that temporarily “shock” the heart.
- Within three years of quitting smoking, the heart attack risks for ex- smokers are the same as for someone who has never smoked before.
- Taking care of your teeth can impact your heart health—developing gum disease can increase risks of heart attack or stroke by 50%.
- The heart creates enough energy to drive a truck 20 miles every day—that’s equivalent to driving to the moon and back in a lifetime. Even at rest, the heart muscles work twice as hard as the leg muscles of a person running.
- The obtrusive sleep apnea (OSA) condition of heavy snoring, can negatively affect the heart.
- Your heart is about 10 ounces in weight and has four chambers: The left atrium, the left ventricle, the right atrium and the right ventricle.
- High blood pressure is one of the most common risks linked to heart health, then comes the heart attack, heart failure or kidney failure. It is also called as the “silent killer.”
- During an average lifetime, a human heart will beat over 2.5 billion times.
- The human heart can generate enough pressure to squirt blood a distance of thirty feet.
- Earthworms have five hearts.
- In a lifetime, the heart pumps about one million barrels of blood.
- Every year, about 1.2 million Americans have heart attacks.
- The heart of a blue whale weighs about a ton and you could crawl through its aorta.
- The saying “Wear your heart on your sleeve” was first recorded in Shakespeare’s Othello, 1604. In the play, the treacherous Iago’s plan was to feign openness and vulnerability in order to appear faithful:
It is sure as you are Roderigo,
Were I the Moor, I would not be Iago;
In following him, I follow but myself.
Heaven is my judge, not I for love and duty,
But seeming so, for my peculiar end.
For when my outward action doth demonstrate
The native act and figure of my heart
In compliment extern, ’tis not long after
But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve
For daws to peck at. I am not what I am.