Your amazing heart

Your heart beats over 100,000 times every day, pumping blood around your body so your cells get the oxygen and nutrients they need.  Your heart muscle is specially designed to to this job and respond to your body's needs, like when you stand up, run for the bus, get an adrenalin surge on that roller-coaster ride or see someone you really like.

Your heart is amazing:

• In a day, your heart pumps around 7,200 litres of blood, enough to fill a small paddling pool.
• Blood travels 19,000 km everyday, the same distance as flying from London to Hong Kong and back, thanks to the heart.
• By the time you're 70, your heart will have beaten over two and a half billion times (2,500,000,000).
• The heart beat sound you hear comes from the valves inside your heart opening and closing as they allow blood to flow into the different chambers of the heart in a strict sequence. 
• In a lifetime, your heart expends the same energy it would take to lift a battleship out of the water – not bad for a muscle about the size of your fist.
• On average, an adult heart beats around 70 times a minute. The hummingbird has the record for the fastest heart beat - 1,200 beats a minute as it flaps its wings.

The heart is special and is often talked about in conversation, like when we say : someone has 'a heart of gold'; 'the heart of the matter is'; it was 'light-hearted' or we're having a 'change of heart'.
Our favourite at Heart Research UK is 'having your heart in the right place".  Of course, this should be first place, because your heart works hard for you and deserves to be given the best. 
So make sure you visit our how to look after your heart section to find out what you can do.

Unfortunately, like most parts of the body, things can sometimes go wrong with your heart, like when you get heart disease.  You can find out more about heart disease and what puts you more at risk of it in our heart in trouble section.

Remember, it's your heart, it's amazing and it's up to you to look after it.