{"id":7385,"date":"2023-06-16T01:55:15","date_gmt":"2023-06-16T00:55:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/?page_id=7385"},"modified":"2025-03-21T12:55:25","modified_gmt":"2025-03-21T12:55:25","slug":"how-your-heart-pumps","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/index.php\/how-your-heart-pumps\/","title":{"rendered":"How your heart pumps"},"content":{"rendered":"<h5>Your heart: The basics<\/h5>\n<h1>How your heart pumps<\/h1>\n<h2>Your heart in action<\/h2>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<iframe loading=\"lazy\" \n    width=\"400\" \n    height=\"400\"\n    data-static=\"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/stats\/a\/anim_heart_C.gif\"\n    data-animated=\"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/anims\/a_001\/anim_heart.html\"\n    src=\"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/stats\/a\/anim_heart_C.gif\"\n    frameborder=\"0\" \n    title=\"animation of a beating heart\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe>\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>Your heart is a pump. With every beat, it pushes blood around your body and ensures that your cells are supplied with oxygen, nutrients, and everything else they need to survive.<\/p>\n<p>It is quite small &#8211; about the size of a closed fist &#8211; and, on average, it beats 100,000 times each day.<\/p>\n<p>The animations on this page illustrate what happens when your heart beats and show how blood flows through it.<\/p>\n<p>The right side of the heart is shown in blue: <strong>Blue is used to show blood that is low in oxygen.<\/strong> This is blood that is returning from its journey around your body. Your heart pumps this blood to your lungs to be refreshed with oxygen.<\/p>\n<p>The left side is red: <strong>Red indicates blood that is high in oxygen.<\/strong> This is blood returning from your lungs to be pumped back around your body.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Your heart is made up of four chambers<\/strong>, two upper chambers, called the atria, and two lower chambers, called the ventricles.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The role of your atria<\/strong> is to take in blood from your body (right atrium) or your lungs (left atrium) and push it into your ventricles, which are the heart&#8217;s lower chambers. The atria are important because they function as reservoirs, supplying blood for your ventricles.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Your ventricles<\/strong> pump blood through to your lungs (right ventricle), for re-oxygenation, or out to your body (left ventricle), to keep you alive and well. Your ventricles do most of your heart&#8217;s hard pumping work.<\/p>\n<h2>Your heart in one beat<\/h2>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<iframe loading=\"lazy\" \n    width=\"400\" \n    height=\"850\"\n    data-static=\"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/stats\/a\/static_slides_pres.gif\"\n    data-animated=\"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/anims\/a_001\/static_slides.html\"\n    src=\"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/stats\/a\/static_slides_pres.gif\"\n    frameborder=\"0\" \n    title=\"description of a beating heart\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe>\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><strong>Blood flow within your heart is controlled by four valves<\/strong> that open to let blood enter the atria and ventricles and then close to prevent back-flow on contraction. The four valves are called the aortic valve, the mitral valve, the pulmonary valve, and the tricuspid valve.<\/p>\n<p>Your heart is controlled by an <strong>internal electrical system<\/strong> that coordinates all the muscles to get them to work together. It also controls the rate at which your heart beats.<\/p>\n<p>At rest, your heart rate is slower than it is when you&#8217;re exerting yourself. If you&#8217;re exercising, it can go up considerably.<\/p>\n<p>To learn more about this take a look at <a href=\"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/index.php\/your-hearts-electrical-system\/\">Your heart&#8217;s electrical system.<\/a><\/p>\n<h2>Where is your heart?<\/h2>\n<p>Your heart is roughly in the middle of your chest, slightly to the left of center.<\/p>\n<p>It is connected to your circulatory system, which is the network of arteries, veins, and capillaries that takes blood to and from every part of\u00a0 your body.<\/p>\n<p>To learn more, take a look at <a href=\"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/index.php\/your-circulatory-system\/\">Your circulatory system<\/a>, where we explain where your blood goes when it leaves your heart.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<iframe loading=\"lazy\" \n    width=\"400\" \n    height=\"400\"\n    data-static=\"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/stats\/a\/a004_002.gif\"\n    data-animated=\"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/anims\/a_004\/a004_002.html\"\n    src=\"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/stats\/a\/a004_002.gif\"\n    frameborder=\"0\" \n    title=\"the hearts location\"><br \/>\n<\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Your heart: The basics How your heart pumps Your heart in action Your heart is a pump. With every beat, it pushes blood around your body and ensures that your cells are supplied with oxygen, nutrients, and everything else they need to survive. It is quite small &#8211; about the size of a closed fist [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"elementor_header_footer","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"no-sidebar","site-content-layout":"page-builder","ast-site-content-layout":"full-width-container","site-content-style":"unboxed","site-sidebar-style":"unboxed","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"disabled","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"disabled","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-7385","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7385"}],"version-history":[{"count":324,"href":"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16964,"href":"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/7385\/revisions\/16964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/heart-explained.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}