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01x02 - Pulse

Episode transcripts for the TV show, "Human: The World Within". Aired: May 5, 2021.*
Watch/Buy Amazon


Diverse personal stories from around the world reveal how lives, passions and goals are facilitated by the human body's various complex systems; narrator Jad Abumrad.

01x02 - Pulse

Post by bunniefuu »

- Think about it

when you're sitting still

and not breathing

what is the only thing

in your body

that's palpably moving?

- Every second, your body

gives you a little sign

to prove that it's still there.

A pulse.

- It is billions of cells

beating for billions of times

in a lifetime,

never pausing to rest.

- Behind that beat is an

unbelievably vast system

whose one and only job

is to make sure every cell

in your body stays alive.

- The speed,

the strength,

the frequency,

the rhythm

it tells us so much.

- A heart that thumps

blood that flows through

thousands of miles

of arteries and veins

All so we can attempt

the crazy feats

that make humans

unique.

Human life depends on one

substance above all others

Oxygen.

We can go about three weeks

without food,

three days without water.

But without oxygen, we wouldn't

last three minutes.

But why?

Well, if you think about it,

each of us is just

a huge pile of cells,

somewhere around 37 trillion.

Blood cells, skin cells,

brain cells.

And every single one

of those cells

contains an engine

that runs on oxygen.

Think of it like a fire

that's always burning.

Oxygen is the wood or coal.

And to keep the fire stoked,

all we have to do is breathe in.

But getting a supply of oxygen

is the easy part.

Once it's inside the body,

all that fuel has to somehow

find its way

into those 37 trillion engines.

And that requires a system

that never rests.

- The cardiovascular

and circulatory systems

represent our major engine

in our bodies.

Now, this is to make sure

that all of our cells

have oxygen going in,

carbon dioxide leaving,

plenty of nutrients,

and essentially keeps us going.

- The body itself

is pretty small,

but the network of vessels

is enormous.

The vessels themselves

laid end-to-end would be

about 100,000 miles long,

which would encircle the globe

probably four times.

- This vast network of pumps,

valves, and tunnels

delivers oxygen to cells

in every corner of your body,

without you ever having

to think about it.

And what's more insane than that

is we can train this system

to work even more efficiently.

Especially when oxygen

is harder to come by.

- It would be difficult

to sum me up in one word

because I'm a bit

of a contradiction.

On one hand,

I'm a Southern Belle,

a debutante,

and afraid of heights.

But I'm also an extreme

alpinist, an ice climber,

and a rock climber.



My name is Kitty Calhoun.

Ice climbing is who I am.

- High-altitude ice climbing

is the ultimate test

for the cardiovascular system.

Imagine you're scaling

a vertical slab of ice.

Your body is screaming

for oxygen to feed your muscles

to keep moving upwards.

It's true that any elite athlete

has to have an extremely

efficient cardiovascular system.

But climbing is different.

The air at high altitudes

is depleted of oxygen

and freezing temperatures tax

a system that's already

pushed to the brink.

Then add in one last factor

the heart-pounding knowledge

that at any moment,

you could slip.

Training to climb

means teaching the body

to adapt to an atmosphere that

can barely sustain human life.

And that training begins

in one place the heart.

- The heart is the first organ

to start functioning

and is typically the last one

to stop functioning

in the human lifetime.

- It's only the size of a fist,

but it beats more than

100,000 times a day.

The heart itself

is just two pumps

side-by-side.

On the left, the tricuspid

valve collects blood

from all over the body.

On the right, the pulmonary

valve takes that blood

and shoots it into the organ

that surrounds the heart.

The lungs.

There, the blood picks up oxygen

from tiny air-filled sacs

called alveoli

that expand like balloons

every time we inhale.

Then it goes back to the heart

so that all that oxygen-rich

blood can get pumped

to the rest of the body.

After a minute, it returns,

ready for another trip.

That cycle happens

every second of every day.

But throw a mountain

into the mix,

and things get interesting.

- Ice climbing is an activity

where you have to be

in good cardio shape.

When I'm not ice climbing,

I'm getting a good cardio work

in a short amount of time.

- In order for Kitty's heart

to perform well on the ice,

she needs to train it

to pump blood

as dynamically as possible.

- During exercise,

there are a lot of changes

that occur in our

cardiovascular system.

The heart obviously speeds up.

The more beats per minute,

the more blood flow

out of the heart per minute,

therefore the more oxygen

delivery to the tissues.

The efficiency of oxygen

transfer also increases

so that muscles can use

the oxygen more efficiently.

- Consistently exercising

the heart muscle

trains it to push more blood out

with each beat,

which means it doesn't

need to beat as often.

- The human heart is like

any other part

of our biology

Highly adaptive.

The more demands that are placed

on our heart,

the more the heart responds

in terms of its capacity.

Over time, you'll find

the resting heart rate

of a marathon runner

would be much lower

than that of a person

who is much more sedentary.

- Kitty has trained her heart

to withstand

the physical stresses of a climb

up a solid sheet of ice.

But in this sport, there's more

than just exhaustion at stake.

If you're hanging by an axe

from a cliff,

your heart is also being

challenged by something else

Fear.

- You know, there's risk in life,

right?

If you don't step out the door,

then you won't get hit by a car.

If you don't go ice climbing,

then you won't have

an accident ice climbing.

Risk is something that people

try to shut out in their lives,

and I think to live life fully,

to experience all that

life has to give,

that what you

have to do is minimize the risk

by getting experience

and making good decisions.

I do feel fear,

standing down at the bottom

and looking up at the climb.

I still have a healthy fear

of falling.

So one of the biggest tricks

that I use

to keep it together mentally

is breathing.

- When the system runs amuck

like in a panic attack,

the heart speeds up,

the heart pumps

less efficiently,

and is less able to meet the

metabolic demands of the body.

So an ice climber, for example,

would have to get control

of that response,

to slow down their heartbeat

and enable the heart

to fill properly

and pump blood more efficiently.

- Climbing is as much mental

as it is physical.

As Kitty's heart has transformed

over time

to be able to handle

the extreme conditions,

so has her brain.

- I start climbing,

and I'm focused on breathing

and making sure

that I work my feet up high

and then push up off my legs

like you're doing a squat.

And when you do pull

with your arms,

you really try to use your back

as much as you can.

Everything is a balance.

- It's all a highly

coordinated dance.

The mind keeps everything

in check

while muscles all over the body

reach their limit,

in constant need of more oxygen.

Kitty's well-trained heart

handles all these tasks easily.

The hard part

is getting the supply of oxygen

in the first place.

At high altitudes,

the atmosphere contains

a lot less oxygen.

That means there's less fuel

for red blood cells to extract

from the air entering the lungs.

If you've ever been

up that high,

you know how heavy

your breathing gets.

To try and compensate,

the heart goes into overdrive

to pump the blood

to starving muscles.

The low levels of oxygen

in the blood

can cause headaches and fatigue

as the body tries to function

with less fuel.

It can also affect the mind.

- Every organ depends

on the heart for its function.

The brain cannot function

without a moving heart.

- Without oxygen,

the brain gets foggy.

That's another reason

spending too much time

up in the clouds is dangerous.

Your judgment goes right out

the window.

But once again,

Kitty's body is different.

Her red blood cells

are better at adjusting

to the changing atmosphere,

which gives her the edge

she needs to get to the top.

- Yay! Oh, man.

It feels good.

When I'm at the top, I feel

a sense of relief for sure,

a sense of accomplishment.

Climbing is a form of therapy

for me

because I can just escape,

and I enjoy breathing hard,

I enjoy the strength

aspect of it,

I enjoy just moving

in a different way.

- This frozen ice face melts

when the seasons change

leading streams

into rivers

that snake through the landscape

and bring life.

Humans use these waterways

for transport and trade.

We construct cities around them.

They hold spiritual

meaning for us.

The constant flow of water

through rivers

has supported life

for millennia,

much like

the labyrinth intertwined

right underneath our skin.

- Because our blood

has to be conveyed

to every cell in the body,

the enormity of the blood

vessels in our body

is really mind-boggling.

- A lot of simpler life forms

don't need a circulatory system

because they're just one-cell

beings and they can rely

on the diffusion of molecules

within their one cell

to carry everything around

that they need to.

But we as humans are made up

of many cells,

and we needed to evolve a system

that would allow us

to very efficiently move oxygen

throughout our body.

- Over the course of a day,

blood will travel about

12,000 miles

through arteries and veins.

It's a system defined

by constant motion,

something that's also reflected

in our evolution as a species.

- Humans are absolutely

built to move.

I mean, if you look

at our ancestry

and the way we used

to move around,

our musculoskeletal system

is designed for us to be agile,

to go long periods

of time by moving,

and our hearts can perfectly

accommodate this

by making sure we get the right

amount of blood when we need it.

- But here's the tricky thing

not only does our circulatory

system allow us to move,

it only works properly

if we are moving.

For most of us, modern life

doesn't involve hunting

or crossing continents on foot.

And what we're finding out

is that if we stay still

for too long,

the whole system breaks down.





- Driving a bus, you're just

sitting there driving.

Day in, day out,

eight-hour shift.

Sometimes if you're really busy,

you may spend your

entire shift in the seat

because you're running behind

schedule or something.

You're sitting in traffic,

sometimes you might sit

in the seat

for three hours in traffic.

Again, you're not moving.

The advice I give people

is just you gotta be moving.

If you're going to sit down,

you're going to die.

I'm a prime example.

I'm Steve Dean,

and I drive a city bus.



- I think one of the life lessons

that the cells

I've studied has taught me

is this concept of

if you don't use it,

you lose it.

Cells know what they're doing,

but they need to be challenged.

- One of the biggest obstacles

our circulation is up against

is something that we have

absolutely no control over

Gravity.

Humans are an upright species.

We walk on two legs.

So once our blood has traveled

down the arteries

and unloaded oxygen to all

the cells below the heart,

that same blood then has to move

straight upwards again

through our veins to get back

to where it started,

working against

Earth's gravitational pull

the entire time.

In most cases,

arteries rely on the heart

to pump blood,

but veins have to get their

power from another source

Muscles.

When you tense your leg muscles

they propel blood upwards.

But this ingenious adaptation

only works

if the muscles are active.

Otherwise, the pumps have

no energy to work with.

Think about sitting

for long periods of time.

Your leg muscles

aren't doing anything,

so they can't pump that blood

back to the heart

with any real force.

And that can lead

to major problems.

- A bus driver's heart,

cruising through traffic

with no issue,

is beating at a resting pace.

There is no sense of urgency

to increase a heart rate

and throw more blood

to the body.

- You're very sedentary

when you're driving the coach.

You sit there a lot.

And that's kind of one

of the downfalls

of driving the coach.

Back in 2010,

when I was working a lot,

just sitting there driving,

I was up to about 250,

260 pounds.

I felt sluggish.

- Our jobs have never been

more stationary.

They've moved from farms

to cities,

and now onto the Internet.

And we're constantly

told to exercise,

because the damage

can creep up on you, silently.

- On general inspection,

the heart of a sedentary person

might look normal.

However, if you probe more

deeply and look, for example,

at the arteries that supply

blood to the heart muscle,

it's more likely

that those arteries

would have more signs

of fatty deposits,

in part because of

the sedentary lifestyle.

- Not moving actually makes the

body worse at processing fat.

And probably everyone on earth

will tell you

that fat is the enemy.

And here's why

It's really just

a matter of space.

When we exercise, the arteries

surrounding the heart expand.

When we don't, they get thinner.

And blood needs room to move.

- A river can get blocked

by rocks, for example.

Similarly blood vessels

can develop blockages,

called atherosclerosis,

which are essentially

fatty deposits

that start at the wall

and start to protrude inward

and eventually

impede blood flow.

- These blockages

that build over time

can get us into real trouble.

- I felt this burning

in my chest.

I drove myself to

St. Peter's emergency room.

They did an EKG.

The doctor, she said,

"You've had a heart attack."

- The heart not only pumps blood

to the entire body,

but it also pumps blood

to itself.

It's self-sustaining.

No other organ does that.

The heart is so hard-working

that it needs a constant supply

of oxygen and nutrients

to remain functional.

When those arteries get

clogged up with fatty deposits,

that can result in

stoppage of blood flow

to the heart muscle.

And when that heart muscle dies,

that's called a heart attack.

- And unlike other muscles,

heart cells barely regenerate.

When they die, scar tissue

grows in their place,

and scar tissue can't pump.

- It was the very tip

of an artery that was blocked.

They said, "If you'd have

went to sleep,

you might not have woke up."

You know, it's an eye-opening

experience.

I just realized my time

on this earth now has a limit

and made me realize

that I need to do things

in my life different.

Gosh, we're just about here.

Well, I drive Dial-A-Lift now.

Good morning.

- Good morning.

- How are you today?

Dial-A-Lift

is a door-to-door service

for passengers with disabilities

or elderly,

something that prevents them

from riding the normal bus.

- Marianne is my first

rider today.

I take her to

the Sacred Heart Church.

- Is this an express?

- Yup, you're going

straight there today.

- Oh, good.

That works for me.

- I probably added another 3,000

to 4,000 steps a day

by driving Dial-A-Lift.

Good morning. It's Dial-A-Lift.

You're out of the seat,

and then you escort them out

to the van.

After you.

I'll have you go on board there.

You get them on the lift

on the van.

Okay, up we go.

And this step's a little higher.

Sometimes you have your arm out

for them to hold on

so they're steady.

It's things like that

that keep you healthy.

- Well, here we are.

- Yeah, get to go work out.

- Yay!

Hey, that's good for you.

Well, you have

a wonderful day today.

- Do you feel like a celebrity?

- I feel like Steve, as always.

- If you don't need

a strong heart,

your body won't give you one.

If you don't need

strong muscles,

why would your body make one?

So it's in a way like if

you don't use it, you lose it.

But if you use it, you get it.

It's been really exciting for me

to see this in practice,

you know, with people who are

experiencing the increase

in strength

that can come about so quickly

just by exercising

and giving ourselves

a little bit of a challenge.

To me, it's just

very life affirming

to think that at any age,

we always have the opportunity

to adapt and to do better.



- The heart and vessels are

a mind-bendingly vast system.

But to operate, they need blood.

- I mean it's not

for nothing that we refer

to the metaphorical life blood

because the blood is literally

the life giving fluid.

What is blood?

Blood is essentially composed

of two substances.

One is the plasma,

which is basically salts,

water, and proteins.

And the other part is the cells.

- Red blood cells account

for more than 80%

of all of our cells,

and the other 20%

rely on them to survive.

1 million times every minute,

red blood cells absorb

the oxygen we need to live.

- It's an extraordinary piece

of our physiology.

Our heart pumps out five

to six liters of blood a minute,

and that blood is constantly

being circulated around the body

with new oxygen that's

breathed in every few seconds

with waste products

that are being cleaned out

on that same time scale.

It powers our every moment

of our day-to-day lives.

- Their never-ending job

has given red blood cells

a unique structure.

Unlike other cells,

they don't have a nucleus.

Instead, they're filled

with massive quantities

of a protein called hemoglobin.

It's made of iron,

which is why blood is red.

Hemoglobin grabs on to

the oxygen we breathe in,

then, at the right moment,

it lets go,

and oxygen molecules pass

into the surrounding cells.

What's crazy is that hemoglobin

is toxic to the human body.

If it escaped from even a tiny

fraction of our red blood cells,

it could k*ll us,

but as long as it stays

within the cells walls,

it can't harm us.

Red blood cells have a margin

error of exactly zero

and they do their job perfectly.

That is, as long as there's

enough blood in the body

to go around.

Because when we lose blood,

everything is then in jeopardy,

and just a few minutes can mean

the difference

between life and death.





The city of Accra is home

to 2 million people.

It's Ghana's capital,

its beating heart.



150 miles away over

rugged terrain

is the tiny town of Asissinwa.

A place so remote that

the word "emergency"

takes on a whole new meaning.

- One plus two is three.

Hello!

- The bond between mother

and her child is profound,

and it starts in the womb.

The first thing they share

is blood.

- The fetus doesn't breathe.

It's floating in amniotic fluid,

and it only receives

oxygen through

the mother's blood supply

through the umbilical cord.

The mother's blood supply also

ferries waste out of the fetus,

which then gets cleared

by the mother's kidneys.

- It's an amazing exchange,

but it also means

that when something

goes wrong with one,

both are in danger.

-

It will not be safe.

- I'm Dr. Phillip

Agyeman-Prempeh.

I'm an obstetrician/gynecologist

at Saint Michael Hospital.

We make over 2,000 deliveries

every year in this facility.

- Akua Nyarko came

into our maternity emergency.

She was at 36 weeks plus

4 weeks in her pregnancy.

The abdomen felt very tense,

and we could not hear

the fetal heart rate,

both with the Doppler

and ultrasound.

- During the birthing process,

the mom and the baby

are going through

huge amounts of changes

that affect the physical aspects

of both infant and mother.

Immediately after

the baby is born,

the uterus will contract

to allow all of those

blood vessels that have been

opened during the pregnancy

so that the woman

actually does not hemorrhage,

meaning she does not continue

to bleed too heavily.

- For Akua, something

had gone very wrong.

- The uterus was not contracting.

She was bleeding profusely,

and we realized

that her blood was not clotting.

- We lose blood all the time

In small doses,

and our bodies can handle it.

But if there's a major bleed

that isn't stopping,

the body can't recover.

The response has to be

lightning fast,

and that means a transfusion.

- We needed blood to stabilize

her and save her life.

But we realized

we didn't have enough blood.

- And getting blood into

a remote area can take hours.

- In cases like this,

we would ask for an ambulance

to bring us the products,

but that takes time.

It was a dilemma

and a tough one.

So we called our

biomedical scientist,

and he made an order

for us to get blood.

- Meanwhile the body starts

its own rescue effort fast

by sending messages.

- We have little brains

all over our body,

and the heart

has a pretty big one.

It's been recently discovered

that there are about

40,000 neurons on the heart.

Nerves that go to the brain

as well as nerves

that come from the brain.

It's very responsive.

It has the capacity to

beat faster or slower

to be able to best serve

the needs of the body

at any given time.

- This group of neurons

reacts immediately

when blood leaves the body.

Pressure sensors on

the heart perceive the loss,

and they tell

the nervous system.

It sends out signals

that start a chain reaction

to keep cells alive.

It's a highly

synchronized effort

that depends on

instant communication.

Much like the technology that

Akua's doctors used to contact

the only people who could

send them blood

in time to save her life.



- Emergency. Okay.

We'll get it to you right away.









- We had to perform

an emergency cesarean section

to stabilize her,

and then to prevent her

from losing more blood.

This is a patient

who was very pale.

If we didn't get the blood,

it was highly likely

that she would bleed to death.

- Very little in the body

can happen without blood.

If you empty the heart of blood

and stopped it, then the brain

and the kidneys

and the vital organs

wouldn't get oxygen and you'd

develop massive organ damage

within a period

of three minutes.

The blood is the conduit for all

these other organs to function.

- If cells go without oxygen

for too long,

the body goes

into irreversible shock.

But the heart-brain knows

when it's in trouble,

and its response is smart.

The heart starts to beat faster.

Breathing becomes

shallow and quick.

There's also

a chemical reaction.

Hormones flood blood vessels

in the skin

causing them to constrict.

Blood moves inward

to keep vital organs alive.

That's why people turn pale

when they lose blood.

Skin is not so important,

but the brain is vital.

It's the body's clever way

of redistributing resources.

If the blood loss

is really extreme,

it might be impossible

to reverse the damage.

Tragically

for Akua's unborn child,

it was already too late.

But Akua was still holding on.



- Within 20 minutes,

Zipline brought us the blood.

We started transfusing her.

And then she was able

to pull through.

- With some support,

the body begins to stabilize.

- Our bodies evolved

the cardiovascular system

to ramp up very, very quickly

and ramp down

because we can't maintain

a degree of stress

for long periods of time

without damaging the system.

- The connection between

the brain and the heart

is complex and not one-sided.

The structures in the brain

regulate the heart

through nerve impulses

and hormones,

and it's in the brain

that emotions

and thoughts are processed,

even though sometimes

it doesn't seem that way.

- Anyone who's ever experienced

a sense of panic

knows that we feel it

immediately in our heart.

So why would it be a surprise

that the heart

would be really smart

at being connected

to our emotional state

when that is our internalized

experience of the outside world.

- So if we feel things

in our heart,

does that mean

it has a mind of its own?

- The idea that the heart

might be telling the brain

how to think or how to feel

is an open question

for me personally

and one that I think is very

hotly debated among scientists.

- If there are neurons

on the heart,

then maybe its power

over our emotions

isn't just poetic,

but also biological.









- My name is Bertha Martinez.

I am a volunteer at the

Lincoln Heights Senior Center.

After we retired,

my husband and I started

helping at the center.

We love to dance, and we have

been attending there

for the past 18 years.

- Hombres!

- We always say that

it's our second family.

- Buenos dias.

- Humans are social animals.

-

- That's something that we share

with primates in general.

We live in groups,

and a lot of the way

that we navigate

the world around us,

has to do with

social relationships.

This is something that

is reflected in our biology.

- The brain and the heart

are connected

by the most powerful

neural network in the body,

the vagus nerve.

It passes millions of messages

back and forth every day.

The vast majority

come not from the brain

but from the heart.

And this network is responsible

for communicating emotions

Positive social interactions

light up the vagus nerve

and the heart.

In other words,

our relationships

are constantly shaping

our internal worlds.

- This is my husband Ricardo.

This picture was taken

on our 25th wedding anniversary.

I lost my husband last year.

This chair, my husband used it

all the time to watch TV.

Someone told me why

don't I take everything down

so that way I cannot

feel so bad?

But to me,

it's just the opposite.

- We know that people

who experience intense

emotional disturbance like grief

after the death of a loved one

or the breakup of

a romantic relationship

can develop severe effects

on their hearts.

The heart in these people

tends to acutely weaken

and change shape

into the shape of a takotsubo,

which is a Japanese pot with

a narrow neck and a wide base.

It's been variably called

the broken heart syndrome

or takotsubo cardiomyopathy,

and we know

that emotional stress

can accelerate the development

of heart disease

and increase the risk

of cardiac mortality.

- The exact cause is unknown.

Our best guess is that

a super dose of adrenaline

floods the heart,

shocking cardiac cells

and weakening them.

Hormones like adrenaline

are one of the main ways

the brain communicates

with the heart,

and the risk

of developing takotsubo

might have something to do with

the strength

of neural connections and how

they respond to stress.

The same regions in the brain

that regulate your heartbeat

have been linked to emotional

conditions like depression.

But unlike a heart attack,

the cardiac cells

are just shocked, not lost.

- Fortunately for us, a lot of

the injury to the heart

is potentially reversible.

The heart does tend

to self-correct,

so when our emotional states

return to normal,

the heart itself

can also return to normal.

- Okay.

- I think it's very important to

come out, even when you're sad.

- There is a kind of

takotsubo cardiomyopathy,

or broken heart syndrome,

that occurs after

happy events, too, but the heart

shape changes differently.

- In the same way that adrenaline

can damage cardiac cells,

there are other hormones that

can have the opposite effect.

And there's one molecule

that's most associated

with the complex

social behavior of humans

oxytocin, often called

the love hormone.

Think about the feeling you get

when you hug a friend or dance

with a flirty stranger.

That rush comes

as oxytocin spikes

and makes a beeline

for the heart.

Just like fear can make

your heart pound,

the oxytocin released by touch

can put your heart at rest.

Receptors on cardiac cells

detect its presence

and your heart rate slows.

It also helps reduce

inflammation in blood vessels.

So it can actually have

a therapeutic effect

on stressed arteries and veins.

Even short interactions

can stimulate a rush.

So for the heart,

love looks like thousands

of brief encounters

over a lifetime.

Which is really well-suited

to a function like a dance.



- I've been working

here 12 years,

and there hasn't been

one Thursday

that that place hasn't filled up

with at least 150 people.

Latins like to dance.

- Dance is a good exercise.

If you move, it helps a lot,

especially at my age.

- I think we know that a lack

of love can be very damaging.

The corollary to that is can

the presence of love

be beneficial for the heart?

We know that people in

longstanding relationships

tend to live longer.

- Every little movement ♪

Every little thing you do

- The brain-heart connection

is definitely present

and is something

that we as a field

need to investigate more deeply

to really understand its roots.

- Said a black magic spell

you put me under ♪

- After my husband passed away,

it was hard,

but my second family

from the senior center,

it gave me so much strength.

It been easier

as time passes by.

- Is beyond improvement

- Now I'm doing what I love,

and I'll just keep doing it,

whenever I can.

- Every little movement

- How does the body understand

the passage of time?

We as humans have a rhythm

and a cadence to our life

that I believe is in many ways,

tied to the heartbeat.

- The same pulse inside

every one of us,

setting the pace for our lives.



With a tiny thump that we often

forget about that's, in a way,

much bigger than we are.

All life has a rhythm.

You just have to pause

and take a step back to feel it.

- The physical world is made up

of pulses of energy.

So it's fun to play with that

shift of perspective,

to think about our bodies,

more like an ecosystem

composed of trillions of cells

conspiring every moment

to create our thoughts

and keep our heart beating

and keep our breathing going.



- The human heart

is billions of cells

beating billions of times,

never pausing.

- If we didn't get the blood,

she would bleed to death.

- I lost my husband last year.

- Intense emotional disturbance

can accelerate

cardiac mortality.

- Cells need to be challenged.

If you don't use it,

you lose it.

- I felt this burning

in my chest.

He said, "If you'd

have went to sleep,

you might not have woke up.